Narayana Murthy's success mantras for entrepreneurs

"Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. Infosys also provides a complete range of services by leveraging our domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers."

plinkplonk3• 17 years ago

[Due Disclosure - I am Indian and live in Bangalore and have friends who work in Infosys]

Mr Murthy started a body shopping company. Entrepreneur? certainly, by definition of the word.

But not along the lines of the startup founders discussed here on HN. At best the analogy would be to someone who starts a consulting company.

PS: I say "body shop" Infosys says it "provides a complete range of services by leveraging our domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers"

;-)

screwperman• 17 years ago

One of your older comments might be worth adding: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=62993

Most of his speeches (and Nandan Nilekani's for that matter) are ghost written, by a small team of smart MBA s from local elite schools like IIMs(Indian Institute Of Management). One of my school buddies is on that team that's how I know.

SingAlong• 17 years ago

plinkplonk nailed it!!!

In Infosys, they make people slog for 12hrs a day + extra work hours per day if the project isn't completed by time. People complain of tight schedules that are almost impossible and no time to learn new tech.

Also the 6-month maternity leave for women has been reduced to 3 months now. A friend's wife who recently gave birth to a child, was told a strict "no", even when she said she would take the 3-month maternity leave and work at home for the another 3-months after which she would get back to her normal work schedule. (she then quit her job).

So where does Narayan Murthy's easy-work-schedule for women, "we support women empowerment" mean? He recently wrote a guest column on how Infosys supports women and told abt all the facilities they weren't even providing on paper.

Also another funny thing, just a couple weeks ago, I read an interview by Nandan Nilekani in which he said that Infosys won't be laying of any of their workforce (article headlined in the newspaper's business page). 3 days later they layoff 2600 and it's in a small column in the newspaper's business page.

People should rather look for some stuff from people like Guy Kawasaki, Sam Altman or whoever's done it. I often listen/read abt people who do it for their first time and talk abt their experience and how they did it. Each have their own way of doing it and the business is different and it's fun to know how the other guy did it.

[full disclosure: I'm from Bangalore too. And also have a couple of relatives and a lot of friends who work at Infosys]

P.S: I respect Murthy for what he's done/achieved, but not for what he talks (all the common stuff and total bullshit).

medianama3• 17 years ago

Thats a very immature point of view.

Consulting/Body shop sounds a very easy business on paper but, its a huge challenge to scale it up. Look at their financial statements - Its a very well managed business with high growth rates and very strong margin numbers...

Its easier said than done.

plinkplonk3• 17 years ago

" sounds a very easy business on paper"

I never said this, so I don't feel the need to refute it. My opinion was not about the absolute difficulty of bodyshopping,(iow I didn't say it was a very easy/easy/difficult/very difficult thing to do).

My comment said that Mr Murthy was not an entrepreneur "along the lines of the startup founders on HN". The qualifier is important.

That said, to address your point, imo, starting a body shop and running it successfully may indeed be difficult, but I would imagine conceiving, building, and sustaining a software product is at least an order of magnitude harder.

Narayana Murthy's success mantras for entrepreneurs

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