Well just about every other 20 something guy or girl i meet these days in a big city like Mumbai, from prestigious colleges and other institutions are either planning to startup, or a co-founder in a startup while they are studying or are looking to signup for a startup campus placement when they graduate. This is a great trend for the growing startup ecosystem of India, being the third largest in the world. But this is pointing towards a huge shift in the career options of bright youngsters, charged with energy who otherwise chose to work for the Merill Lynches, Bank Of Americas of the world with global postings and 6 figure salaries.

So why this recent shift to a more riskier career option? While most of these new generation startup companies are cool places to hangout with like minded 20 somethings, they have also managed to match or better the career prospects and salaries with ESOP's than their MNC counterparts which is very commendable. Startup founders that hire these bright youngsters from IIT's, IIM's and other prestigious institutes of the country must realise and appreciate that these folks are taking on much greater risk very early on in life. Many of them are choosing Startups over the comfort and security of MNC's and in some cases going against the aspirations of their parents and families. In many ways every employee at a Startup is an entrepreneur at heart, a hero working endlessly, willing to chase his passion and live the founders dreams.

The total number of Startups in India is close to 4500 in 2015 many of whom received over 5 Billion USD in funding which is much more than what FII's pumped into the Indian Stock markets. With the recent global slow down and tightening of VC money, many of these young entrepreneurs are forgetting the basis and foundation on which their company was built. While Investors continue to fund and chase the next big idea, it is also their responsibility to make sure that startup founders are accountable for their actions and must set equally better code and ethics standards for their heroes while letting them go in difficult times. In the absence of a healthy severance package that most MNC's offer and no Startup Labour Regulatory framework in place a lot of bright young talent will endup jobless without any social security to fall back on. If the pace of global slowdown turns out to be bad this situation can be rather alarming. The recent drama with layoffs by some Startups are just not setting a good example for the much talked about Startup ecosystem of India going ahead in 2016.
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 Anand Radhakrishnan is an engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of @VALVESOLUTIONS. He is also an active B2B Content Marketing practitioner and evangelist. Anand is also an Advisor & Director in a few earlier companies he Co-founded. You could follow his tweets @anand_rkrishnan.