It is tough to convince someone trying to build something against all odds that his/her ambition is limited and he/she should take on more enormous odds and do something more significant. Most ambitious people have silenced their internal critics so that they can take decisive actions quickly and easily. Entrepreneurs are ambitious and decisive; they rarely question themselves, and as they are feted so much, they do not take criticism easily, especially from politicians.

Hence, when India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, recently critiqued the Indian startup ecosystem and highlighted that Indian startups prioritise short-term gains, focusing heavily on sectors such as food delivery rather than thinking big and investing in strategic areas like semiconductors and deep tech. Goyal emphasised that India’s startups must rise to the challenge posed by China’s significant strides in advanced technological fields, exemplified by companies like DeepSeek and leading semiconductor manufacturers.

This critique ignited a firestorm among entrepreneurs who already believed they struggled against all the odds sometimes posed by the government. As an entrepreneur, I know small companies’ regulatory compliance problems. There is no difference in compliance between two-man startups and 2,000-person companies. India is still not friendly to startups, as bureaucrats stuck in a socialist mindset look at businessmen with suspicion. Bureaucrats feel that they are the last line of defence against the rapacious greed of entrepreneurs.

Aadit Palicha, co-founder of Zepto, rebuts Minister Goyal’s comments, stating: “To label Indian startups as mere food delivery clones overlook the ground-breaking innovation and complex logistics technology we employ. We solve massive operational problems that affect millions daily. Dismissing these innovations as superficial is unfair to the entrepreneurs building lasting businesses."

He was voicing a concern that every entrepreneur feels. There is hurt among the entrepreneurs not against the political leadership directly, but the bureaucratic system that they lead. As each one is trying to manage the system in the best way they know. Asking them to innovate at a higher level or on a different scale, saying that their ambitions are........

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