End of Easy Exit?

For two decades, India’s most talented engineers, researchers and founders have treated the United States not merely as a destination, but as a default upgrade—better pay, better labs, better odds of success. That bargain is now changing. Washington is steadily raising the financial and procedural cost of mobility through tighter visa rules, higher employer fees, and greater uncertainty around pathways like the H-1B.

This moment should worry India—but it should also concentrate minds. Because the real question is no longer how to help Indians go abroad, but why so many still feel they must.

India needs a two-track strategy. The first is diplomatic and tactical: push back against increasingly restrictive mobility regimes and diversify pathways for short-term assignments, research postings, and project visas. The second—and far more important—is domestic: build such a compelling innovation ecosystem at home that going abroad becomes a choice, not an escape route.

That second task is harder. It requires India to fix career economics, research depth, firm-building friction, urban quality of life and workplace culture in one integrated package. Half-measures will not work.

What India is doing—and why it still falls short

To its credit, the government has begun investing in frontier technology capacity. AI centres of excellence at IIT Delhi, Ropar and Kanpur, the IndiaAI Mission with its promise of shared compute and foundational models, and national missions in quantum technologies and semiconductors all send the right signal. They tell young researchers and entrepreneurs that the state understands where the future lies.

Yet for most professionals, these initiatives still feel like islands of excellence in an otherwise inhospitable sea. Research labs remain small and siloed. Access to compute, capital and regulatory clarity is uneven. University-industry collaboration is improving but remains constrained by rigid rules and short funding cycles. For many, the daily frictions of working in India—uncertain compliance, slower career progression, cultural hierarchy—continue to outweigh the emotional pull of staying back. That is why talent outflows persist even when patriotism is high.

Competing on career economics, not sentiment

No serious talent strategy can ignore money. If a 28-year-old AI engineer sees a three-to-five-fold lifetime earnings gap between staying in India and moving abroad, national pride will not close it.

India must become globally competitive in wealth creation, not just in monthly pay. Fixing the taxation of employee stock options—so tax is paid on exit rather than exercise—would immediately improve the risk-reward calculus of joining Indian startups. Simplifying valuation rules and allowing broad-based employee equity, including for remote and gig workers, would help Indian firms compete with Silicon Valley not on cash, but on upside.

In parallel, the government should treat frontier digital roles the way it treats strategic manufacturing: with targeted, outcome-linked incentives. Wage subsidies, payroll tax rebates, or R&D credits tied to hiring in AI, chip design, cybersecurity, and deep SaaS could meaningfully narrow pay gaps. Global capability centres that already operate at the cutting-edge show that when Indian roles move up the value chain, attrition falls—even at higher wages.

Equally important is risk mitigation. Portable social-security benefits that travel with workers across firms and states would reduce the fear of career volatility that pushes many to seek the perceived safety of overseas systems.

Turning universities into engines, not enclaves

India’s top institutions still punch below their weight as innovation hubs. Faculty operate under tight administrative control, annual grant uncertainty, and limited freedom to co-create intellectual property with industry.

Select IITs, IIITs and IISc need DARPA-style autonomy: multi-year programme budgets, outcome-based evaluation, and the freedom to share IP revenues with faculty and students. The fact that only three IITs—IIT Delhi, IIT Ropar and IIT Kanpur—currently host national centres of excellence in frontier areas underlines how limited scale remains relative to India’s talent base. Allowing institutions to hold equity in campus-incubated startups would help link academic success directly to entrepreneurial outcomes—and justify expanding such centres far more rapidly.

Just as crucial is scale. Industry-embedded research labs—co-located on campuses with shared infrastructure and flexible HR rules—should become the norm, not the exception. A national “Researcher-in-Residence” programme could bring Indian professionals from global tech firms and labs back for six-to-twenty-four-month stints, injecting frontier knowledge without forcing permanent relocation.

Access matters too. IndiaAI compute, quantum testbeds and chip-design tools must be available to startups and SMEs through cloud-like interfaces, not locked into elite silos.

Making India easier to build in

Ask founders why they leave, and salary is rarely the first answer. Facilitative environment and unpredictability are the more common refrains.

India urgently needs a single, digital compliance stack for tech firms—API-first, pre-filled, predictable, and largely decriminalised. Risk-based audits should replace surprise inspections. Capital rules must allow founders to raise and list globally without flipping headquarters to Singapore or Delaware by default.

Cities matter as well. Talent follows liveability. India should explicitly designate five or six “global talent cities” and prioritise housing, transport, safety, and air quality there. Regulatory sandboxes for mobility, payments, health, and logistics—where startups can pilot without whiplash—would anchor innovation locally. Some outward movement is inevitable—and even desirable. The policy goal should be circulation, not retention at any cost.

Time-bound, tax-advantaged return schemes, structured sabbaticals between Indian and global firms, and joint doctoral programmes can convert one-way exits into recurring inflows of skills, capital, and networks. A formal India Digital Talent Network could link diaspora professionals in Big Tech, venture capital and academia to Indian startups and missions as mentors, investors, and collaborators.

This must be paired with smarter migration diplomacy—diversifying beyond a single visa category and ensuring that foreign barriers become a catalyst for domestic reform, not a permanent constraint on Indian ambition.

Looking Ahead

Ultimately, no combination of incentives or policies can compensate for workplace cultures that stifle ambition. Hierarchy, opaque promotion systems, and rigid management practices continue to push talent away—even when salaries are competitive. Retaining India’s best minds will require a shift in how work itself is organised and valued.

Indian firms, particularly in technology and research-intensive sectors, must move decisively towards outcome-based evaluation, flexible work arrangements, and transparent career progression. Strong safeguards against harassment and discrimination are not “soft” issues; they are core to global competitiveness. Equally important is recognising technical excellence in its own right—by creating credible career tracks that allow engineers and researchers to rise without being forced into managerial roles.

Public institutions must undergo a similar reset. If India wants world-class technologists to contribute to government, regulation, and public systems, it must offer competitive pay, lateral entry, genuine autonomy, and freedom from suffocating hierarchy. Nations that succeed in the digital age are those that visibly respect and empower their builders.

Global mobility may be tightening, but that is not India’s constraint—it is its opportunity. The real test is whether India can open its own ecosystems wide enough to make staying, returning and building here the most compelling choice of all.

Views expressed are personal. The writer is the President of Chintan Research Foundation