Sabeer Bhatia, the Indian-American businessman most famous as the co-founder of Hotmail, generated some feedback on social media with his latest post celebrating the Fourth of July. Celebrating American Independence Day, Bhatia also gave some blunt advice to his Indian readers.
Start off his message with an American flag emoji, Bhatia posted, “Happy 250th Anniversary to my adopted country,” finishing off with an Indian flag emoji.
Then he addressed India, writing about his perspective on how the nation might find the same prosperity. “The way I see it, India can become as prosperous as the US, all it takes is a change in the way its citizens think,” he posted.
Sabeer Bhatia’s Post
Social Media Responses
His words swiftly elicited a range of responses online. Some applauded Bhatia’s vision, while others attacked his vision on both nations.
One of the users rebutted aggressively, commenting, “Your adopted land, the USA, has squarely proven its insatiable hunger for perpetrating genocide. It has fought wars over 100 times worldwide, directly or indirectly, since the conclusion of WW2. Millions of innocent civilians have lost their lives due to these wars.” Bhatia had the following reply, “I don’t think you should want to visit the US. Stay in your tricked-out planet.”
Others resonated with the endorsement of Bhatia’s thoughts about attitude, one of them responding, “100%. The only issue is MINDSET.”
Another critic doubted his resolve to be in India, posing the question, “When are you relocating to India then?”
A fourth individual looked more generally at societal attitudes and penned, “Sabeer, Indians are hypocrites. Unless that changes at the grassroots, it’s going to be tough. We can blame our governments, etc., but it is always the people who accept mediocrity, who are double-faced in their own dealings—the day-to-day is what matters.”