Kal Raman is the COO of Groupon, which has an annual billing of $5.5 million. This self-made man who hails from a village in Tirunelveli is an electrical engineer from Guindy Engineering College, Chennai. He worked his way up from TCS to a contracting company in Walmart in Atlanta, US, before joining the American retail giant in 1993.

His career has moved between technology and sales and marketing and every 3-4 years he has jumped. Unbelievably, in Walmart, he got 18 promotions in 18 months.He next went to Blockbuster (a home movie rental provider) as a senior director. He quit when the CEO wouldn’t buy his argument that their business model was flawed. “It was 1998 and the internet was becoming big,” he says. So he joined Drugstore as CIO, became COO, and then CEO, within two years.

He worked in Amazon for two years and in 2007 started Global Scholar, an education company, which he sold in 2010-11 “after giving 4x returns to my investors”. Kal Raman answered a few questions for Cambuzz .

Is it good for youngsters to change jobs often?

Change is very good as long as it pays for your tuition. It has to be a learning experience. In Walmart I learnt the business side, in Drugstore how to be a CEO and in Global Scholar how to start something from scratch. It is not about jumping for money; you should know why you’re moving. Also, you should know when you are stagnating and then leave. My mantra is the moment things become comfortable I either create a problem for myself or get the hell out of there.

How do you see India’s future?

I am very upbeat. Our democracy and talent pool are huge advantages. Foreigners know they can put money into India and take it out too. You can’t do it in China and Russia. In the long term, nobody can prevent India from becoming a superpower. We will work hard to mess it up, but India will still prevail because of our sheer intellectual talent and average age.

How does India compare with China?

It is easier to get things done faster and in a more organised way in China than we can ever do. But at some point the creativity in China will be halted because of the lack of democracy. For innovation to flourish people should be able to push the envelope and be free intellectually.

What is your advice to young engineers?

Don’t work for money; take your time. The first five years are all about learning, how to be a better, well-rounded human being, a problem-solver. Unfortunately, people here worry about a 10k hike to switch jobs every two years. Most people think learning technology or software writing is a skill set. It isn’t; problem-solving is. You should focus on how to become a better analytical thinker and problem-solver and don’t focus on money for the first 5-6 years of your career. If you don’t focus on money you’ll make a lot more money down the road than you can think of.

How important is education?

There is nothing more important than education.

But Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were dropouts…

That is the beauty... a successful guy who dropped out and made it would be one in a million, but the remaining 9,99,999 might be failures. So you can’t use these as role models

Your comments on the quality of education in India.

Actually our education quality is not bad. But what we’re not teaching people is to be well-rounded human beings, to dream and aim high.

We care about scoring marks. Yes, that is important but when I was young there was a lot of free time, no TV, no video games… so much time to be with myself and my thinking.

> rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in

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