Q: What was a decision that you took in the early days of Facebook that you regretted later?

Mark's answer:
I made all kinds of mistakes. Anything you can think of, I have made all the mistakes
It was all trial and error. You cannot be afraid of making mistakes
What you should focus on is not which mistake to avoid
But you should focus on what drives you
Focus not on the mistakes but as much good as you can



Zuckerberg shares challenges he faced while building Facebook:

Throughout building Facebook, there were lots of challenges and I felt felt like giving up
In the media there is a bias...the bias is that I built Facebook and Steve Jobs built Apple.
But there are thousands of people involved...
A study has shown that companies that get started with more cofounders are likely to be more successful
No one can overcome all of the challenges by themselves
My coworkers keep me going
13:15 (IST)
Mark Zuckerberg's advice for budding entrepreneurs and start-up companies

I have seen some people who are trying to start a company without figuring out what they want to do
All great companies started with people who cared about something
If you start working on something that you care for
And turn it into a company when it takes off, then it'll be more likely to do well
None of the people who built big companies thought that they would be as big as they ended up being
So my advice is focus on what you care about and not the decision to start a company
13:07 (IST)
A word of advice for young students from Mark Zuckerberg:

The skills you learn in college are what will help you the most. Just keep doing what you want to and do not let people get in the way



13:05 (IST)
Marks shares the journey of developing Facebook:

It wasn't long ago that I was sitting in the audience and listening to Bill Gates at Harvard
There was not one moment when I had a revelation that Facebook would be this big
I built the first version of Facebook because I wanted to connect to people in my school
Back then it didn't even occur to me that one day the entire world would be using it
We just kept doing the next thing and people kept saying this is just a fad

Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes: 'Avoid Backup Plans'
"I think that the minute that you have a backup plan, you've admitted that you're not going to succeed."
 

Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes is quick to acknowledge that her leadership lifestyle is not for everyone: She works seven days a week, purposefully limits her sleep time, and abstains from caffeine, meat, and vacations. Her personal life is her work life.

The Stanford University dropout--who acquired her first patent while a Stanford sophomore--says such laser-focused dedication is needed as Theranos attempts to transform a multibillion-dollar industry. Her company has developed a method to draw and test a small amount of blood through a single pinprick to a finger instead of filling vials of blood from a more invasive needle stick in the arm. Theranos is rolling out the still relatively uncommon procedure in 8,200 Walgreens stores, and Holmes has a vision for making affordable, mostly painless, blood testing the norm throughout the world.

She sees her work as the route to early detection of disease. In the United States, Holmes says, 40 percent to 60 percent of patients do not actually go and get the lab tests their doctors ordered (a Theranos competitor puts it at 30 percent), even as 80 percent of clinical decisions are based on laboratory test data.

And the traditional model of physician-ordered lab tests conducted through traditional phlebotomy is deeply rooted in the health care system, and in some states, protected by law.

The startup, founded in 2003, has more than 700 employees, a Palo Alto, California, headquarters, and an estimated valuation of $9 billion.

Wearing her trademark Steve Jobs-esque black turtleneck, she told a group of Stanford Graduate School of Business students gathered for a View From the Top talk that her company is "just getting started." And she shared some insights about that journey, which has made her, according to the Forbes 400 list, the youngest self-made woman billionaire.

Evaluate where you are.
"I think people can benefit tremendously from really asking why they're doing certain things," says Holmes.

For her, that meant taking stock while a sophomore at Stanford. She majored in chemical engineering, persuaded professor Channing Robertson to let her do research with PhD students, and was named a Stanford President's Scholar. The program provides students a stipend to conduct research, which she used to travel to Singapore to study the respiratory disease SARS. When she returned, she told Robertson she wanted to start her own company. "I had the tools that I needed to be able to go out and begin making this impact, and so for me, it was time to do that 100 percent," she says. Robertson became her company's first member of the board, which now includes two former U.S. secretaries of state: George Shultz and Henry Kissinger.

Support in childhood matters.
When other girls were getting Barbie dolls as birthday presents, Holmes was unwrapping toolkits for building things. "I think that being able to communicate to young children that there is nothing they can't do and to treat them like that at a very young age is incredibly powerful," says Holmes, who recalls that her parents took her seriously when, as a girl, she drew schematics for building a time machine. "I think I was very blessed to grow up in a family that always encouraged me to believe that there was nothing that I couldn't do."

Avoid backup plans.
"I think that the minute that you have a backup plan, you've admitted that you're not going to succeed," Holmes says.

Expect to fail spectacularly, but learn from the missteps.
Transformative change, Holmes says, requires the mindset that the risks are proportional to the change you are trying to create. "You don't do something like this without embracing failure constantly," she says.

Holmes uses a baseball analogy with her employees to illustrate the point: "Our approach is to take the most swings at the bat. We'll get the most home runs, we'll also get the most strikeouts, and we're just not going to make the same mistake twice."

Hire employees committed to seeing it through.
Theranos seeks out employees who are in it for the long run, and whose technical skills line up with why they want to work for the company. "This is not, you know, 'I'm going to go to this company and try it for two years and then go somewhere else,' and so on and so forth. This is about ownership of a mission," she says. To build a foundation for scaling the company's high standards, Holmes says she promotes heavily from within, putting people in leadership positions who can not only do the work but also embrace the company's values, and "live what that means."

Make your job your calling.
"I've always believed that we're here for a reason and that the purpose of life is to make a difference in the world," she says. "I think as you get to know yourself, you find what you love, what you really enjoy, what you would be doing if you weren't paid for it, ever," she says. "That's what you're looking for."

Find and be a role model.
MORE:

The Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs in America

How to Use the Power of 'Social Proof' to Attract Customers

Here's Why You Should Shred Your Boarding Pass

Four Reasons to Separate Your Finances

How Playing the Long Game Made Elizabeth Holmes a Billionaire

Holmes recalls a conversation she had with the national head of the Girl Scouts. The group had gathered all the valedictorians of the program, and asked how many wanted to become a leader in the technology business. Not a single girl raised her hand, Holmes says. In doing further research, the Girl Scouts blamed the lack of role models who can help girls see that this type of career is an option. "I think if we can change that very, very early in terms of the mind shift, we'll see a lot more of it," she says. "I wasn't weighted by influences that I couldn't do it or that I shouldn't do it."

Measuring and scaling success.
High valuation of her company, Holmes says, is not her marker of success. The first time she visited one of her company's blood testing centers at a Walgreens store, she met a cancer patient, her veins destroyed by invasive needles, who was getting her lab test done with a fingerstick for the first time. The woman was so grateful she started crying. "And I was driving home that day, and I was thinking about the fact that this is one person whose life is better because of what we did, and that's success," Holmes says. "Then, it's about doing that over and over again, and asking, 'Have we realized that standard of excellence?'"

This story was originally published by Stanford Business and is republished with permission. Follow Stanford GSB @StanfordBiz.

Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes: Young entrepreneurs need “a mission”
 Fortune

"When people say, 'I want to start a business,' " Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes said Wednesday, "my question is always, 'Why?' Because there's got to be a mission--there's got to be a reason you're doing it so that no matter how hard it is, you want to keep doing it over and over and over again, because you love it."

"And if you know what it is you're trying to do," she continued, "then it's a question of being very, very open to failure." Her attitude, she said, was: "We will fail over a thousand times till we get this thing to work, but we will get it on the 1001st time."

Holmes made these remarks during the closing interview of Fortune‘s 2014 MPW Next Gen conference at San Francisco's Ritz-Carlton Hotel. She was interviewed by Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers, who is also Executive Director, MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Holmes, a prodigious inventor who is still just 30, was the subject of a Fortunecover story in June. She dropped out of Stanford at age 19 to found Theranos, whose name is an amalgam of the words "diagnosis" and "therapy."

Her own mission, as she explained, is to enable very early detection of disease, before symptoms become manifest, when there is the best chance of a cure. Her goal is to "make a change in our world, so that people won't have to say goodbye too soon" to the ones they love after a diagnosis that came too late to do anything about it.

Theranos is now able to perform hundreds of blood tests from just a few drops of blood--drawn painlessly from a fingerstick rather than with a needle-and-syringe--at a cost that is generally one-quarter to one-tenth of what incumbent players currently charge. Investors value the private company at more $9 billion, and Holmes retains more than half the stock.

At the start of the interview, Sellers congratulated Holmes for having just been named one of 12 recipients of the 2015 Horatio Alger Award for "exceptional leaders." She is the youngest recipient since the award’s initiation in 1947. (It is given by the Horatio Alger Association, which grants scholarships and encourages youth to pursue their dreams through higher education.)

Holmes told Sellers she looked forward to the "opportunity to connect with so many young people ... with little girls in particular, who don't often get to hear from young women who have really pursued science and engineering and business." She said she wanted to tell those girls, "Yes, it's something that's cool, and something that they can excel in."

Holmes' company has been expanding rapidly, having grown from 500 to 700 employees even since Fortune wrote about it just five months ago. Its phlebotomists now draw blood from patients by fingerstick at dedicated "wellness centers" at more than 40 Walgreens in Arizona and one in Palo Alto, Calif., often emailing back results to both the patient and physician within hours.

Walgreens, which has 8,200 drugstores in the U.S., has committed to gradually rolling out the centers nationwide. Within five years, Holmes said, she hopes to have one of her centers within five miles of nearly everyone in the United States.

Theranos also performs tests on conventionally drawn samples sent to the company from clinical practices and hospital systems, which often simply want the cost savings of Theranos' tests.

In response to questions from conference participants, Holmes said that she slept four hours a night, and that her number one priority at the moment was finding the "right people" and to train them to help build the business.

Asked if she was experiencing "regulatory pushback," she said that, to the contrary, she was embracing regulation. She recognizes, she says, that for physicians and patients to rely on her tests, they must have the highest level of confidence in their accuracy. For that reason she is "proactively submitting every test we perform to the FDA" for approval, even though the law does not require that these tests be approved by the agency. "We embrace regulation because we see it as critical to realizing our mission."

One participant asked how she knew the time was right to drop out of such an excellent institution as Stanford to pursue her business? "That moment is when you find what you were born to do," she responded. "For me, I reached the point where I was spending all my time doing this anyway, and I was wasting my parents' money on courses I wasn't going to. So I had that moment where I was very clear: This is what I wanted to do with my life."

The full text of the 2015 Convocation Lecture delivered at the Indian Institute of Science by NR Narayana Murthy, Chairman Emeritus, Infosys Ltd, titled:  

How can you, the graduates of IISc, contribute towards a better India and a better world?

Dr Kasturirangan, Prof Rama Rao, Prof Anurag Kumar, my friends – Prof Balaram and Prof Ramasesha – Deans, faculty staff, guests, students, parents of the graduating student and, most Importantly, the graduating students, thank you very much for your kindness in inviting me to be part of this wonderful occasion. I am truly honoured. Congratulations to the graduating students. This is your day and have a great time. Today, I will speak to you about a subject that is very dear to me. That is, how the students and former students of premier higher educational institutions like IISc can play an important role in making India and the world a better place. I will use he to denote both male and female.

Science ls about unravelling nature and engineering is about using those discoveries and inventions to make life better for human beings. IISc ls at the forefront of scientific and engineering research in the country. IISc has produced students who have gone on to earn laurels in the most competitive places in the world. Your research is well cited Therefore, IISc deserves to lead in the transformation of India by using the power of science and engineering.

Ideas and inventions

I was presented a book called – From Ideas to inventions: 101 gifts from MIT to the world – when I was in Cambridge Massachusetts a couple of months ago. This booklet lists the various Inventions that MIT students, alumni, faculty and former faculty have been able to make and transform this world. Let me list out at least 10 major inventions that MIT has created in the last 50 years.

1. Ivan Getting and Brad Parkinson – Global Positioning System
2. Hugh Herr – Bionic Prostheses
3. Robert Noyce – Microchip
4. Ray Tomlinson – E-mail
5. Robert Langer – Slow drug delivery and polymer scaffolds for human tissues
6. Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adelma  – RSA encryption
7. Ray Kurzweil – Text/Speech Recognition
8. Shiintaro Asano – Fax Machine
9. Andrew Viterbi – Viterbi Algorithm
10. Norbert Weiner – Cybernetics

These are just the 10 I have selected. These invention happened because students and faculty at MIT walked the untrodden path, asked the unasked questions, used their intellectual prowess to take huge leaps, and demonstrate unusual courage to achieve the plausibly-impossible. The story is similar at many other western institutions of higher education. It is appropriate to recall that almost all invention like cars, electric bulb, radio, television, computers, internet Hifi, music players, MRI, ultrasound scanners, refrigerators, lasers, robots and many other gadgets and technology happened, thanks to the research by Western universities. These Inventions have made our lives more comfortable, have given us better health, made our lives more productive and brought us pleasure.

One invention, one technology, one idea...

On the other hand, let us pause and ask what the contributions of Indian institutions of higher learning particularly IISc and IITs, have been over the last 60-plus years to make our society and the world a better place. Is there one invention from India that has become a household name in the globe? Is there one technology that has transformed the productivity of global corporations? Is there one idea that has led to an earth-shaking invention to delight global citizens? Folks, the reality is that there is no such contribution from India in the last 60 years. The only two ideas that have transformed the productivity of global corporations – The Global Delivery Model and The 24-hour workday – came from a company called Infosys.

Yet, let us look at the problems that surround us here in India. We have the largest mass of illiterates in the world. We have the largest number of children with malnutrition. We have the poorest public health service in the world. We have the dirtiest rivers in the world. Our vehicles produce he highest carbon per vehicle in the world. We have the lowest per-capita usable water in the world. Our primary education is one of the lowest quality in the world. I can go on and on. The important thing is to recognise that this country has no shortage of problems to be solved urgently.

What is our hope? Our best hopes are youngsters like you. I do not find any difference in intellect, enthusiasm, energy and confidence between the young students at Western universities and here at IISc. Yet, when our students leave the portals of these institutions, there ls not much impactful work they have accomplished in research here. What is worse is that there ls not much that they accomplish when they go into the real world here in India. This is an issue that the elders of our society – academicians, politicians, bureaucrats and corporate leaders – must debate deeply, and act urgently if we have to leave a better world for our children and grandchildren.

Recreate the magic

This issue has not received the attention of our Prime Ministers since the time of Nehru. During his visit to the US in 1962, he exhorted the about-to-finish PhDs to come back to India and play a major role in creating an India that the founding fathers of this nation wanted – an India where the poorest child in the remotest village had access to decent education, healthcare, nutrition, and shelter. The result: Green revolution, white revolution, advances in atomic energy and the space program. Folks, we have to recreate the magic of the sixties

How do we recreate that magic? For that we have to recreate an environment of utmost respect for scholarship and for our Directors and faculty in the corridors of the government among bureaucrats, politicians and in our society. We have to become more open-minded in welcoming foreign intellectuals and students. We have to create opportunities for our students and faculty to spend time at well-known universities abroad. There must be free flow of ideas between our intellectuals and foreign scholars. The younger faculty must have full freedom to pursue their line of research without any hindrance.

No higher educational institution can succeed unless it has good focus on research. Research thrives in an environment of curiosity, daring, teamwork and a desire to solve problem around us. Ability to define problems independently by students is an important input. It is a good idea to expose our undergraduates to research. Interactions and benchmarking with global researchers, and attending and holding international conferences would enhance the research mindset.

Next, let me come to what you, the passing out students, can do to enhance the glory of IISc, become useful engineers and scientists, and make this a better country.

The first requirement is to develop an independent, inquisitive and problem solving mindset. Such minds create new ideas. Focus on learning concepts. What is learning? To me, it is the ability to extract generic inferences from specific instances, and use them to solve new and unstructured problems. After all, education is about learning to learn. You have to relate the concepts you learn in the class to understand Ideas, real life events and phenomena around you. Remember that every new problem you solve independently is a small, new discovery for you. They enhance your confidence to solve bigger problems.

Second, democratisation of education is a necessary step in development and I congratulate IISc on its commitment to it. However, it is important that IISc does not lose the interest and zeal of the top ranking students in each class. Many US universities have a good system of doing this. For example in such places, the top 10% to 15% students in Compute Science are allowed to take the Honours version of basic subjects like Operating Systems, Algorithms and Data structures, Automata Theory, Databases and AI. About two to three times the syllabus of the normal version is covered in the class in the Honour versions and the examinations are set at a very high standard.

You should continue the habit of reading technical books and journals even after your graduation. I have created a library of books like George Polya's How To Solve It, VJ Arnold'sMathematical Understanding of Nature: Essay on Amazing Physical Phenomena and Their Understanding by Mathematicians, the three volumes of Feynman, and Donald Knuth's four volumes on Programming. Please create a library, read at least a few pages every day, conduct thought experiments, and apply that learning to solve problem around you.

While examinations are important to benchmark your level of understanding of a subject, extreme focus on examination tends to reduce the deeper and long-term benefits of any earning. In my interactions with youngsters In India, I have noticed that they tend to forget even basics of any subject once the examinations are over. Basic concepts will have to stay with you throughout your life. You should apply them as often as you can, update them with contemporary advances, and use them in your work to understand new ideas and solve new problems.

Any worthwhile contribution to the nation is only possible if you combine your competence with professionalism. A professional is one who is dedicated to his or her profession and lives by its rules and ethics. He does not let personal relations interfere with his professional dealings. He is fair and is unbiased. He makes objective decisions based on the analysis of data. Everyone in the organisation, no matte how high or low in the hierarchy, is confident and enthusiastic in dealing with him, He works hard and makes all sacrifice necessary to make the lives of the next generation of the society better.

He has high aspirations. He believes in the adage: A plausible impossibility is better than a convincing possibility. His most powerful resources are his intellect, his knowledge and his value system. He keeps his intellect sharp, constantly acquires new knowledge and conforms to his value system.

While he excels as an individual, he also works in full synergy with his team. To me, the best example of teamwork is a symphony orchestra where several accomplished musician work in harmony under the direction of the conductor to produce divine music. This is particularly crucial in today's world where large, complex projects have to be executed through outstanding teamwork.

Just remember that every one of you can be successful. Success is the ability to bring smile on to the face of people when you enter a room. People smile not because you are intelligent, powerful or wealthy but because you care for them and you will use all of your competencies to make their lives better.

Have fun and be happy because only a happy mind can make a positive contribution to the society.

Finally, lead a life that your great alma mater will be proud of. Please show gratitude to your parents and your teacher who have carried you on their shoulders and brought you this far. God bless you all.

Thank you.

Ratan Tata's Words Of Inspiration - Inspire Minds To Change Lives

On Courage: I am, unfortunately, a person who has often said: You put a gun to my head and pull the trigger or take the gun away, I won't move my head. On Successful People: I admire people who are very successful. But if that success has been achieved through too much ruthlessness, then I may admire that person, but I can't respect him. On Leadership: It is easy to become a number one player, but it is difficult to remain number one. So, we will have to fight with a view to remain number one. On Nano: This project (the Nano) has proven to everyone that if you really set yourself to doing something, you actually can do it. On the Need to think Big: We have been. . . thinking small. And if we look around us, countries like China have grown so much by thinking big. I would urge that we all, in the coming years, think big, think of doing things not in small increments, not in small deltas, but seemingly impossible things. But nothing is impossible if you really set out to do so. And we act boldly. Because it is this thinking big and acting boldly that will move India up in a manner different from where it is today. On Risk: Risk is a necessary part of business philosophy. You can be risk-averse and take no risks, in which case you will have a certain trajectory in terms of your growth. Or you can, while being prudent, take greater risk in order to grow faster. On Risk: I view risk as an ability to be where no one has been before. I view risk to be an issue of thinking big, something we did not do previously. We did everything in small increments so we always lagged behind. But the crucial question is: can we venture putting a man on the moon or risk billions of rupees on a really way-out, advanced project in, say, superconductors? Do you restrict your risk to something close to your heart? On Employees: The way to hold employees today is to make their work and their day-to-day activities in the company exciting enough for them to stay. Not everyone will stay, but I think if we can empower more people and are willing to pass on the responsibility for that, and if people are satisfied and motivated, there's less chance of them wanting to leave and go to a competitor. On Low-Cost Products: It should not be, cannot be, that low-cost products come to mean inferior or sub-standard products and services; definitely not. The aim is to create products for that larger segment — good and robust products that we are able to produce innovatively and get to the marketplace at lower costs. On Customers: We should be treating the customer in the same way that we would want to be treated as customers. On Innovation:Barriers to innovation are usually in the mind. On Customers:There was a need to re-focus and look at how your customer sees you, and to pay more attention to what the customer wants rather than what you think she wants. Are you really the most cost effective producer? Are you aggressive enough to grab marketshare? Will you endeavour to dip your toe in the water and do something that you haven't done before? On Innovation:If you are a little innovative or a little bit of a gambler, and you make a product which is either ahead of its time or has an evolutionary design, or has features that work into a person's perception, then you have an acceptable product. On Questioning:I kept saying, please question the unquestionable. I tried to tell our younger managers just don't accept something that was done in the past, don't accept something as a holy cow. . . go question it. That was less of a problem than getting our senior managers not to tell the younger managers, 'Look young man, don't question me.' On Speed:Today, the world does not afford you to luxury of being a slow mover. Nor are there any holy cows. We have to be aggressive, be far-sighted enough to look into the future and we also have to be pragmatic enough to say that if we really are not in a leadership position in a particular business, we should look at exiting that business. On Icons:The kind of company one would want to emulate is one where products and technology are at the leading edge, dealings with customers are very fair, services are of a high order, and business ethics are transparent and straightforward. A less tangible issue involves the work environment, which should not be one where you are stressed and driven to the point of being drugged. On Introspection:All companies need to keep looking at their business definition and, possibly from time to time, to see if that definition needs to be redefined. If you take the example of Tata Steel, they could say that they are a steel company and find themselves in a shrinking market where steel is under threat of being replaced by some other material. The question is: what do we call ourselves? One view was that steel is a material, so can we be a materials company? We don't have to be in all materials, but can we be in composites, can we be in plastics, laminates, etc? The automotive business needs to think similarly, and so does the chemicals business. We have to keep looking at ourselves and asking: what is our business? On Innovation: My outlook on R&D is that it is an absolutely necessary thing for us to do. And I don't think we are doing enough. The point is not just spending money; it's how many patents you file, your innovation rate and your product development. . . If today you were to give everybody a mandate that they can spend 3 per cent of their revenue on R&D, assuming they can spare the money, I don't think many companies would know the what, where and how of spending that kind of money, other than to put up an R&D place and buy lots of equipment. On Customer Relationship: Where we have direct dealings with our customers, it is important that, at the middle-management levels, they are shown courtesy, dealt with fairly, and made to feel that they are receiving the attention they deserve. The interface with the customer should be a seamless one. On Risk: There have been occasions where I have been a risk-taker. Perhaps more than some, and less so than certain others. It is a question of where you view that from. I have never been a real gambler in the sense, that some successful businessmen have been. On Ethics: What worries me is that the threshold of acceptability or the line between acceptability and non-acceptability in terms of values, business ethics, etc, is blurring. On Success: I would not consider myself to have been tremendously successful or as having failed tremendously. I would say I have been moderately successful because there have been changes. On Survival: The strong live and the weak die. There is some bloodshed, and out of it emerges a much leaner industry, which tends to survive. On Challenges: If there are challenges thrown across and those challenges are difficult then some interesting, innovative solutions will come. If you don't have those challenges then, I think, the tendency is go on to say that whatever will happen, will take place in small deltas. On Planning: We never really plan big. We are not in keeping with what is happening around us. When you go to other countries around us you see it visibly that we are just back in time. And yet we have so much to offer. On Commitment: We have to clamp down on deviations from commitments. For ensuring greater commitment to performance, we also need to have a system which rewards performers and punishes those who don't perform. On Risk: We have is to be less risk-averse. We have been a very conservative house and we have been applauded for our conservatism but today we need to take more risk. We don't need to be flamboyant or cavalier but we need to be less conservative than we have been. On the Future: One hundred years from now, I expect the Tatas to be much bigger than it is now. More importantly, I hope the Group comes to be regarded as being the best in India. . . best in the manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver, and best in our value systems and ethics. Having said that, I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India. On Resistance: You will probably find the resistance (to change) more from those who haven't been doing well. On Change: Change is seen to be needed, and fast, so long as it does not affect me. We want to see change but if you suddenly tell me that I am the company that has to go, or has to be cut in half, or three of my businesses have to be hived off, then all of a sudden, the very person who made the noise about change is now saying, 'You don't have to do this.' On Humility: I would hope that as people who might take an elite position, would be considered amongst the elite in the country, you will always display humility in the manner in which you deal with your fellowmen, both in your company and in the country and you will continue to have passion in the areas in which you will work. On Doubt: On many, many occasions you would have doubts on whether what you are pursuing is the right thing. But if you do believe in what you are trying to do and you pursue it and stay with it in a determined manner, I am quite sure you will succeed. On Problems: There are solutions for most problems. The barriers and roadblocks that we face are usually of our own making and these can only be demolished by having the determination to find a solution, even contrary to the conventional wisdom that prevails around us, by breaking tradition.

attribution http://www.citehr.com/188056-ratan-tatas-words-inspiration-inspire-minds-change.html#ixzz2sZNKw8Ov

IIMA’s 49th Annual Convocation: March 22, 2014

Address by Shri Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra &
Mahindra

The graduating class of 2014 and their families; Mr. A.M.Naik, Chairman, Board of
Governors; Members of the faculty; Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is almost customary for convocation speakers to terrify their audience by telling them
that they are about to begin their lives. If I used that cliché with you, it would sound
patently unfair, wouldn't it? I would imagine that all of you probably feel as if a good
portion of your life has already been well earned and well spent!
The very fact that you were admitted to IIM Ahmedabad means that you have been
running the race of life for quite a while now. You probably studied diligently throughout
school, worked even harder in college, engaged in a diverse set of extracurricular
pursuits, worked strenuously to achieve high scores in the entrance tests, and finally
adopted a backbreaking pace just to make it through the last two years and qualify to
wear those robes. The world lies at your feet today.
So let me confirm that you are not fledgling, inexperienced birds about to fly out of the
nest and you need not be intimidated by this supposedly imminent and momentous
commencement of your lives.
There is however, a very different danger you face. The danger that 40 years from now
you will be reflecting upon your life, and declaring to your friends that your days at IIM A
were the best days of your life.
Now I am not refuting or challenging the fact that you might have thoroughly enjoyed
your stint here. What I wish for you is that things only get better from here onwards. And
I want you to hit the ground running and have as few wasted moments as is humanly
possible.
I have found that the days that I see now as wasted days of my life were those when I
didn't take an acceptable risk that I could have conceivably taken, when I didn't ask
myself if there was a new and different way to do what I was doing, when I didn't set my
sights as high as I possibly could have.
To give you an example, let me take you back more than two decades ago, when we
formed a Joint Venture with Ford Motor to make passenger vehicles. Why did we do
that? Well, because at that time, we had only just started making vehicles with hard
tops, and were diffident about our capability to transition to the modern car-making
world. We needed a mother ship in case our little spacecraft didn't survive out there.
Some years later during the tenure of that JV, when our homegrown Mahindra
engineers came up with the concept of the Scorpio SUV, we dutifully sought our joint
venture partner’s advice and assistance. I will never forget the day we displayed the
model of the Scorpio to the top brass of Ford, which had gathered at the tiny facility of a
boutique engineering firm in the UK.
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We showed them a crude clay model of the Scorpio and shared our development
budget with them. They seemed impressed, and right away, the Vice Chairman of the
company offered to depute a team of seasoned Ford engineers to assist us in the
development of the vehicle. At that point, the Chairman interjected and said, “No, let’s
not send any engineers at all. If we do, this vehicle may come out looking like a Ford
car, and costing just as much. If these guys can really develop this car they’ve just
shown us at the cost they claim they can, then I think we are the ones who should be
learning from them.”
I owe Ford a debt of gratitude for leaving us to fend for ourselves. Because when I look
back upon these events, I know that the choice Ford made put us solidly on the path of
self-reliance. But I admit that I have often wondered, how things would have turned out
had Ford made a different choice.
What if they had not abandoned us to do the Scorpio alone? It is obvious that we would
not have built the capabilities we possess today.
So I have asked myself: why did I make that offer in the first place? What was the
source of diffidence that made us ask for an alliance? Could we have been more
audacious, and attempted the impossible right from the start? Why did it take such an
enormous leap of faith for us to conceive of our own indigenously designed
vehicle? Why did it take so long to believe in ourselves?
The conclusion I arrived at was that embedded in my generation’s psyche was a fear of
flying, a deep fear of failure; A character trait that is the mortal enemy of
entrepreneurship. And even when we indulged in entrepreneurship, we tended to stay
within our comfort zones. An example of this that I enjoy citing is that of a good friend of
mine, an outstanding businessman who has grown his family business into a formidable
footwear chain throughout India. One of the extensions to his business was a new high
quality brand, conceived and created for a more upscale segment. A brand called
Mochi.
It has performed extremely well here in India, but I recall a conversation with him when I
asked him why he hadn’t ventured abroad with that product, even as new and
differentiated footwear brands were sprouting in the western world. I told him that I could
easily envision Mochi selling on a high street in London. It didn’t seem too outlandish an
idea; frankly Mochi even sounded like a long-lost relative of Gucci! He was honest
enough to admit to me that he just wasn’t ready to take that risk….he was doing fine in
India and the pond here was large enough.
I began pondering on why we were so timid, why we were afraid to compete in
the toughest arenas? Why did some American college kids from my generation believe
they could take on global heavyweights from out of their dorm rooms, while we believed
we first needed to compete in the flyweight class?
Well I put myself on the couch, so to speak, and subjected myself to some amateur
psychoanalysis, and I want to share one hypothesis that I came up with. It's a narrative
I've shared before in other gatherings, and if any of you have heard it before, please
accept my apologies. However, I never tire of retelling it...
It goes back to my high school days in a boarding school in the hill station of Ooty. The
year was 1970 and my class was giving its final exam for the Indian Schools Certificate.
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The exam was conducted in a large auditorium, with a stage upon which was placed a
large iron safe. Just before the exam commenced, the headmaster, wearing black
academic robes, looking like a character out of a Harry Potter movie, walked
ceremoniously to the safe, opened it with the combination code in his possession, and
extracted from it the question papers for that subject which had been despatched to
India from the U.K! Those papers were then distributed to the students, along with blue
books, and once our time was up, our blue answer books were collected and put into
the safe, from where they were despatched back to the UK for correction! And this
process applied to every subject taught to us except Indian languages.
Now I want you to imagine what subconscious messages were being transmitted to our
young minds. The message was that even 25 years after Independence, we Indians
were not competent enough to correct our own examination papers let alone set them.
What subliminal effect do you think it would have had on me and my
classmates? Could one have invented any better way to subtly discourage a group of
young people from believing they could take on the mighty west?
I believe that this psychological legacy of colonialism was at least as pernicious as the
memories of physical humiliation. Why on earth did we allow this residue to remain for
so long? We were in a state of mind best summed up by this Urdu Sher:
Ajab ye zindagi ki
Kaid hai har insaan
Rihayi maangta hai aur
Riha hone se darta hai
Which essentially means that even though we long for our freedom, we are mortally
afraid of being released.
But I must also tell you the amusing and gratifying sequel to this narrative. I first told this
story at a gathering of Indians in Silicon Valley over 10 years ago. Some months after
that event, I received a mail from one of the members of the audience, who said he
couldn’t resist sending me a copy of a news item he had read in a British newspaper. It
seems that one of the three main UK examination boards—AQA—had reached an
understanding with a private company in India to outsource the marking of 500,000
examination papers. The papers would be digitized and sent to India for marking and
returning to the UK! I guess life does come full circle and some larger force up there
possesses an ironic sense of humour!
Now I won't blame you if your reaction is that this story is simply an entertaining excuse,
a personal rationalization for the timidity of my generation. Be that as it may, my
submission to you is that your generation has no such excuses.
You all were schooled at a time when no subliminal signals of inferiority were sent out to
you. To the contrary, you have been students during an era when India's star was on the
ascendant. You grew up and studied at a time when the world's gaze was on India, and
investors began flocking to it. A time when the world believed that India was pregnant
with the potential to become an economic superpower. (It's another matter of course
that we risk entering the Guinness book of records for the world's lengthiest pregnancy!)
There is nothing, therefore, that prevents all of you from aspiring, from the very start, to
be world-beaters in all you do. You can dare to be different, dare to disturb the Universe.
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You carry no mental shackles that impede you from creating businesses that will
command the attention of the globe. Your objective must be to conquer the world, not
just your neighbourhood.
At this point I would like to admit that I have an ulterior motive for sharing these stories,
a not-so-hidden agenda. And that is to make you seize a future that is staring you in the
face. I truly believe we are at the threshold of an Age of Entrepreneurship in India. And
no, this is not something that will suffer a marathon pregnancy. My evidence is
admittedly anecdotal, but I see clear signposts to a visible future.
Over the past two decades since liberalisation, a number of trends have begun
converging and leading to a critical mass of the elements needed for a breakout in
entrepreneurship.
First, of course, is the dramatic rise in the number of young people who have earned a
good technical or business education. Second is the phenomenal rise in the value of our
market capitalisation, which provides the incentive to these young people to stay on in
India and look for the payoff right here at home. Since 2007, Indians have founded 8%
of all technology and engineering startups in the US, and 14% of all Silicon Valley
companies. Obviously we have entrepreneurship in our DNA. It's time to bring the show
back home.
The third is the much awaited sprouting of venture capital firms and networks,
which provide the necessary fuel for startups. Despite problems of exit, PE and VC
investments grew by 46% in the first half of fiscal 2014 and organizations like the Indian
Angel network are growing like a virus. The Indian Government only last week
announced its plans to set up a $1billion venture fund that would be seeded by Silicon
Valley heroes of ethnic Indian origin.
Finally and most important, is the role of new technologies in generating a multiplicity of
options for new business models.
Information technology spawned a generation of Indian businesses in the outsourcing
arena during the nineties. But the internet and smart connectivity are generating new
ventures to a degree that will dwarf that outsourcing boom. Internet penetration is finally
gathering steam, and new and cheap smartphones will dramatically deepen that
penetration.
In this arena, Indian startups don't suffer the disadvantages of the old generation of
entrepreneurs for whom poor infrastructure was a major impediment.
Technology allows us to trump infrastructure. In fact, the lack of physical infrastructure
itself provides entrepreneurial opportunities to provide virtual infrastructure. For
example, impossible traffic conditions and congested cities will accelerate e-commerce
in India. And poor recreational facilities only means that our dependence on 4G enabled
entertainment in the palm of our hand will explode.
Unlike some of the closely held Industrial technologies of the past, today's technology
already resides in India, and there is nothing to prevent a tiny team, say, in Bangalore
from making the world its market.
It's no surprise then, that Facebook recently bought a small startup called Little Eye labs
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in Bangalore, giving them an early payoff to their perspiration. This is just the beginning
of a tidal wave of such buyouts, which will only serve to enhance the incentives for risk
takers.
Technology is also being a wildly disruptive force in shaping industry structure.
Facebook pays 19 billion for What's App, and makes giant telcos shiver because of their
plan to offer free telephony. Technologies such as 3D printing and embedded
intelligence are turbocharging traditional manufacturing and enhancing its
competitiveness. Hence I see no reason why India can’t lead the world in “intelligent”
manufacturing and small factory startups could very well challenge the hegemony of
older and larger manufacturing companies.
If the old competitive landscape could be compared to a placid river upon which giant
barges had right of way, think of this new disruptive and unpredictable competitive
environment as white water rapids, which are better suited to small and nimble kayaks
that can manoeuvre between the shifting currents. Evolution is now favouring the small
and the agile, and the old barriers to entry are fast eroding.
I say again, the age of entrepreneurship is upon us, and I urge you to embrace it. Not
just because of the economic rewards that lie in store for you, but also because your
innovation could provide the much needed answers to the many problems that still snap
at our heels.
This country is crying out for better healthcare, education, nutrition, water and sanitation.
Your creativity can provide opportunity for you to do well even as you do good.
This is not to downplay the virtues and the rewards of a more conventional career
option. I compliment all of you who have landed plum jobs at blue-chip firms
and consultancies and Investment banks. In fact, I sincerely hope at least one of you
might have chosen my group to work with. But I worry that if a good number of you
have not chosen to leverage this age of entrepreneurship, then who will?
If an IIM grad does not showcase the 'next big thing', then who will?
If one of you does not build a new age company that will command the admiration of the
globe, then who will?
Yes, many of you who try to be entrepreneurs will fail. But the failure to try, the failure to
take any risk is perhaps the greatest failure of all.
On the other hand, if you learn to celebrate the learnings that come from failure, then I
guarantee you that success will eventually come, and that however enjoyable a time
you've had in college and here at IIM, your best days will indeed lie ahead of you.
As you continue your journey, one thing you can count on, the rules of the game are
going to change. Make sure you're the one changing them.
Good luck, and Godspeed.