00:00It was drilled into my young mind that my fate would be limited by the circumstances that I was born into.
00:11I have often been asked why I started Infosys. Let me answer that.
00:30I grew up in a family of eight children, a mother, a father and a grandmother.
00:51My father was a school teacher in a small town.
00:56It was drilled into my young mind that my fate would be limited by the circumstances that I was born into.
01:07The India that I experienced in my youth was a lower middle class India with small hopes and even smaller dreams.
01:19I had simply accepted that there would be a glass ceiling to most professional ladders in corporate India of those days.
01:32Corruption and connections in government were common for success in most businesses then.
01:41That retrogressive mindset of mine changed gradually when I started working in a French real-time software company in Paris more than 50 years ago.
01:55I learned three important ideas.
01:59The power of entrepreneurship in a free market in creating jobs and prosperity for the nation.
02:08The beauty of an enlightened corporate democracy and the role of compassionate capitalism in building a prosperous and happy country.
02:20How you behave when you are on top and have power and wealth is your true character.
02:29In such moments, your grace, your courtesy and your humility shown to others will reveal the real you.
02:40A confident leader hires people smarter than himself or herself.
02:47Such a leader gets the best out of his or her people by creating an environment of openness to new ideas, values, meritocracy, fairness, transparency, speed, justice, imagination, discussion, excellence in execution and questioning.
03:10Without questioning, my young friends, there is absolutely no progress.
03:15Be original, be daring, be unreasonable, be anything that will assert the integrity of your purpose.
03:26Thank you very much.
Comments