Narayana Murthy opens up about his 'big regret' regarding wife
Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy recently expressed regret for not involving his family members, especially wife Sudha Murty, in the company. Calling himself "wrongly idealistic," Murthy said in an interview with CNBC-TV18 that his wife was "more, or as qualified as" the seven engineers (including himself) who helped establish Infosys. Infosys was set up by Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan and Ashok Arora. The company started operations in Pune in 1981.
Murthy explains why he kept his family out of business
He explained his earlier stance on family involvement in business, saying, "I had this feeling that good corporate governance means not bringing family into it (same firm)." "Because those days, it was the only family rule, all kinds of children(of business owners) used to come and run the company, there used to be a violation of all laws," Murthy added. However, he now admits he was wrong and influenced by the environment at the time.
How did Murthy's opinion change?
Murthy's opinion about involving family members in the same business changed a few years ago, after a long discussion with two professors of philosophy from renowned universities. "They told me as long as a person has merit and goes through the normal procedure, you have no right to prevent that person from being part of the thing (company), that way you are taking away some of the rights," he said.
Will his son join Infosys?
When asked about the possibility of his son Rohan Murty joining Infosys, the 77-year-old co-founder of the IT behemoth firmly denied any chance, stating that Rohan is even stricter about these ideas. Rohan is the founder and CTO of AI tech company Soroco. Regarding his own involvement in Infosys, the 77-year-old said, "I am just a shareholder... I have not been consulted on any issue in Infosys since August 4 or 5, 2017, when Nandan Nilekani took over."
