’Buddy, instead of blaming others…’: Semiconductor startup founder’s brutal response to Piyush Goyal’s rant | Mint
A semiconductor startup founder’s rant on Reddit is going viral after Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal‘s criticism of the Indian startup ecosystem created an uproar among India Inc leaders. In a brutal comeback to Goyal’s rant that ‘no one is doing semiconductors in India’, the startup founder wrote a point-by-point response to the union minister, explaining how the government has failed startups in India due to cumbersome procedures.
The semiconductor startup founder’s response on Reddit was retweeted by Mohandas Pai, a leading chartered accountant, Padma Shri awardee, and chairperson of the private equity fund Aarin Capital. Pai is the former chief financial officer (CFO) and board member of Infosys. See the post here-
Earlier, Mohandas Pai reacted to Goyal’s critique, urging ministers to keep faith, help deep-tech startups, and remove difficulties. He assured that the industry would deliver on the promise. He said any comparison with China is not right as India also has such startups, albeit “small.” Pai also argued that India does not get enough opportunities to expand its startup ecosystems.
Startup founder’s brutal reply to Piyush Goyal’s criticism
Meanwhile, in his Reddit post, the semiconductor founder said, “Piyush Goel: I am a semiconductor startup founder. Here is my rant in response to your rant during startup Mahakumbh!…Piyush, I heard that you ranted that no one is doing semiconductors, Well I am, now you hear my rant!
After decades of experience designing some of the most complex chips, I left Intel, and started a semiconductor company in 2018. We are profitable. We design chips for clients in US and EU. One of our client is known as “The father of AI” That’s as deeptech as you can get!,” said the founder in his post.
The Reddit user said that the startup has stopped wasting its time trying to get Indian clients (private sector, government, defense). “Here is honest feedback from the startup you said everyone should be doing!” claimed the founder. The Reddit user gave a point-wise explanation of the difficulties that Indian startups face due to systemic loopholes and localised issues.
1.“I have attended quite a few RFQs by Meity. At a few sessions, I said, “We have the experience and capability to develop the chip as per your specifications. We will incur a NRE cost of XX crores. How many chips are you planning to buy?” I either got a “you build it then we will decide” or “we won’t buy, you go and find whether there is a market for this”! No startup is going to burn two years and 10-20 crores on a product which has no buyer and no market,” said the user.
2.Second, the startup founder added, “At one of the meetings organized for startups by the defense sector, a speaker from govt spoke for over an hour on how they are facing difficulty with a particular tech. At the end of his speech I met him and informed him that “we have solved some of his pain points for our clients, what would be the best way to engage with his department?”
–When the founder said that to a person from the private sector, he/she immediately got a few questions about what he/she thinks about the problem statement, followed by a meeting scheduled to discuss the matter further…
—“From your defense genius I got a long rant on how they are not dumb, they are bright people capable of solving their problems, who have been working day and night and have not seen their families for months… They do not need help from private sector (it seems they were forced to seek help by govt hence that meeting) and will eventually solve it on their own!,” said the founder.
The Reddit user added, directly questioning Goyal, “If your people are not open to help, why waste our time holding a two-day conference for PPP?”
3.Thirdly, the founder said that since the government can neither give contracts nor facilitate them, the best thing they can do is ease of business. “And buddy, you have failed in this too!” said the founder in a direct criticism of the union minister.
—“My startup is eligible for certain tax breaks. Your department sat on my application for over two years. It returned it to me last week asking for “Additional documents” with a note that after submitting the documents, my application will again go to the back of the queue (i.e. another two years)!” said the founder.
Within a few hours of being rejected, the founder received a call from a “facilitator” who promised quick and guaranteed results if he/she used their service for “preparing their documents”!
—“Due to your tax laws, I end up paying 2X the amount (compared to my competitors outside India) for importing compute resources, EDA Licenses, equipment and raw material! If I need to import a 10$ wireless device for my lab, I need to pay INR 10,000 to WPC to get approval to import it!,” said the founder.
—“Some of your faulty portals have eaten up tens of thousands of my company’s money and until I go and meet your babu they will not initiate a refund!,” said the startup founder. “Buddy, instead of blaming others, focus on your job (Good governance) and getting out of our way, we entrepreneurs have the capability to build world-class products,” concluded the startup founder on Reddit.
Piyush Goyal’s criticism on Indian startups
Piyush Goyal, speaking at the Startup Mahakumbh 2025 event on April 3, 2025, slammed Indian billionaire kids for opening ice cream and cookie businesses and calling them startups instead of focusing on the nation’s tech growth.
“Fancy ice cream and cookies. I know at least three or four billionaires whose children make one brand or the other, very fancy ice cream and cookies, and run a very successful business,” said Piyush Goyal in his address.
Goyal said that too many were offering food delivery so that “the rich can get meals without moving out of their house” and were turning unemployed youth into cheap labour. “Are we going to be happy being delivery boys and girls? (Making) fancy ice cream and cookies … is that the destiny of India?” he said, showing a slide titled “India vs. China. The Startup Reality Check”.
Taking a jibe at Goyal, Mohandas Pai said that he should not ‘belittle’ Indian startups, adding that these were ‘bad comparisons’. Goyal’s comments prompted hundreds of posts from startup founders and venture capitalists, who criticized the government for failing to create high-quality infra and jobs and not doing enough for deep-tech startups and entrepreneurs.
