Personality
Muhammad Yunus,
the man who redefined peace
Poor people are not asking for charity. Charity is not a solution for poverty
If I could be useful to another
human being, even for a day,
that would be a great thing. It
would be greater than all the
big thoughts I could have at
the university.
Muhammad Yunus
 ed matrix MAY 2008
Muhammad Yunus
W
hat if you could
harness the
power of free
market to solve
the problems of
poverty, hunger, and inequality?
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mu-
hammad Yunus of Bangladesh is
doing exactly that. As founder of
Grameen Bank, Yunus pioneered
microcredit, the innovative bank-
ing program that provides poor
people with small loans that they
use to launch businesses and lift
their families out of poverty.
Yunus established the banking
system 30 years ago to lend small
amounts of money to the rural
poor in Bangladesh villages. Most
of the low-interest microloans
go to women, who use them to
start their own profit-making en-
terprises, mainly in agriculture,
crafts, or services.
Grameen Bank now has 2,422
branches, employs more than
20,000 people, and has loaned
more than $6 billion since its
founding. Borrowers own most
of the equity in the bank. More
than 250 institutions around the
world operate micro-credit pro-
grammes based on the Grameen
Bank model.
“Lasting peace cannot be achieved
unless large population groups

find their own way to break out of
poverty. Micro-credit is one such
means”- says Yunus, the man be-
hind this marvellous project, who
won Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Muhammad Yunus was born in
1940 in Chittagong, the business
centre of what was then Eastern
Bengal. He was the third of 14
children of whom five died in in-
fancy. Educated in Chittagong, he
was awarded a Fulbright scholar-
ship and received his Ph.D. from
Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
Tennessee. In 1972 he became
head of the Economics Depart-
ment at Chittagong University.
The incidents that transformed
this Economics teacher into a
social entrepreneur were the
1974 Bangladesh famine and
his encounter with the bamboo
chair seller.
In his book, “Banker to the
Poor”, Yunus recalls that in 1974
he was teaching economics at
Chittagong University, when
the country experienced a ter-
rible famine in which thousands
starved to death.
“We tried to ignore it,” he says.
“But then skeleton-like people
began showing up in the capital,
Dhaka. Soon the trickle became a
flood. Hungry people were every-
where. Often they sat so still that
one could not be sure whether
they were alive or dead. They all
looked alike: men, women, chil-
dren. Old people looked like chil-
dren, and children looked like
old people.
The thrill he had once experi-
enced while teaching his stu-
dents elegant economic theories
that could supposedly cure soci-
etal problems, soon disappeared.
As the famine worsened he began
to dread his own lectures.
“Nothing in the economic theo-
ries I taught reflected the life
HONOUR FOR
GRAMEEN, YUNUS
“I only wish every nation
shared Dr Yunus’ and
the Grameen Bank’s ap-
preciation of the vital role
that girls and women
play in the economic,
social and political life of
our societies.”
-Hillary Clinton
around me. How could I go mak-
ing my students believe stories in
the name of economics? I needed
to run away from these theories
and from my textbooks and dis-
cover the real-life economics of a
poor person’s existence.”
Professor Muhammad Yunus led
his students on a field trip to a
poor village. They interviewed
a woman who made bamboo
stools, and learnt that she had to
ed matrix MAY 2008
Personality
borrow the equivalent of 15p to
buy raw bamboo for each stool
made. After repaying the middle-
man, sometimes at rates as high
as 10% a week, she was left with
a penny profit margin. Had she
been able to borrow at more ad-
vantageous rates, she would have
been able to amass an economic
cushion and raise herself above
subsistence level.
Realizing that there must be
something terribly wrong with
the economics he was teaching,
Yunus took matters into his own
hands, and from his own pocket
lent the equivalent of £ 17 to 42
basket-weavers. He found that
it was possible with this tiny
amount not only to help them
survive, but also to create the
spark of personal initiative and
enterprise necessary to pull
themselves out of poverty.
Against the advice of banks and
government, Yunus carried on
giving out ‘micro-loans’, and in
1983 formed the Grameen Bank,
meaning ‘village bank’ founded
on principles of trust and soli-
darity. In Bangladesh today,
Grameen has 1,084 branches,
with 12,500 staff serving 2.1
million borrowers in 37,000 vil-

Personality
lages. On any working day Gra-
meen collects an average of $1.5
million in weekly installments.
Of the borrowers, 94% are wom-
en and over 98% of the loans are
paid back, a recovery rate higher
than any other banking system.
Grameen methods are applied in
projects in 58 countries, includ-
ing the US, Canada, France, The
Netherlands and Norway.
As Muhammad Yunus himself
describes: ‘The repayments are
designed in such a way that they
are tiny instalments. You can pay
back your loan over a long period.
So all of this together is micro-
credit. Small loans for income-
generating activity, addressed to
the poorest, without collateral.’
Muhammad Yunus is a rare
bona fide visionary. His dream
is the total eradication of pov-
erty from the world. ‘Grameen’,
he claims, ‘is a message of
hope, a programme for putting
homelessness and destitution
in a museum so that one day
our children will visit it and
ask how we could have allowed
such a terrible thing to go on for
so long’. This work is a funda-
mental rethink on the economic
relationship between the rich
and the poor, their rights and
their obligations. The World
Bank recently acknowledged
that ‘this business approach to
the alleviation of poverty has
allowed millions of individuals
By giving poor people the power to help
themselves, Dr Yunus has offered them
something far more valuable than a plate
of food. He has offered them security in its
most fundamental form.
 ed matrix MAY 2008
to work their way out of poverty
with dignity’.
Credit is the last hope left to those
faced with absolute poverty. That
is why Muhammad Yunus believes
that the right to credit should be
recognized as a fundamental hu-
man right. It is this struggle and
the unique and extraordinary
methods he invented to combat
human despair that Muhammad
Yunus recounts here with humil-
ity and conviction. It is also the
view of a man familiar with both
Eastern and Western cultures —
on the failures and potential for
good of industrial countries.
Muhammad Yunus showed inter-
est in launching a political party
in Bangladesh named Nagorik
Shakti (Citizen Power) in early
2007, but later discarded the plan.
Yunus wrote an open letter, pub-
lished in the Bangladeshi news-
paper Daily Star, where he asked
-Former US President Jimmy Carter
citizens for views on his plan to
float a political party to establish
political goodwill, proper leader-
ship and good governance. In the
letter, he called on everyone to
briefly outline how he should go
about the task and how they can
contribute to it.
He has won a number of other
awards, including the Ramon
Magsaysay Award, the World
Food Prize the Sydney Peace Prize,
and in December 2007 the Ecua-
dorian Peace Prize. Additionally,
Dr. Yunus has been awarded 26
honorary doctorate degrees, and
15 special awards. Bangladesh
government brought out a com-
memorative stamp to honour his
Nobel Award. In January 2008,
Houston, Texas declared January
14 as “Muhammad Yunus Day”.
For his work with the Grameen
Bank, Yunus was named as Asho-
ka: Innovators for the Public Glob-
al Academy Member in 2001.
His books include Love and Ter-
ror, Speak Sunlight (a mem-
oir of childhood) and several
children’s novels. He is a con-
tributor to Vogue, Architectural
Digest, the Wall Street Journal,
the International Herald Tri-
bune and other periodicals.
Personality

H
e rewrote Indian cor-
porate history and
built a truly global
corporate group. He
built India’s largest
private sector company and created
an equity cult in the Indian capital
market. His was the first Indian com-
pany to feature in Forbes 500 list.
His success story is a source of in-
spiration for the numerous bud-
ding entrepreneurs.
Dhirubhai H Ambani, the
founder of the Reliance Group
of Companies, was indeed the
most enterprising Indian en-
trepreneur. Dhirubhai Ambani
was an exceptional human be-
ing and an outstanding leader.
A man far ahead of his times,
he epitomised the dauntless en-
trepreneurial spirit. He dared
to dream on a scale unimagi-
nable before in Indian indus-
try. From a humble beginning,
he went on to create an enviable
business empire within a span of
just 25 years. The Rs.60,000 crore
Reliance Group is a living testimony
to his indomitable will, single-mind-
ed dedication and an unrelenting
commitment to his goals. Ambani’s story of rags to
riches made him a cult
Under Dhirubhai Ambani’s vision-
ary leadership, the Reliance Group figure in the minds of
emerged as the largest business con- Indian people. His success
glomerate in India, and carved out a story fired the imagination
distinct place for itself in the global of the younger generation
pantheon of corporate giants. The
of Indian entrepreneurs,
Group’s track record of con-
sistent growth is unpar- business leaders and
alleled in Indian progressive companies. He
industry and is undeniably, a role model
to be emulated…

Dhirubhai Ambani
A man who dared to dream big
 ed matrix june 2008

perhaps internationally too. Today,
the Group’s turnover represents near-
ly 3 percent of India’s GDP.
Ambani had established himself as
a legendary leader among indus-
trial capitalists in India. Despite his
almost Midas Touch, Ambani has
known to have flexible values and
an unethical streak running through
him. There are stories of ruthlessness,
when it came to bending the rules
and winning the game that made him
the success that he was. Fables such
as these, built often on a modicum
of truth and sometimes from thin
air, were testimony to the success of
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani.
Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal
Hirachand Ambani was born on De-
cember 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gu-
jarat. His father was a school teacher.
Dhirubhai Ambani started his entre-
preneurial career by selling “bhajias”
to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the
weekends.
At the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved
to Aden, Yemen. He worked with A.
Besse & Co. as a gas-station attend-
ant for a salary of Rs.300. Two years
later, A. Besse & Co. became the
distributors for Shell products, and
Dhirubhai was promoted to manage
the company’s filling station at the
port of Aden.
In 1962, Dhirubhai returned to India
and started the Reliance Commercial
Corporation with a capital of Rs.15,
000 in partnership with his cousin
Champaklal.
The primary business of Reliance
Commercial Corporation was to im-
port polyester yarn and export spices.
In 1965, Damani and Ambani ended
their partnership and Ambani started
on his own. It is believed that both
had different temperaments and a dif-
ferent take on how to conduct busi-
ness. While Mr. Damani was a cau-
tious trader and did not believe in
building yarn inventories, Dhirubhai
was a known risk taker and he consid-
ered that building inventories, antici-
pating a price rise, and making profits
through that was good for growth.
By canny trading around the textile
bazaars of Bombay, he cornered
the market in imported polyester,
started his own factory, outwit scle-
rotic bureaucrats in New Delhi who
were trying to run the economy by
regulation, and ultimately ignited the
moribund Indian stock market with
his vision of turning Reliance into a
petrochemical and oil refining em-
pire—a dream he realized not long
before he died.
Ambani’s public wore his textiles as
durable suits and glittery saris. Indi-
ed matrix june 2008
Personality
ans invested by millions in his Bom-
bay-listed Reliance Industries. Reli-
ance focussed on the domestic market
where revenue opportunities were
not lacking, and margins were much
higher, permitting the generation of
huge investible surpluses. In adopt-
ing this strategy, Ambani’s Reliance
group acquired through outright pur-
chase the best-practice technologies
in the field. With world-scale plants,
Reliance proved doubly competitive.
Not only was it able to displace both
domestic producers and international
suppliers from the market at prevail-
ing customs duty rates, but in fact it
could remain competitive even when
duty rates were reduced. The strategy
of ‘going it alone’, while investing in
world-scale plants based on outright
purchase of technology, obviously
raised domestic financing require-
ments substantially.
Reliance under Ambani decided to
enhance its equity strength to un-
dertake new investments by tapping
stock markets. It was here that Am-
bani exploited the other opportunity
that the changing times offered. This
was the possibility of mobilizing
money from households through the
stock market.
India’s stock markets were until the
1970s dominated by the financial
institutions and a few large players,
with trading activity being minimal
and limited to a few shares. The first
instance of equity serving as an op-
tion for investment of household sav-
ings arose when foreign companies,
pressured by the Foreign Exchange
Regulation Act (FERA), decided to
dilute their equity through sale in
small lots. Reliance made its first
public issue in 1977, when it offered
a chunk of Rs.10 shares to investors.
The shares opened at Rs.23 reflect-
ing the premium that Reliance was in
a position to command. In the years
to come, Reliance was to exploit the
market through many routes to fi-
nance its breakneck expansion, gar-
nering in the process huge premiums

Personality
on the shares of existing companies.
By the end of 1992, out of a total
capitalisation of Rs.34,255 crores,
share premium reserves and sur-
pluses alone accounted for Rs.7,640
crores. Besides this, Reliance was
to use the convertible debenture
route and the American Depository
Receipt (ADR) and Global Deposi-
tory Receipt (GDR) issues to much
benefit.
And the investors never let him down.
Dhirubhai Ambani succeeded in cre-
ating an investor base of historic pro-
portions for the Reliance Group. An
unbreakable bond of implicit trust
existed between him and the share-
holders. They placed their savings
in his care and he worked with un-
flinching sincerity to get them the
best returns. He brought happiness
and prosperity into the homes of mil-
lions of investors.
Over time his business has diversi-
fied into a core specialisation in pet-
rochemicals, with additional interests
in telecommunications, information
technology, energy, power, retail,
 ed matrix june 2008
textiles, infrastructure services, capi-
tal markets, and logistics.
Assited by his two sons Anil Ambani
and Mukesh Ambani, he steered the
Reliance Group to its current status
as India’s leading textiles-petrole-
um-petrochemicals-power-telecom
player.
By inclination and instinct, Dhirub-
hai was a fighter. Dhirubhai’s great-
est acumen was in understanding
finance. He earned the devotion of
millions not because he was a great
industrialist, but because he treated
his shareholders very well. He was
the first Indian entrepreneur to under-
stand the importance of the ordinary
investors. Dhirubhai realised that he
would have no financing headaches
if he could earn the trust of inves-
tors, and he took care to ensure that
the investor earned a decent return.
Not only by way of dividends, but by
continuous appreciation of the Reli-
ance scrip.
Needless to say, as is true of all win-
ners, in Dhirubhai’s case too, indi-
vidual qualities - an acute mind, a
sense of the other, a degree of cun-
ning, an element of ruthlessness and
a large dose of gumption that is re-
quired to make the dash to victory
- would have contributed to the end
result in no small measure.
He was a man who always dreamed
big. At a time when capacities were
fragmented and small, Dhirubhai
dared to dream big. Instead of setting
up capacities that would cater to cur-
rent demand, he set up the capacity
and then set about creating the de-
mand. He knew where latent demand
existed and decided to supply it. He
made no compromises on quality,
insisting that his machinery must be
state-of-the-art.
Prestigious awards and titles were
conferred on him by national and
international organisations. He was
acclaimed as the top businessman of
the twentieth century and lauded for
his dynamic, pioneering and innova-
tive genius. He was the man of the
new millennium. This was clearly re-
flected in his passion for mega-sized
projects, the most advanced technol-
ogy and the highest level of produc-
tivity. The corporate philosophy he
followed was short, simple and suc-
cinct - “Think big. Think differently.
Think fast. Think ahead. Aim for the
best”. He inspired the Reliance team
to do better than the best - not only in
India but in the world.
As a quality of business leader he was
also a motivator. He gave few public
speeches but the words he spoke are
still remembered for their value.
His success story fired the imagina-
tion of the younger generation of In-
dian entrepreneurs, business leaders
and progressive companies. He was
an icon for them, a role model to be
emulated. His story of rags to riches
made him a cult figure in the minds
of Indian people. Ambani’s life and
achievements prove that backed by
confidence, courage and conviction,
man can achieve the impossible.
Keerthana Raj
Personality

H
e is one of the best-known
entrepreneurs of the personal
computer revolution. Although
he is admired by many, a large
number of industry insiders
criticize his business tactics, which they
consider anti-competitive, an opinion which
has in some cases been upheld by the courts.
Time magazine named him one of the 100
people who most influenced the 20th century,
as well as one of the 100 most influential
people of 2004, 2005, and 2006.
William Henry Gates III is an American
business magnate, philanthropist, the world’s
third richest man (as of 2008), and chairman
of Microsoft, the software company he
founded with Paul Allen. During his career
at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO
and chief software architect, and remains the
individual shareholder with the most shares,
with more than 9 percent of the common
He is one of
stock. He has also authored or co-authored the best-known
several books.
entrepreneurs of the
Gates’ role at Microsoft for most of its history
was primarily a management and executive
personal computer
role. However, he was an active software revolution.
developer in the early years, particularly on the
company’s programming language products.
He has not officially been on
a development team
since working on
the TRS-80
Model
1 0 0
line,

BILL GATES
A potential achiever of destinies

 ed matrix july 2008


but he wrote code as late as 1989
that shipped in the company’s
products. In the later stages of his
career, Gates has pursued a number
of philanthropic endeavours,
donating large amounts of money
to various charitable organizations
and scientific research programms
through the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, established in 2000.
On June 15, 2006, Gates announced
that he would transit out of his day-
to-day role over the next two years to
dedicate more time to philanthropy.
One of his last initiatives before
announcing his departure was the
creation of a robotics software group
at Microsoft.
Gates was number one on the “Forbes
400” list from 1993 through to 2007
and number one on Forbes list of
“The World’s Richest People” from
1995 to 2007. In 1999, Gates’s
wealth briefly surpassed $101
billion, causing the media to call
him a “centibillionaire”. In a May
2006 interview, Gates commented
that he wished that he were not the
richest man in the world because
he disliked the attention it brought.
Gates has several investments
outside Microsoft, which in 2006
paid him a salary of $616,667, and
$350,000 bonus totalling $966,667.
He founded Corbis, a digital imaging
company, in 1989. In 2004 he became
a director of Berkshire Hathaway,
the investment company headed by
long-time friend Warren Buffett. He
is a client of Cascade Investment
ed matrix july 2008
Personality
Group, a wealth management firm
with diverse holdings.
Gates has received honorary
doctorates from Nyenrode Business
Universiteit, Breukelen, The
Netherlands in 2000, the Royal
Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
Sweden in 2002, Waseda University,
Tokyo, Japan in 2005, Harvard
University in June 2007, and from
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in
January 2008. Gates was also made
an honorary Knight Commander
of the Order of the British Empire
(KBE) from Queen Elizabeth II
in 2005, in addition to having
entomologists name the Bill Gates
flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his
honour. In November 2006, he and
his wife were awarded the Order of

Personality
the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic
work around the world in the areas
of health and education, particularly
in Mexico, and specifically in the
programme “Un país de lectores”.
Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew
up in Seattle with his two sisters.
Their father, William H. Gates II, is
a Seattle attorney. Their late mother,
Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher,
University of Washington regent,
and chairwoman of United Way
International. Gates attended
public elementary school and the
private Lakeside School. There, he
discovered his interest in software
and began programming computers
at age 13.
In 1973, Gates entered Harvard
University as a freshman, where
he lived down the hall from Steve
Ballmer,the present Microsoft’s
chief executive officer. While at
Harvard, Gates developed a version
of the programming language BASIC
for the first microcomputer - the
 ed matrix july 2008
Micro Instrumentation
and Telemetry Systems
(MITS) Altair.
In his juniour year, Gates left
Harvard to devote his energies to
Microsoft, a company he had begun
in 1975 with his childhood friend
Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that
the computer would be a valuable
tool on every office desktop and in
every home, they began developing
software for personal computers.
Gates’ foresight and his vision
for personal computing have been
central to the success of Microsoft
and the software industry.
Under Gates’ leadership, Microsoft’s
mission has been to continually
advance and improve software
technology, and to make it easier,
more cost-effective and more
enjoyable for people to use computers.
The company is committed to a long-
term view, reflected in its investment
of approximately $7.1 billion on
research and development in the
2007 fiscal year.
Gates wrote “The Road Ahead”
and “Business @ the Speed of
Thought” which received
wide critical acclaim.
Gates has donated
the proceeds
of both books
to non-profit
organizations
that support the
use of technology
in education and
skills development.
From Microsoft’s
founding in 1975
until 2006, Gates had
primary responsibility
for the company’s product
strategy. He aggressively
broadened the company’s
range of products, and
wherever Microsoft achieved a
dominant position he vigorously
defended it.
The charitable Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation is the largest
transparently operated charitable
foundation in the world.The
foundation’s grants have provided
funds for college scholarships for
under-represented minorities, AIDS
prevention, diseases prevalent in third
world countries, and other causes. In
2000, the Gates Foundation endowed
the University of Cambridge with
$210 million for the Gates Cambridge
Scholarships. The Foundation has
also pledged over $7 billion to its
various causes, including $1 billion
to the United Negro College Fund.
His reputation makes him more
charitable and his massive victory
in the software field motivates many
today. His commitment and hardwork
proves him to be a mastercrafts man.
His love for computers is irresistable
and thus he experiences his life from
top ranked billionaire to a humble
humanitarian.
Regina Anand
Personality

S
udha Murthy is an
Indian social worker and
accomplished author. She is
known for her philanthropic
work through the Infosys
Foundation. Among other things, she
has initiated a move to provide all
government schools in Karnataka with
computer and library facilities. She also
teaches computer science and writes
fiction. Dollar Sose (Dollar daughter-
in-law), a book originally she wrote
in Kannada and later translated to
English as Dollar Bahu was adopted
as a television serial in 2001.
She did B.E. in Electrical
Engineering from the B.V.B.
College of Engineering &
Technology, Hubli. She stood first in
Karnataka for which she received a
gold medal from the Chief Minister
of Karnataka. She also completed
her M.Tech. in Computer Science
in 1974 from the Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore, stood first in her
class and received a gold medal from the
Indian Institute of Engineers.
She was also the first woman engineer
to be selected in Telco (now Tata
Motors), Pune. She had written a
postcard to JRD Tata complaining
of the gender bias in Tata Motors
(Telco then had a men-only
policy) and she was invited
for a special interview by Tata
Motors. (Please see external It was her savings of
link Aapro JRD). She was
living in Pune from 1974-1981, Rs. 10,000 that was
later she moved to Mumbai. instrumental in the
It was her savings of founding of Infosys;
Rs. 10,000 that was
instrumental in Narayana Murty proudly
the founding mentions this fact.
of Infosys;

Dollar Daughter
Sudha Murthy, a social worker and an accomplished author has taken Infosys to humanitarian and
Philanthropic grounds of accomplishments.
 ed matrix august 2008

Narayana Murty proudly mentions
this fact.
On November 19th 2004, she was
presented with the Raja-Lakshmi Award
“in recognition of her outstanding
contribution to social work” by the Sri
Raja-Lakshmi Foundation, Chennai.
Mrs. Murthy is the wife of software
industrialist N.R. Narayana Murthy,
the sister of Jaishree Deshpande (wife
of billionaire telecom tycoon Gururaj
“Desh” Deshpande) and renowned
Caltech astrophysicist Shrinivas
Kulkarni, and the granddaughter of the
late Shri Narayan Melgiri, a prominent
19th century Kannadiga advocate.
She has written many stories, mostly
published by Penguin, which deal with
common lives and her views on donations,
hospitality and realisation. Some of
them include Sweet Hospitality, Wise
and Otherwise etc. She also focuses on
social works and her husband Narayana
Murthy’s achievements.
In 2006, she was awarded the Padma Shri,
a civilian award from the Government of
India and received an honorary doctorate
from Sathyabama University.
Sudha Murthy on Infosys and life’s
values
It’s her passion and commitment to
use what she has been blessed with for
the benefit of others that keeps Sudha
Murthy ticking. Very few are aware of
Sudha Murthy’s achievements.
She has single-handedly evangelizing
the move towards corporate social
responsibility. She has worked almost for
a decade to change the lives of children
in the heart of rural Karnataka by giving
them access to food and education.
She is an author of 92 books in almost
every Indian language to her credit.
She is one of India’s most celebrated
entrepreneurs. Here she speaks her mind,
shies away from the limelight and truly
practices what she preaches.
Founder, Infosys Foundation, Sudha
Murthy, told CNBC-TV18, “In life’s
journey, we all meet strange people and
undergo many experiences that touch us
and sometimes even change us. If you
have a sensitive mind, you will see your
life too in the vast storehouse of stories.
For me, it is something closest to my
Personality
heart. Initially, I was a mother to it but
somewhere along the line, it has become
the mother and I the child.”
• Life lessons from Narayana Murthy
Excerpts from an interview given to
CNBC-TV18:
You are in a sense the angel investor be-
hind one of India’s largest entrepreneurial
success stories. It was your Rs 10,000 that
started Infosys. But purely as a person, what
is this success story?
Sudha Murthy: How do you define
success? I gave Rs 10,000 not thinking
In 2006, she was
awarded the Padma
Shri, a civilian award
from the Government
of India and received
an honorary doctorate
from Sathyabama
University.
I would get a great return. Here is a Sudha Murthy: No, it was very hard for
man who is dreaming of a company me, it was not a easy decision because
and he told me without your support it
in 1968 I joined an engineering college
would be difficult for me to start and I
and in 1972 I graduated. There was not a
helped him. That’s what I considered and
single girl in the university.
nothing more.
For a person like me who was so career
Did you believe in the vision that he had?
conscious and who was so fond of
Did you ever think that Infosys was going to technical things, it was very hard. But
turn out to be what it is today? Murthy being a very strong person, he
said it’s either you or me.
Sudha Murthy: No, I only knew that
Murthy is a very honest and hardworking When he said that, then I thought
person and he wants to do something and practically. If I am in, then he is out and
he told me I require three years of hard when you start a company you have to
work from you and I will not be able run around, stay away from the family,
earn. You’ll have to manage the family everything you have to do and I am a
and give me the initial investment. woman, I couldn’t be away from the
I said, okay, let him do it. When you family and the children.
don’t have many things, then you don’t
Secondly, I knew children require their
get scared.
mother at an early stage of life and not
He also gave you choice and he said that so much when they grow up. Whatever
both of you couldn’t be at Infosys together. value system you teach, it’s only in those
He gave you the choice of joining Infosys crucial years. So, therefore I said okay
but you chose to pull back and not do it -- at and I made the decision but my heart was
any point of time did you think that maybe very heavy. It took many years for me to
you would have liked to have done on? reconcile to this.
ed matrix august 2008 
Personality
But couldn’t you have gone back once
your children grew up?
Sudha Murthy: By that time, I realised
it is not only technical thing that’s great
in life, there are many more things in life,
which are very important. So, when one
window was closed, God opened a door
to me and that is the Infosys Foundation.
Have your relationships become transac-
tional? Do people now talk to you only to
associate with you because they want
something from you?
Sudha Murthy: It becomes so hard to
find a genuine friend or a genuine relation
because everything is a transaction in
one or other. It could be money, it could
be job, it could be an association and
somewhere I feel I lost the golden days.
So it’s been a lonely journey, isn’t it?
Sudha Murthy: Of course, when your
husband builds a company like Infosys
along with his teammates it is like a
tapasya -- that means 100% concentration
on his work -- and God is so intelligent,
that irrespective of your status or gender,
he gives everybody only 24 hours and Mr
Murthy used all these 24 hours for one
purpose and that is Infosys.
What was left for me and the children
was hardly anything and I became like a
single parent with two children. Murthy
never knew which class they were in and
he never went to any PTA. He only came
to know when the children grew up and
went to college. I had to struggle with
their PTA, their progress reports, their
holidays.
Is it also because you created your own
identity besides being Mrs Narayana
Murthy, which is what has kept you going
for so long?
Sudha Murthy: Because I believe that
every human being should run their own
marathon and this was taught to me when
I was a young girl by my grandfather
who was a Sanskrit scholar.
He told a very beautiful shloka. He said
Krishna is respected not because he is
son of Vasudeva, not because he is the
husband of Rukmini, not because he is
 ed matrix august 2008
God is so intelligent,
that irrespective of
your status or gender,
he gives everybody
only 24 hours and
Mr Murthy used all
these 24 hours for one
purpose and that is
Infosys.
the father of Aniruddha, not because he
is Yashoda’s adopted son, but because
Krishna himself was a different person.
Similarly, in real life, it is nice that you
are related, you are married and all those
things, but you are what you are and I
always believed in my own strength,
my own weaknesses and my own way
of thinking, which helped me a lot to
achieve what I liked.
Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Sudha Murthy: I really do not know
how to define a real feminist. I felt when
I was 23 years old, there was gender
discrimination and I felt I must inform
Mr JRD Tata because I was studying in
their institute.
The greatness is not me writing a letter
but it was Mr JRD Tata, who was great.
He was a chairman and a big man who
has many companies and he gets a
postcard from an unknown girl hailing
from a middle class doctor family, from a
small town known as Hubli. She writes a
letter and he accepts it in a positive way
and he said that this girl should be called
for an interview -- that made me feel like
a very great person.
You feel like a misfit in corporate India’s
jetset crowd?
Sudha Murthy: Probably, because I am
definitely not in the corporate scenario.
Did Mr. Murthy ever say that maybe you
should try?
Sudha Murthy: Never ever. Actually,
both of us have this equation that we
never criticize or cross each other’s
path. For example, Mr Murthy never
tells me you should not give money to
these people or you should give money
to those people.
And not even once, in my 10 years in the
Foundation, Murthy has insisted for any
project money should be given either
personally or officially.
But have you been able to translate your
philosophy and the way that you have been
brought up and the way that you have lived
your life to your children as well?
Sudha Murthy: They won’t see it
exactly that way. But to some extent they
can understand and they can follow.
One year I remember, my son sent
me a birthday greeting which said:
‘Every mother works for their children,
my mom works for somebody else’s
child and Happy Birthday.’ And
these soft words came from a young
boy of 20. Probably, it is the love or
compassion he has seen and learnt in his
formative years.
Apart from the philanthropy, you have
said that Mr Murthy has become very
serious now, but do you still manage to
take out time for the indulgences that
you used to enjoy -- you like going to
movies and enjoy music, does any of
that still happen?
Sudha Murthy: No, Murthy does
not come to the movies at all actually
-- maybe for 20-25 years we had not
seen any movie. Recently, I took him
for a movie and he was saying how
we should improve the quality, now he
looks at everything in a manner of how
we should improve the quality, how we
should get an Oscar.
He looks for excellence in everything.
Murthy does not enjoy what he used to
enjoy before.
So he is a different man, he is not the same
man you have married?
Sudha Murthy: Yes, he is different
today.
Nirupama