Where is the tech when you need it?

This year India has 10-12 unicorns more, and we aren’t even halfway there yet.

Almost all, if not all, of these are loss-making machines.

With a cash-burn rate – yes, that is what it’s called.

Imagine if you gave me your hard-earned money to make my company grow, and I told you that I will burn through it in a few months. How would you feel? Elated?

And losses not in thousands, but in thousands of crores.

That’s a lot of staff working 24/7 to burn money faster. Cred, for instance, had revenues of 58 lakh rupees, and expenses of 360 crore rupees! Love the business model.

Anyways, the point is – there are so many loss-machine unicorns employing thousands of people and millions of lines of code, to sell you Chinese-made pyjamas and deliver groceries in 30 minutes…why not put them to better use in times of crises?

Am reading about the shortage of oxygen and beds in hospitals all across India. People are getting onto Twitter to appeal for guidance on finding the nearest hospital with beds and oxygen, or medicine supplies, or vaccination points.

What is the use of all the technology in the world, if one cannot manage something that truly matters?

One can wait for groceries, or results of pointless shopping exercises, but not for oxygen. Nor for medicine, or treatment.

Then how have we got to this point where VCs are pouring in thousands of crores of (unaccounted and mostly black) money into the fire of cash-burning ego-boosting unicorns, when something of vastly more consequence could have been achieved?

I may not be making sense, but nor does this.

We had nearly a year to get this done. Yet, we are staring at lockdowns and wastage and shortages.

But wait, we have 10 more unicorns.

Hmm.