How can you contribute towards building the Indian society and the Indian nation? No better way than to upgrade the quality of young people in school, particularly the schools which are run by the state government in the villages.
If one has been blessed or have been fortunate enough to have got much more than normal wealth, it is but natural that one expects a certain fiduciary responsibility in terms of how that wealth is applied, used and leveraged for purposes of society.
I.B.M. was not really bringing their best technologies to India. They were dumping old machines in the country that had been thrown away in the rest of the world 10 years before.
Our experience is that it is not terribly difficult to do business in China. But the issue is, how much stability do you have in terms of what you negotiate up front and when you've got your feet and your investments on the ground.
There are three lessons in philanthropy - one, involve the family, especially the spouse. She can be a remarkable driver of your initiative. Two, you need to build an institution, and you need to scale it up. Choose a leader for philanthropy whom you trust. Three, philanthropy needs patience, tenacity and time.
There's a reasonable amount of traction in college education, particularly engineering, because quite a lot of that is privatized, so there is an incentive to set up new colleges of reasonably high quality.
We run courses for government school teachers on Sundays. These teachers pay for their own food and stay; the kind of commitment you find in these people is remarkable.
You have students in America, in Britain, who do not want to be engineers. Perhaps it is the workload, I studied engineering, and I know what a grind it is.
You must get engaged with people who are far less privileged than you. I think you must devote your time if not your resources... Because it is very, very important from the point of view of the development of our country.
The three ordinary things that we often don't pay enough attention to, but which I believe are the drivers of all success, are hard work, perseverance, and basic honesty.
I can't have my employees sitting in traffic when they should be in the office. Spending two-and-half hours in the car is a huge waste of productive time.
