Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has revealed his one ‘big regret’: keeping wife Sudha Murthy away from the tech giant. He even said that she was ‘more qualified’ than him and other co-founders.
“I had this feeling that good corporate governance means not bringing family into it. Because those days, it was only family rule, all kinds of children used to come and run the company. There used to be a violation of all laws,” the billionaire businessman told CNBC TV18.
Also, the ex-Infosys CEO, 71, acknowledged he was ‘wrongly idealistic’ in not allowing Sudha Murthy join what is now the second-largest IT firm in the country. It must be noted here that it was Sudha Murthy who gave Narayana the seed capital of ₹10,000 which he used to found Infosys (with Nandan Nilekani, Kris Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan, and Ashok Arora).
The senior Murthy also responded with an emphatic ‘no’ over a possible future Infosys role for son Rohan, a former Infosys vice president, who now has his own AI startup, called Soroco.
“I think he is even stricter than I am in these ideas (not allowing family members to join one’s own company). (Though) he will never say that. Never, never,” said Narayana Murthy.
The Murthys are also parents to a daughter, Akshata, who has never worked at her father’s company; she, however, has a 0.93% stake in it. Her spouse is none other than Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the United Kingdom.