But a few points: * The magnitude of shit some people are putting up with for visa-status is mind-boggling. Their entire life is oriented around visa-status, to the point where I would think they should do the research on whether their quality of life will be improved back home due to the lower stress, even with the much lower salary and the growing pains of a developing country.
* A lot of people have successfully FIREd and then come back to live what I call the America Return Quasi-Suburban life - basically a copy of the McMansion life of the states inside a gated community in one of the major cities.
* New grads nowadays don't try to move abroad immediately (at least in the top-tier colleges). They do get good jobs and are paid very well, considering both historic trends as well as the purchasing power of the average Indian.
* There is a ton of FOMO and moving abroad is still a very strong sentiment, even among people who make more money than what I was making back when I worked in the states in a MCOL city. Considering the extremely poor management of most Indian cities (at a civic admin level) and the bling of social media, I expect this feeling to persist well into the future.
* Indian start-ups and venture are more short-sighted (in terms of path to revenue/IPO) than US venture. AFAIK no company in India has the equivalent of a Goog funding 20% projects or a VC like Thiel willing to fund research ideas. I don't think it is a money problem (going by the amount of money being pumped into quick-commerce or quick-anything) but a culture problem and also the people funding the start-ups. Again, I hope this will get resolved in the future but as of now, India still bleeds most of their higher-science and PhD crowd to the US. The Indian PhD scene is quite dim, with funding issues and what-not. So your contingent of PhDs who go on to start-up is not gonna happen here.
* OP here came back because he couldn't miss being close to family and close friends. There is a strong contingent of immigrants who can't stand living with or even close to family. For them, the visa and distance barrier is a plus.