'How do you sell to dinosaurs?': Mohandas Pai questions Piyush Goyal's 'ice cream' jibe at Indian startups

After Piyush Goyal questioned whether Indian startups should keep building food delivery and “ice cream” apps, former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai fired back—urging the minister to focus on fixing what’s holding deep tech back. 

From lack of capital to regulatory hurdles, Pai said the real problem isn’t ambition, but the system meant to support it.

“Minister @PiyushGoyal, there are very many small deep tech start-ups in Chip design, IOT, Robotics, EV charging, BMS in India, growing rapidly but where is the capital?” Pai wrote in a post. He flagged the stark difference in startup funding over the last decade: “Indian start-ups got 160b $ from 2014/24, China 845b$, US 2.3Tr$.”

He said despite the government’s efforts, “long term investors like endowments, insurance still do not invest.” According to Pai, this is a result of policy failure. “Pl remedy this situation. AIF investments are facing regulatory overreach and flow has come down. RBI harasses overseas investors on remittances.”

Pai also highlighted barriers in the EV space. “For fast charging EV buses we have the tech but great majority of buses run by PSU. How do you sell to these dinosaurs?”

In a follow-up post, Pai directly challenged the minister’s criticism. “Minister @PiyushGoyal should not belittle our startups but ask himself what has he done as our Minister to help deep tech start ups grow in India? It is easy to point fingers at them.”

He went on to accuse other arms of the government of hurting investor confidence. “We have a hostile @FinMinIndia @nsitharaman who harassed start ups on Angel tax for many years, do not allow endowments to invest, insurance cos still do not invest whereas they do globally, @RBI regularly harasses overseas investors on remittances and AIF’s, treat them badly, cos FE rules.”

He concluded by asking, “Why is Minister @PiyushGoyal @AshwiniVaishnaw not helping solve these issues?”

Goyal, speaking at the Startup Mahakumbh, had urged Indian startups to shift focus to frontier sectors like robotics, AI, and semiconductors. “Do we have to make ice cream or chips?” he asked. “Are we going to be happy being delivery boys and girls... this is not startup, this is entrepreneurship.”