Despite being the founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy embodies simplicity and is known for his humble demeanour and frugal lifestyle. Not just in the boardroom but even in his personal life, his down-to-earth personality and approachability are remarkable. Murthy opts for economy-class travel, prefers modest clothing over extravagance and is up for a conversation with any curious mind he comes across. Here’s an example.
Naren Krishna, the CEO of a company named Jellybean, found himself seated next to Narayana Murthy in an IndiGo flight in the economy section. It was because of the man’s approachability that he was able to discuss with him a myriad of interesting topics, from artificial intelligence to the Indian economy. He took to LinkedIn to share the story.
The flight was travelling from Delhi to Bengaluru over the weekend.
“Had an unexpected and pretty cool thing happen during my flight from DEL to BLR this weekend. I found myself seated next to Mr. Narayana Murthy sir. The sheer disbelief of sharing an economy seat with a visionary of his stature lingered throughout the journey. What blew me away was how down-to-earth and approachable he was. In the few hours we shared, I delved into a myriad of topics with him, from the future landscape with AI, the pivotal role the youth plays in the Indian economy on a global scale, surpassing even China in the future & managing expectations, dealing with stress, and navigating through failures while building a company,” he wrote.
He went on to share an important lesson that Narayana Murthy taught him – being detached from results.
“One gem he shared was the importance of detachment from results, he recounted instances from Infosys journey when, despite putting in relentless efforts, big contracts didn’t materialise, while unexpected deals surprisingly fell into place. The key takeaway for me in this discussion was the quote he mentioned from Louis Pasteur, ‘Chance favours the prepared mind,'” he added.
He further mentioned that Murthy thinks that artificial intelligence will “exponentially boost human productivity by 10-100x in various sectors.”
Have a look at the full post here:
Naren is truly lucky to have experienced a one-on-one conversation with the legend! 😀