A day after the announcement of his successor, Mr N.R. Narayana Murthy, the Chairman and the Chief Mentor of Infosys, has hinted at a larger public role for himself in future.

Over a working lunch on Sunday afternoon at the Infosys Heritage Building in Bangalore, Mr Murthy revealed that he had discussed the Jan Lokpal Bill with Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi and also worked on its draft. Asked specifically if he would accept a public post to carry out something close to his heart, Mr Murthy said he would be willing to do so.

Excerpts from the interview with Business Line :

You and the other founders will, at some point of time, walk away from all the wealth you created at Infosys, an over $6-billion company. If you see corporate India, you can hardly see any such model being practised. What kind of thought process went into such a decision?

I have often said that the best index of the success of a corporation is its longevity — how long it has survived and been successful. Therefore, hopefully, Infosys should be a company that will survive and succeed for hundreds of years. And, if that is required, then, we need to develop successive generation of leaders, new ideas and new paradigms. New thoughts should take precedence over old ideas and old thoughts. It is normal that a set of professionals who came together in 1981 should give way to another set of professionals.

Do you think that this should be the template for all the corporate houses as well?

I don't think that I can prescribe what model is a better model. Each of us looks at things from our own perspective. Therefore, I don't think I have the competence to comment on other models.

Yesterday, Mr Shibulal talked about Infosys version 3.0. How different will 4.0 be?

I think it is not fair on my part to upstage Kris or Shibulal when they are just talking about Infy 3.0 by talking about Infy 4.0. I think we should let them articulate Infy 3.0. You should talk to them and ask them questions and let them complete 3.0, because the need of the hour is focus on execution. We are a nation very comfortable with ideas but very unsuccessful in execution. Therefore, all along my life, I have focused on execution. And in keeping with this spirit, I would say that Kris and Shibulal should focus on executing Infy 3.0 first before they think of 4.0.

Mr K.V. Kamath talked about discipline, empowerment and recognition. Are these always going to be part of the bedrock of Infosys?

At least, I have always done that. Whether it is a janitor or a colleague of mine on the Board, I have believed in discipline, empowerment and recognition. I'm a great stickler in budgeting. I would go down to the lowest level of budgeting in the earlier days when money was not much and we had to be very careful. And people would ask me, ‘Why are you spending so much time?' I would say, ‘Look, if I understood the budget and then approved it, then that person doesn't have to come to me for any further approvals'. That means there is no empowerment. But, it is so much good that we sit down and discuss as mature individuals what the budget is, why he or she wants to spend, and what he or she is going to achieve. So, I think empowerment requires that we have a certain discipline. And when people are empowered, and they use discipline to perform, then you must recognise it.

Somewhere in the mid-1990s, everybody wanted to know the reason for Wipro and Infosys not getting into system software products. You have a Finacle (banking software product) but nothing after that.

Other than America, no other country has produced any system software product, because product business is a lot about brand, about filling up the shelf; it is a lot about keeping in touch with market realities, being up-to-date in the market, etc. Sitting in India, designing a product for the most-advanced economies is not easy. You have to live and breathe in that environment. Only then ideas on what will succeed in that market will come to you. But, sitting in India, it is very difficult to do this.

What is the share of the global IT market in India?

It is very small. For example, look at Infosys or most other companies: the contribution from India is less than 3 per cent or 4 per cent of our revenues. It is the same with most other companies. It could be 10 per cent in some cases. So, I think the environment is still not conducive for us to think of a leading edge product for the global market, not just for India.

How would you like to see Infosys a decade from now? At that time, all the founders would have left the company and it would be led by non-founders.

I don't look at it as founders and non-founders. Because, after all, let's remember that seven professionals came together in 1981 and attracted more and more professionals. So, I don't think that any one of the so-called founders is less of a professional than anybody else in the company.

Kris has designed the most complicated distributed process control system. Shibulal has designed and implemented the largest application software package done by Infosys. I wrote a BASIC interpreter in 1971, much before Bill Gates and Paul Allen did, but look where I am and look where they are! The point I'm making is the Infosys founders have been much more professional or at least as much professional as anybody else. So, I think that the whole distinction is a wrong distinction.

So, going forward, do you think Infosys would be an entirely different company from the one you founded it?

I think that as long as we create an environment where meritocracy, openness to new ideas, pluralism, speed, imagination, and excellence in execution are respected and revered, I think new ideas will come. We will adapt to the market changes. We will come out with differentiation and, hopefully, succeed.

Are there any checks and balances inside Infosys to keep it on track all the time?

There are lots of checks and balances. This is a debating society. Everybody has his or her opinion and is respected. This is a meritocracy. This is a place where the hierarchy of ideas prevails rather than the hierarchy of men and women. Therefore, we have created lots of checks and balances.

The model which companies like Infosys uses in terms of hiring people in relation to the projects it bags can become unsustainable. For example, for every extra billion dollar of business, you will have to add lot more people. Is this model workable anymore?

In a country like India where there is a huge unemployment, where there is very low individual productivity, I will be very proud of getting the opportunity to create 1.3 crore jobs instead of just 1.3 lakh jobs as of now. As long as what we are doing is legal and ethical, where people are working as a team and as long as they can support their families and can provide better future for their children, why not? Why do you have to do what America has done? This country's problem is unemployment and, therefore, we have to create good jobs and jobs with good disposable income.

In a career spanning over three decades, there must have been several lows and highs…

There have been lots of highs — whether it was getting the first customer, or it was the inauguration of this campus itself in 1994, getting the company listed in 1993 and getting listed in Nasdaq in 1999, founding the Infosys Foundation and then becoming part of Nasdaq 100 or inauguration of our buildings by Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi.

I had some lows — when one of my favourite senior colleagues had to leave the company under-not-so pleasant circumstances; when I had to take a decision all alone whether to accept the resignation of another colleague of mine. These were difficult situations, but, in the end, I am so happy that we did the right thing. Because, as I have said always that I had this philosophy of consulting others and listening to other people and taking all the good ideas they had and their ideas become my ideas.

Are there any new rules of the game for an entrepreneur to start a company from those when you and six others founded Infosys?

Not really. First, they must have an idea whose business value to the market or to consumer can be expressed in a simple sentence and not in a complex sentence. It must say, ‘look this thing that I am producing reduces your cost by X percentage or it improves productivity, or reduces cycle time or it enhances your comfort'. In other words, you should have a very clear value proposition. Second, the market must be ready. If the market is not ready to pay and buy that, no matter how good an idea it is, it won't succeed. Third, you need a team that brings both complementary strengths and uniform values. Values are very important. In the beginning, it is all about deferred gratification. It is all about sacrifice, being away from your loved ones, and chasing dreams.

You need to have a spirit of sacrifice. There are many people who comment on founders versus professionals. Unfortunately, none of them knows the kind of sacrifice the founder professionals went through in the beginning. Their wives cooked food for the employees, their wives carried out secretarial jobs; they lived on $250 per month in the US and had to be away from their children. So, I think it is very easy to criticise and comment about founders and non-founders. If you are an entrepreneur, in the beginning, you have to make tremendous sacrifice. Only those who can indeed make that kind of sacrifice should become entrepreneurs.

On a larger canvas, one sees more and more cases of corruption being unearthed in the country. Someone like Anna Hazare had to go on a fast unto death to get the Government to give far more teeth to the Jan Lokpal Bill. Do you think leaders like you should be far more proactive on such issues?

I am very glad that Anna Hazare has spearheaded this movement. I am also very happy that an able leader like Pranab Mukherjee is heading it from the Government side. I am quite hopeful that the two will work together to come out with a Lokpal Bill which will hopefully have lots of good ideas that Hazare and the others have articulated in their Jan Lokpal Bill. I think, by June, they will come out a good draft.

As far as pro-activeness is concerned…

Let me put it this way. I had lots of discussions with Arvind Kejriwal, Lyngdoh and Justice Verma on the draft of the Jan Lokpal Bill. I also met both Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi and had discussions with them on the importance of this Bill. They were very receptive. Both of them were very enthusiastic and, therefore, I do believe we will see a positive resolution.

If the nation offers you a post which allows you to carry out something which is dear to your heart, will you be willing to take up that kind of a post?

Of course, I will be willing to take it up. But the best thing would be if I get an opportunity to address the youngsters, to exhort them to more disciplined, to have good work ethic, to work as a team, and to have aspirations, I would say that's the job I would enjoy most.

We all know that you were at one point of time a die-hard socialist, but you embraced capitalism later. Do you think capitalism, as a concept, has undergone a change and should it be redefined now?

Not really. I think capitalism is all about creating a system where every individual has an opportunity to better himself or herself through hard work, smartness and enterprise. However, what we need to do is: One, there should be a better regulation so that the system does not go out of control as we saw happening during the financial tsunami. Second, we have to create a platform where respect becomes more important than wealth. Today, most respected leaders are evaluated on the basis of how much profit they have made. There has to be some kind of a poll among peers. And they should say this man is most respected, honest etc. If you make respect more respectable, then the people will start showing restraint in these matters.

Mahatma Gandhi said the biggest force you have to desist from doing wrong things is the moral force. There is this inner voice and if the leaders of capitalism were to listen to the inner voice and they thereby lead as simple a life as possible, exercise self-control and self-restraint, I think capitalism will indeed become even more popular. But we should not discourage capitalism, enterprise, hard work, smartness of individuals, because the problems are not at that level. The problems are at the level of leaders of capitalism.

Is there anything that you feel you could have done but did not find the time to do?

I love reading. I love listening to music. I love comedies, especially American TV comedies and sitcoms because I am not that good in Hindi. In any case I am not clued into that. Hopefully, I should be able do that.

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