Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy has been making headlines recently for his comments. Just last month, the tech mogul had triggerred a nationwide debate when he said that youngsters should work for 70 hours every week. And now, Murthy said that becoming a software engineer or financial analyst is “very easy” whereas being an entrepreneur takes a lot of work. He talked about the challenges faced by aspiring entrepreneurs in India, and also acknowledged the government’s efforts in fostering the startup ecosystem.
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Narayana Murthy says becoming engineer is easy
In an interview with Moneycontrol, Murthy said that there has to be a broader societal shift in perception and support for risk-takers like young entrepreneurs who are trying to build a business.
“We see a surge of entrepreneurs emerging with innovative ideas that were unimaginable just a decade ago,” remarked Murthy, who himself embarked on the entrepreneurial journey with Infosys in 1981. He had just six other engineers in his team at the time. Adding that youngsters today are more confident and ambitious, Murthy said that the entrepreneurs of today are eager to tackle complex problems.
Murthy then cautioned that this entrepreneurial spirit often faces hurdles from the society and that people need to “embrace entrepreneurship as a demanding path and provide encouragement to those daring to venture into the unknown.”
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The Infosys co-founder then went on to say that “careers like software engineering or financial analysis offer stability, entrepreneurship is a leap of faith with no guarantee of success.” He added that thus, entrepreneurship is quite risk-taking that “drives innovation and progress.”
Talking about how it is easy to become a software engineer or a financial analyst, Murthy said, “While it is very easy to become a software engineer or become a financial analyst, but to become an entrepreneur and say, ‘I will try out this unbelievable idea, which has a low probability.’ That is what we have to do. That is where there’s a lot of work that we need to do.”
Narayana Murthy’s 70 hour workweek comment
As mentioned above, Murthy found himself embroiled in the middle of a controversy of sorts last month when he said that young people should be prepared to work for 70 hours per week to elevate the nation’s work culture and compete effectively on the global stage.
Speaking on the inaugural episode of 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record,’ Murthy talked about the urgency of changing India’s work productivity. He argued that unless India’s youth commit to significantly more working hours, the country will struggle to catch up with economies that have seen remarkable progress over the past few decades.
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Murthy’s comments didn’t go down well with numerous people, who expressed their opinion on LinkedIn. While some people downright disagreed with the Infosys founder and called him out for his comments, others agreed with him to some degree and said that his statement had been twisted too much. Hence, the internet was soon divided between people who were in favour of Murthy and those who were not.
