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"Are you marrying me or the company?" One of the engineers on our team at Komli told me that the other day. This is probably one of the best lines I have heard in a while. He was talking to one of his friends about joining a start-up and his friend was concerned that if he joined that startup, his parents and his fiancé's
parents would be very concerned about the stability of his job; they might even break-off the engagement. The engineer on our team didn't understand why everyone was so focused on his friend's job.

When I got engaged I was actually unemployed. I had just left the start-up I had previously founded when I graduated from college (Chipshot.com, an online e-commerce company focused on golf), and was figuring out what to do next. Nobody called off the engagement or threatened or even hinted at it.

This stark contrast helped me realize a huge disconnect in India's ability to really innovate and build companies like Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Oracle (interestingly enough, all four of those companies - four of the best technology companies ever started - were all started by people who dropped out of school and NEVER had a full-time job before they started their companies). Generally speaking, youngsters in India are still too concerned about the stability of their jobs and getting married.

There are both logical and emotional arguments as to why this might be the case. I am going to present some thoughts on why this concern with job stability just doesn't make sense if you are really good at what you do and are confident in that.

Reason #1: The spoils go to those that take risks - the ones who work at start-ups, very early on.
Microsoft is the most successful technology company of all time (though Google is hot on its heels). The first guy at Microsoft made about $50 billion (Bill Gates). The second guy (Paul Allen) made about $25 billion. Steve Ballmer who was one of the early few and joined in a leadership role made about $15 billion. If you were in the first 50 people and got 1/10th of 1% (common for a start-up today), you made about $200M. So the first guy made $50B, the 50th guy made $200M. Guess how much the 1,000th employee made, probably about $20M. And the 10,000th employee maybe made $2M. This is in the most successful technology company of all time.

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* Amar Goel is the CEO and Founder of Komli, a start-up in the media and technology space trying to simplify online advertising. It has offices in Bombay, Pune and New York. It is currently hiring India's best and brightest.