Perot's Sucking Sounds from Dallas to Delhi

Date: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 11:23 AM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Ross Perot Jr. loves his Indian H-1Bs because doctors say that their
brains are wired for very complex, high-level thought. Perot goes on to
warn U.S. technology workers, that they have "easily transferable
skills" and that will be a problem as they try to compete with these
analytical Indians.

The LCA database at: http://www.zazona.com/LCA-Data/ can be used to
illustrate Perot's love of H-1Bs. A search for Perot Systems yields
pages of results.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/business/stories/100503dnbusperot.7a0f.html

Perot Jr.: Dallas to Delhi
Interview touches on technology, real estate, basketball - and dad

02:08 PM CDT on Saturday, October 4, 2003

By CRAYTON HARRISON / The Dallas Morning News

Ross Perot Jr. loves the workers he's hired in India. But he also
worries about how U.S. workers will compete with them.

The chief executive of Perot Systems Corp., founded by his father, Ross
Perot, started developing software in India in 1996. Now every
technology company seems to be interested in the country's workers, and
Mr. Perot said he knows why.

"India has 250 million people that speak English. That's the second
largest English-speaking population in the world besides the United
States," Mr. Perot said. "Because of the amount of languages an Indian
learns at an early age, their brains are wired for very complex,
high-level thought. This is what the doctors say. This is why you have
such bright people coming out of India."

U.S. technology workers with high skills shouldn't have to worry about
losing their jobs to Indian workers with low salaries, said Mr. Perot,
who also owns real estate investor Hillwood Development.

But technology workers with easily transferable skills could have a
problem, he told business editors and reporters of The Dallas Morning
News this week in a wide-ranging discussion spanning everything from
Dallas to Delhi, from technology to real estate and from politics to
the Dallas Mavericks.

Here are some excerpts:

Question: Last year, California state officials accused Perot Systems
of helping energy companies learn to manipulate the deregulated market.
Things went south on Wall Street. A lot of the California firestorm has
died down, but Wall Street hasn't come back. Why?

Answer: We worked our way through a lot of the upfront politics in
California, and we don't see that as an issue today. ...

But at the same time as you saw California hit, the whole sector was
hit with ... [Electronic Data Systems Corp.'s accounting problems]. If
you look at how Wall Street operates, EDS is our sector lead. If EDS is
in trouble, we all kind of go down with EDS. ...

Perot Systems is a little bit different company because we really do
have a long-term focus. We're more interested in the stock price five
years from now, 10 years from now than we are the next 90 days. In the
past three years of the technology recession, we have really retooled
the company. ...

Question: You were relatively early building branches of the company
for software development and other work in India in 1996. Now there's
something of a euphoria with new business in India. Describe the India
movement you see.

Answer: You're seeing U.S. companies go over and really disrupt the
labor rates in the market. We're being literally poached every day for
our talent, and our talent's being offered maybe twice what we're
paying to pull them over. ...

When you build the loyalty with the family, and you take care of the
associate, then if that associate gets home and tells his parents,
"Well, I'm thinking about moving to IBM," we hope the whole family is
going to say, "Wait a minute, how can you do that? Perot has been good
to you."

But we're in a boom. It's a quasi-crazy period. Everybody's trying to
run to India, but if you don't have the right culture and the right
feel, it's like any business. ...

You're going to see companies being built that will not reach critical
mass, so from our standpoint you might have some very nice companies to
acquire two or three years from now.

Question: How do you feel about hiring Indian workers when U.S.
technology workers don't have jobs?

Answer: It is a real concern, just as a U.S. citizen. It is a global
workforce, and it is very competitive. ...

At Perot, what we try to do as we grow, if we're growing, we keep our
U.S. associates on the team. They get retrained, we put them in another
function. ...

If you're good at what you do, you're going to be in great shape.
You're going to have a good job, you're going to be well-paid. ... If
you're an average IT worker, you need to be worried.

Question: Do you envision Perot Systems always being in the family?

Answer: Fortunately, I'm still kind of a young guy. And probably, when
I'm gone, Dad's going to still be around, the way he's going. [Mr.
Perot is 44, and his father is 73.]

We think this is a great industry. We think the best days of technology
services are in front of us. ... Hopefully, when I'm not running it,
maybe there'll be another Perot there to run it.

Question: How much is your dad involved in day-to-day operations?

Answer: He's at the office every day. He's certainly involved in the
company. ...

If it's on any big decision, I go there and see him, because No. 1, I
want his advice. But at the end of the day, Dad'll always say, "OK, I
got it," and he'll say "OK, now do what you want to do." Sometimes I
wish he'd just tell me what to do. ...

Even if he's not the chairman, he still owns 33 percent of the
business. He will certainly be a stockholder that we'll keep in touch
with.

Question: Does the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was meant to crack down on
corporate governance abuses, make it more difficult to find qualified
directors?

Answer: Because of Sarbanes-Oxley, we're going to add a couple more
board members. I've been pleasantly surprised. Again, we've been lucky.
We have size. We have a great blend. We have a very clean balance
sheet. It's a very safe, quality company for a board member to come on
board.

Question: Where do you see the overall economy? Does everyone feel that
we're in a recovery?

Answer: We feel optimistic. At Perot Systems, I like the deal flow.
We've got lots of great prospects out there we're talking to...

This housing boom is just staggering. Probably once a month I fly the
whole metroplex in a helicopter. And I'm stunned how far out the
metroplex is growing. ...

Every week I ask the residential team [at Hillwood], I say, "Has it
slowed down yet?" And they say no. And I keep waiting for it to stop,
because without positive job growth, I'm not sure how people can keep
buying houses. ...

But on housing, you've got to be a little bit careful, because it could
be just like the technology spend of the late '90s. You could
fast-forward so much demand that if interest rates go back to a normal
period, you might have two or three years of pretty flat housing. ...

You drive around town and look at the restaurants, you look at the
parking lots, you go to the American Airlines Center. I mean, every
hockey game and every basketball game is sold out. That's a huge amount
of money being spent. I think there's a stronger economy there than
what you're going to read in national statistics. That's the real
take-away.

Question: How do you split time between Perot Systems and Hillwood?

Answer: Well, I'm full time at Perot. That's where I spend my time. The
Hillwood team is now 16, 17 years old, and the leaders of that team
have really been with me for that period of time, so it doesn't take a
whole lot of day-to-day leadership. So I spend about two hours a week
with the Hillwood team, get briefed on all the projects, and then more
Perot.

Question: Do you regret selling your ownership piece of the Dallas
Mavericks?

Answer: I tell you what ... [Mavericks owner Mark Cuban] is a great
promoter. He's having a pretty big time.

I think they've got a great team. I think the sportswriters have
underestimated the impact of [forward Antawn] Jamison. I think Antawn
is going to be a real foundation for the Mavericks, and I think people
will be surprised at how competitive this team will be.

E-mail charrison@dallasnews.com

Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

To Subscribe or Unsubscribe send an email to

Back to archives