“If Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella had stayed in India… would HAL, BHEL & Bharat Electronics be the next Google & Microsoft? Or would their genius have been lost in the system?”
My take:
Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai had a 4 digit rank ( 1100- 1200) in his IIT entrance. He had studied the lowly Metallurgy in the IIT KGP. That means at least 1000 + IIT entrants of his batch having higher ranks have stayed back in India.
What are all those electronics, Computer science, electrical and other graduates who have stayed back in India doing now ?. What had happened to all of them ? May be few of them are working in HAL, BHEL ?
Neither Satya Nadella nor Shantanu Narayan had been selected for IIT . They were average graduates from Manipal and Osmania University.
Having said so, let’s discuss “What made Sundar Pichai ?”
A degree from IIT helped Sundar Pichai get a seat in Stanford. That helped him to enrol in Wharton ( U. Pen.). One of the best in the world. He topped there. This paved his path to become a product manager in Google.”
There he created Magic. He designed his most famous product Google Chrome.
The Chrome Team–
Of course Chrome was not a one man show. The Chrome Team was considered to be the Best of the Best in its field. As on date, Chrome is used by 3.5 billion people worldwide. Chrome wields 65% of the browser market share across the platforms ( Mac, MS included)
No wonder, nobody can displace Pichai from his chair ( American or alien.)
My conclusion
A mediocre branch in IIT helped Sundar Pichai a foot hold in Stanford. But he had to wait till Wharton to excel. In Wharton he had achieved the coveted Siebel Scholar and Palmer Scholar awards.
But the dream team of Chrome made him the CEO of Google.
The Microsoft
Satya Nadella was the only child of a famous IAS officer, Yugandhar of 1962 batch. ( I have read a few news pieces on him before I came to know his famous son.) His father had admitted him to one of the top schools of his time *Hyderabad Public School.* There he studied less and bowled off spin more. It’s said that Nadella even carries a cookaburra ball to his conferences and often gives analogy from cricket in his discussions.) No wonder he didn’t top in any entrance.
Being a wealthy person’s only son, he got admitted to Manipal and migrated to the USA early. *Anupama* his wife was also the only child of a colleague IAS officer and one year junior to him in Manipal. He did his MS in computer science from Wisconsin.
They had their first child in 1996- a son Zain Nadella
The turning point
Zain Nadella ( *1996*) was a *legally blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.*
According to Nadella, being the father of a child with special needs was a turning point in his life.
His career picked up from *1997*. He was a pioneer in cloud computing. ( Now it’s a Craze.)
My take
It’s said “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” I believe, it’s the special child which brought empathy, leadership, caring into his software technology and hand held his career to that top chair in the Redmond office.( HQ of Microsoft)
He says, “I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you should stop doing great and useful things.”
That’s great.
Isn’t it.
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 