Indians lack creativity, according to Steve Woz. Do you agree?

Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra doesn't agree with American inventor's thoughts about India. What about you?

Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Steve Wozniak, better known to the world as the man who engineered the first Apple -- a desktop computer with a keyboard and screen -- attended the Economic Times' Global Business Summit.

In an interview with The Times of India, the American engineer and inventor spoke about his friendship with Apple founder, late Steve Jobs, the future of coding and technology, and his views about India's talent.

In his response, he detailed how a part of India, like Singapore, studies and works hard to get an MBA, maybe even have a Mercedes but lack creativity.

Here's an excerpt from the interview, published in the Times of India:

What are your views on India? Do you think a global tech company can emerge from here?

I am not an anthropologist and I don’t know the culture of India well enough. I don’t see those big advances in tech companies.

What is the biggest tech company here, Infosys maybe? I just don’t see that sort of thing coming out of Infosys and I have done keynotes for them three times.

What's the missing link here?

The culture here is one of success based upon academic excellence, studying, learning, practising and having a good job and a great life.

For upper India, not the lower. I see two Indias. That’s a lot like Singapore study, study, work hard and you get an MBA, you will have a Mercedes but where is the creativity?

The creativity gets left out when your behaviour is too predictable and structured, everyone is similar.

Look at a small country like New Zealand, the writers, singers, athletes, it’s a whole different world.

Within minutes since the interview went public, Woz's remarks became the talk of the Internet. 

Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group was among the first to respond. "I love it when such comments are made. Nothing like a sweeping stereotype to get our juices flowing & prove it wrong. Thanks @stevewoz Come back soon. We’ll make you sing a different tune…” he responded to Woz's comment on Twitter.

"Did he just stereotype a whole country?' Vidya  Srinivasan, an engineer at Microsoft tweeted.

"Did it ever occur to #stevewozniak that the CEO’s of two of the biggest tech companies are Indians? Ever heard of Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai?" Srinivasan wrote on the microblogging site.

Dear readers, do you agree with Steve Wozniak?

Do Indians lack creativity?

Share your views in the poll below.