Infosys’ Narayana Murthy(NRN) recently has told “IT industry needs to pay higher taxes and does not need Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) extension any more”.    This is the reason behind this article now.

Well, I had seen many companies following some illegal and unethical practices during their start-up stage.  To ‘grow’, it was absolutely necessary for such start-up companies to adhere to ‘normal practices’ due to the current political system in the country.    I’m not suggesting here to be illegal.  But practically it is very difficult to be 100% legal in the current scenario. For example, people from top IT companies travel on Business visa to work in US because of the complexities involved in getting work permit.  If they don’t send their team on business visa, they won’t get further revenue for their offshore center.

While I was working in a MNC 13 years back, we used to ‘photocopy’ books from the office library.  After few years, once it became ‘affordable’ for the company (this is the perception I got, may be wrong), they formulated a rule that no photocopying of books were allowed. 

With the ‘legal’ aspect removed in the above example, NRN’s statement looks similar to me now.  Infosys has grown to a great extent that they can afford to pay huge taxes.  But think about small and medium companies that wish to become ‘another Infosys’.   How can they afford such huge taxes?  Shouldn’t they also enjoy similar tax benefits which Infosys enjoyed for more than 25 years in India?

What I feel is that there should be some ‘tax slab’ for each company.  For the first slab, there must be lesser tax or nil tax.  Then it should increase gradually like the individual income tax.  If NRN meant that statement this way, it would be really great.  I wish he meant that way because I’ve great respect for him and his team.  I learned about ‘ethics’ only from his company while I was working there.  Also, no one should comment that, ‘You can be legal and ethical when it is affordable’.

When I used to read the results of “Best companies to work for” in many business magazines, I used to think that apart from the parameters mentioned in the survey result, there must be one more parameter “Number of Entrepreneurs from that company”.  Here I’ll explain why this parameter must be added.

While talking to few of my friends in my old company I asked them whether they had any plan to change their job or start their own business.  Most of them said that they were very comfortable with the company and never wanted to leave it till their retirement.  One friend told me very frankly, “Viru, I am not extremely happy here.  But what will I say in my next interview if I wish to leave this job.  I really don’t know.  Also I’ve taken so many loans for which I need to pay a major part of my salary.  If I wish to start my own business, who will pay my EMIs every month?”

His answer made me think that some ‘big & famous’ companies mould their employees in such a way that they become ‘unemployable’ in other companies.  Also they never offer ESOPs to their employees to become financially stable (if not rich) to start their own business.  Those companies can easily appear in “Best companies to work for” list as they keep their employees ‘happy’.

In my perception, if you want to call a company as “Best company to work for”, you must also judge it by the number of ‘Entrepreneurs’ it has generated. If this number is more, it means that the company had given enough confidence (both technically & managerially) for their employees and did help them to be financially stable to start their own company.  Which survey will add this parameter?

(Please Note:  I’ve started a website http://exinfoscions.com/entrepreneurs to list the entrepreneurs who worked at Infosys for more than 8 years.  It will be ‘UP’ soon.)

Once I had to come by bus from Bangalore to Chennai.  I boarded a bus and was waiting inside along with other passengers.  A person with bag full of some plastic items and oranges boarded the bus and started giving a demo of his product.  He took a piece of lemon and a small plastic item.  He squeezed the lemon with the plastic item and collected the juice in a tumbler.  He then took an orange, pierced it with the plastic item and showed us how he was able to collect the juice effortlessly with that ‘gadget’.  There were 40 passengers in the bus and four people bought it because it was just Rs.20/-.

I already had bought that plastic juicer for Rs.20/- and it never worked for me at home because I had to use very high pressure (with my hands) to extract the juice from the lemon or orange.  But I started thinking about his business model.

The plastic gadget may cost him only Rs.3 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5), orange and lemon may be Rs.2 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5).  So, for an investment of Rs. 10/- he was able to get a profit of Rs.10/-  From a crowd of 40 passengers, he was able to sell 4 which means he made Rs.40/- as profit.  It took him just 15 minutes per bus.  If he boards 30 buses per day (7.5 hours of work), he would have made at least 30 x Rs.40 = 1200 profit per day.  If he works for 25 days/month, then his monthly income is Rs.30,000/- (without any tax).  It’s the salary of a software engineer working in an MNC company.

What is the secret behind this guy’s success?

I guess the answer would be, “He works very hard, is able to manage the perception of customers very well and his business model to share his by-product (i.e. juice) with the bus driver.”

Yes, he has to apply very high pressure every time he squeezes the lemon/orange without people realizing it so that it would appear as if the juice is flowing easily from the gadget.  He didn’t lie or cheat.  He showed a live demo where he managed the perception of the customers very well.  He was allowed to give a demo in all the buses by the drivers because he finally gave the ‘orange juice’ to the driver (win-win formula).

Shall we say that ‘Marketing your product is in your hands’?

I am lazy to do any exercise.  I guess many of us may be like me.   I don’t create time to do exercise (many people use this sentence instead “I don’t have time to do any exercise”).

Whenever I read an article about food, exercise or health, I enjoy that and feel as if I will be doing something  soon to take care of my health.  But as soon as I finish reading it, I again become lazy to do any exercise or control my diet.

I used to think many times why am I lazy?  Why am I not taking care of my health?   The answer is simple: It is natural to be lazy.

Is there any way I can get rid of this laziness and take care of my health?

I guess there is one way: Just spend 10 minutes everyday at a particular time say morning 7 am or evening 6 pm for the first 15 days or 30 days doing nothing (easiest, isn’t it?) or some small exercise (breathing or jumping, etc).  After that we may get used to it (like reading news paper) and 10 minutes may become 15 and then 30 minutes.

Note: (Wordpress Plugin style): This concept is not tested with any humans (ver 1.0 and above) by me.  I’m going to test it from tomorrow.  If you wish to test this concept, please write a comment here.

I had to attend an event in Mumbai last December.  I booked Two-tier Air-conditioned train tickets 50 days in advance.  I didn’t go for flight tickets because even though they were just two times costlier than these train tickets, they were non-refundable and I would have lost the entire amount had I canceled them due to any reason (actually I had more chances for cancellation since my mother was not well).  Since I’m an entrepreneur now, I didn’t wish to waste money by booking flight tickets.

Unreserved compartment from Mumbai to Chennai

While my travel from Chennai to Mumbai was confirmed at the last minute, the return journey was not confirmed.  When I checked flight ticket fares, they shot up to 10 times that of the train ticket.  I had only two options: 1) book a flight ticket for an exorbitant amount and reach home in 2 hours or 2) travel for 24 hours by Train in an unreserved compartment.  I choose the second option since I didn’t wish to pay such an exorbitant amount (you will understand this when you become an entrepreneur after earning a very good salary in a regular job).

The moment I looked at the unreserved compartment, I was stunned.  It was jam packed.  I thought for a second, “Should I go by flight to avoid this mad crow?”.  I decided not to.  I thought to myself, “Now I’m an entrepreneur.  I should take any risk in my life. What is the worst thing that would happen by traveling in an unreserved compartment?  Whatever it is, let me enjoy that.”  This thought gave me a wonderful experience.

I was not even able to board the compartment.  Somehow I managed to board it and was standing for 3 hours till the train reached Pune.  Standing was not painful because the first half-an hour I was standing carrying my luggage.  When I got some place to offload them, I felt better standing alone.  After Pune, I got 16 sq.cm of space to sit.  It was very comfortable than standing.  Normally I won’t feel like sleeping till 1 am.  But that day, I was feeling sleepy at 10 pm.   After 10 hours of travel, I got a decent space to sit till I reached Chennai.

What initially looked impossible for me, became possible and my confidence level went very high after this journey.  Also, the people who were in that unreserved compartment were more humane than those who were in two-tier air conditioned compartment.

You should try to travel in such an unreserved compartment for 24 hours and experience what it is.  You will cherish it through-out your life like I do.

Wow! This is what almost everyone said after watching this amazing event at The Music Academy, Chennai.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get a free invite and watched it along with other Chennai Bloggers and media persons – from second row.  After it was inaugurated by N. Ram (Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu), the show lasted for about 70 seconds (actually 70 minutes).

Watching this kind of show in TV is totally different from watching it live.  Even though I watched the ‘trailer’ in youtube, watching this event live was fantastic.

In such shows, claps from the audience give energy to those performers. Many times our audience forgot to clap and cheer the performer.  I wanted to tell those artists that, “Look, we were breathless because of your performance.  That’s why we didn’t cheer you by clapping.”

If you are in Chennai on 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7th Feb 2010, then don’t miss this live show.  It is definitely worth for various reasons.

Please Note:

There is a detailed article in today’s The Hindu newspaper which you can read here: http://tr.im/wow_article_in_thehindu

People are mortal but their thoughts are immortal.

Today, Humans are in such a comfort zone compared to several years ago is because many good people communicated their thoughts which has helped us to use them and build many things around that.

To communicate, we all need a language.  I choose English over my mother tongue because I thought that English language has more audience in Internet than my mother tongue has.  FYI: I’m neither good at both (because even ‘English subject’ was taught in my mother tongue in my school and like many others I also didn’t have an inclination to learn my mother tongue properly during my school days).

I also thought that whether I should start communicating after I perfect my ‘English Grammar/vocabulary”.  But I decided not to wait.

If you want to travel, you just need a vehicle.  As long as the vehicle can take you to the place you want, you can use that.  If it doesn’t look good aesthetically or if the seat doesn’t have a cushion, etc doesn’t affect my travel because traveling is more important for me than those things.  Similarly, to communicate my thoughts I just need a language.  It may not be ‘aesthetically’ good with nice words and good vocabulary.  But it will help me communicate.

Many of you may have some similar inhibitions in communicating your thoughts.  Like I said, to communicate, you just need a language.  How good it is, is secondary*.

If I communicated well in this article, you may immediately start communicating your thoughts from your own blog by signing in any of the FREE blog sites (like http://en.wordpress.com/signup/ https://www.blogger.com/start http://www.thoughts.com/free-blog )

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PS: * Note: If the vehicle also looks good, it would be nice, isn’t it?

While I was young, I used to get bored when my father starts this sentence: “In those days….”

Yesterday (at 11 pm) when I told my 6 yr old son to switch off the TV and sleep, he asked me what I did when I was a kid like him.  When I told him, “In those days when I was in first standard, I never watched TV because there was no TV in our home”, I immediately remembered my father’s sentence.

I guess that it is inevitable for us to compare what happened in those days and what happens now.  Instead of boring you all with what happened ‘in those days’ to me, let me ask this question to you all and let’s watch this tag #inthosedays in Twitter here –>  http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23inthosedays .

It may be interesting

I don’t know how and why January became the first month of the year.  While discussing with my Physics Prof. Ananthan, I realized that once upon a time, March was the first month of the year & February was the last month of the year.

Question) What proof do I have to say that “February is the last month”?

Answer) I’ve two logical proofs:

PROOF 1: If March is the first month of the year, then September, October, November and December must be 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months respectively.  In Sanskrit, “Septha” means seven, “Octa” means eight (that’s why eight sided shape is called as Octagon), “Nava” means nine and “Dasa” means ten. By substituting the meaning of these months, we can easily infer that March should have been the first month of the year. This means, February is the last month.

PROOF 2: This is about human psychology.  Assume that there are 14 apples & 3 baskets. You are asked to place 5 apples in each basket.  How would you fill the baskets?

Psychology 1:  Basket A- 5, Basket B- 5 and Basket C -4

Psychology 2: Basket A-5, Basket B – 4 and Basket C -5

Psychology 3: Basket A – 4, Basket B – 5 and Basket C-5

Almost all of us would follow Psychology 1, isn’t it?

Similarly, if we need to fill 30 / 31 days* for each month and one month with the least number (say 28 / 29), then according to the above example we will fill the last month with 28 / 29 days – isn’t it?  That’s why the ‘last month of the year’ – February has the least number of days. 

So, 27 more days to go for the “Original New Year” isn’t it? 

PS:  * It is beyond the scope of our discussion to discuss why there are 30 & 31 days in other months. And this  article is just to prove that February is the last month.