I love to hire entrepreneurs: Uday S. Kotak

Q. Tell us about your early life. How did it lead you to where you are today?
A. I was born into a traditional Gujarati joint family with 60 members under one roof with a single kitchen in Mumbai. The early mooring of a joint family were deeply ingrained in me. It was capitalism at work and socialism at home but with solid middle class values at heart. All the children in the family went to the same school, while the elders worked together in the family business of trading in agricultural commodities. I went on to do my MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute in Mumbai and like everyone my age, my ambition was to go overseas to study further. I, however, overheard a conversation between my father and grandfather who thought that if I went overseas, I would not come back at all. So I stayed on in India.
Once I completed by graduation, my father offered me 200-300 sq. feet space at the family office at Flora Fountain, Mumbai in case I wanted to start something on my own. I always wanted to get