There are two crucial points to understand:

(1) Immigrant Pass

(2) Among Immigrants, Indian Immigrants have language advantages

IMMIGRANT PASS

Immigrants are the minorities that whites give favorable treatment to because in the US, cradle to grave, we are taught to be proud of the success of immigrants, to welcome them, and be their champions.

Whites tear up when they hear a story of immigrant success. They're not shedding any tears when a native born Indian/Asian does well; in fact they feel jealous.

Meanwhile these same white people see native-born Asians who speak and act like they do as competitors for resources and begrudge and impede our success in this country.

Whites are happy to promote an Asian/Indian immigrant in the workplace; and share pride in their success.

You do not see native-born Asian/Indian CEO's. Why? They're not any smarter than us. It's because whites give favorable treatment to immigrant minorities, seeing them not as peer/rivals as they see us.

Humans naturally compete against peer/rivals - the kinds we grew up with, who are in our social circles, which immigrants were not. They see them as a separate group they are not competitive with, one they can serve as a virtuous hero by uplifting.

Whites close ranks and engage in white solidarity against native-born Indians and Asians in the workplace. They make exceptions for immigrants.

If those of us born here want the top role, we have to start our own companies like Instacart and Door Dash.

As I've mentioned, American racism is subtle and selective; it's important to deconstruct it. What I'm saying reflects 2+ decades of practical experience and observation.

LANGUAGE ADVANTAGE

Now that the Immigrant Pass is established, among Asian immigrants, Indian immigrants have a language advantage since English is taught extensively in India, a former British colony.

In a way the foreign-born Indian immigrant is the perfect model minority- speaks English well enough, has a foreign accent (which makes it clear he's an immigrant to be given special treatment to), and has similar education or better to locals.

Indian culture is also a bit more contentious and engages in social aggression/debate, which can be helpful in Western culture.

But the main reasons are Immigrant Pass + Language.

Let’s not buy into the “East Asians are less assertive” talking point. Anectdotal, because I’m not in tech- but I’ve worked with many who are assertive borderline aggressive/rude- but brilliant. I’ve implied to them they should be executives, but from what I understand, in order to get to that level, you need sponsors from other executives. That’s one factor, lack of that political capital. The stronger factor though in my opinion is that EA techies don’t seem to feel it is worth it to climb up in the rat race and are fine with their high enough salaries. Not sure why that is the case with the techies- but this is not the same when it comes to law or finance, where EAs do have the drive to work up to the echelons (partner, senior trader, senior i banker, for example). The techies do seem to have supplemental income on the side though- real estate, investments seem to be common, so that prob has something to do with why they just want to plateau and coast in their day jobs

White people think about SAs differently than EAs

I would say Whites are less threatened by SAs than EAs

India's higher education system isn't "looser" - from what I've read it's just based off one admissions test similar to China's. And lots of Indians complain it's all just memorization, which is what ppl say abt China

I really wish someone wld take the 100 biggest US comps and calculate how many EA vs SA execs they have cause I do sometimes see EA at non-CEO positions. Like this random Viet guy is Vice Chair of BofA:

https://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/content/newsroom/executive-bios/thong-nguyen.html

But the broader issue is how SA just fit in better in Western countries. I just feel EA are made to live in EA. A good example is a guy like VIvek Ramaswamy being able to run as a Republican, cld you really imagine a Chinese origin guy pulling that off? Its just phenotype and English ability and stuff. Like a dude like Rishi Sunak can become PM of UK, cld an EA guy? It's just harder to imagine.

Lots of Asian owners of Restaurants, Mini Marts, beauty salon and alot of other businesses probably in every categories.

Two things to consider here.

1. Tech CEOs are very high up there, and who ends up where depends a lot of individual factors and just the state of the world in ways that I think the conversation OP is having is useless. Like Jensen Huang is at Nvidia because he was part of solving an actual geopolitical problem for Taiwan. The Gaokao is not relevant to this conversation IMO.

2. You're only considering America. China is the only competitor to the US on AI. Japan was the former competitor to the US in tech and economically, their companies still exist. South Korea and Taiwan are also tech powerhouses with roles for their citizens. India doesn't compare to east Asia's tech sector yet, there's not a single household name that's come out of there.

A lot of top talent are where they need to be, which for east Asia is at home, and for India is overseas.

Silicon Valley is full of Asian graduates from Berkeley and Stanford who dominate the workforce.  But almost all of them are worker bees and seldom rise above middle management.  Asians from San Jose State fare slightly worse but ironically end up competing for a lot of same jobs as their Berkeley and Stanford graduates.

I know this is a very unpopular opinion but maybe Asians should go into more blue collar trades but to be fair there are tons of Vietnamese and Filipinos and other Southeast Asian at least in California doing blue collar work.  San Jose and the Bay Area in general is full of blue collar Asians.  Even San Francisco has its fair share of Chinese blue collar workers.  San Francisco State University produced a ton of blue collar Asians including two Asian American police chiefs of San Francisco.  

IT in South Asia particularly India is a massive sector.

We don’t need more Asians ceos, they are justs glorified baby sitters who work for their founders overlords. However, we do need more Asian founders and in VC who will favour more Asians. They are the real innovators, the risk takers. But…. I still don’t see this happening. Imagine a program such as YC comb or Theil fellowship just for Asians. USA is too woke for this and Asians in general are too pussy to start this.

East Asians can only succeed by forming our own tech companies.

Look at Jensen Huang and Lisa Su. They are literally dominating AI all on their own. Indians were handed the reigns by white people. There's a difference. They did not start Google or Microsoft from scratch. They are merely glorified babysitters for someone else's ideas.

All the East Asians start businesses in the West, South Asians take over as CEO of an existing firm.

Purely cultural fit. East Asians respect hard work over self promotion. Guys like the founder of Alibaba or BYD, even if they spoke perfect English, would never ever make it in the West,

Also note the Indian diaspora can find more opportunities in the West given how far behind India is vs. China's scale and development.

There’s really no need to look too deep into it. It’s not because Indians are more talented but rather they have thicker skin and are more assertive. The culture is the biggest reason why east asians are not promoted CEOs. If East Asians were more comfortable with confrontation and communicated better then the skies the limit but until then, you’re stuck with the 100k-200k worker bee jobs.

It’s all infiltrated by Indians, mostly Indian CEOs, so they hire their own people into management and down the chain. East Asians don’t really stand a chance, as they are neither Indian nor white.

I know this because I used to work at one of these big tech companies, and my Indian manager discriminated against me. I was the only non-Indian person on the team, was never given any credit for my work, and they promoted an Indian colleague over me instead. I eventually left because I didn’t see a future at the company, as the team was completely dominated by Indians.