'Don’t fund the next food delivery company': Sabeer Bhatia says India lacks real innovation

As India obsesses over delivering chips and shampoo in under 10 minutes, Sabeer Bhatia is asking the one question few dare to: what’s the point? The Hotmail co-founder, speaking in Bengaluru, took a direct swipe at the country’s quick commerce craze and the investors fuelling it. “Don’t fund the next food delivery company,” he was quoted as saying in The New Indian Express, calling out the lack of real innovation behind the race for instant gratification.

“All are just copying,” Bhatia told the paper. “They may change a little structure in five minutes or 10 minutes or faster, or motorcycle, but that’s not innovation. That’s structural changes. True innovation is thinking of a new idea to do something that has never been done before, outside of delivery.”

Bhatia was in Bengaluru on Wednesday to launch the Young Entrepreneurs Program at Orchids The International School. Addressing the startup obsession with speed, he remarked, “Too much focus on the wrong metric. Is your life going to change if you get some biscuits delivered in 10 minutes, it's no big deal,” adding that both startups and investors should be chasing originality, not convenience.

He also spoke about the role of education in fostering true innovation. “Deep tech is about questioning things and figuring out different ways of doing things, and that comes from education. So, our education system needs to be overhauled if we need to have deep tech. You can’t just say, oh, you guys are not doing deep tech. You don’t just wake up and say, ‘I’m going to do deep tech,’” he said.

Bhatia didn’t stop at startups—he had in a podcast called India’s method of calculating GDP “fake,” arguing that it inflates economic activity without reflecting real work. “Our GDP is all wrong. And I just—you just need two seconds to take a look at how they are computing GDP,” he said. 

Giving an example, he added, “In India, if I give you ₹1,000, 18% GST is taxed on it, and you give back ₹1,000 to me, 18% is counted as ₹2,000 of GDP. You’ve done no work. I have done no work. I’ve just given you money. Giving money is not work. Correct work is work.”

He contrasted this with the U.S., where he said GDP reflects labour and output. “Everybody has an hourly rate. Everybody figures out how many hours of effort you put in and you report that to the government and you pay a certain amount of tax, and that determines your GDP.”

Suggesting a more honest, AI-enabled system, Bhatia said, “Put everybody on a contract. A contract is what? Make a promise to yourself. You will self-report. You will do this, and it will help you be honest in your reporting. Simple. Use AI. Massively use.”

He also flagged India’s inefficient work culture, where prestige outweighs productivity. “People are too focused on status, power, and marks,” he said, pointing out that most engineers end up in management. “99% of engineering graduates join management and start giving gyaan to everybody. Where is the work ethic where they really work with their hands and really go and build some stuff?”