Q: Looking back at your early life, could you tell me what shaped you to become the person you are today? Any interesting anecdotes?
A: I grew up in a home that was full of optimism and where my parents really believed that anything was possible. For example, my dad’s choice of pastime during New Year’s Eve was breaking Guinness World records. When my friends were heading off to parties, I would sit and watch him try one feat after another like standing on one foot for 72 hours or walking for ‘x’ number of days. Doing things that one would normally consider was not possible was normal for me and also the environment was very optimistic; you also had to look at the glass half-full. It is this environment that has helped shape who I am today than anything else I have done.
When I was six years old, my father told me he would buy me a bicycle if I did 100 sit-ups in 30 seconds. So obviously I started training, but when you are six, no amount of training can help in a goal like this (laughs). However, I did get a bicycle when I was eight, but by then I had moved on to other challenges. My brother and I grew up in a household, which was constantly looking at newer and bigger things to do. A lot of it had to do with physical activities and sports as my father was into endurance sports. I was terrible at sports, but I tried really hard. It was these little things that made me accustomed to super-stretched goals and working towards things that might seem impossible. You just had to take a shot at it; sometimes you won, sometimes you lost.
For my under graduation, I went to MIT. It is a very rigorous place where everyone attending has been at the top of their class during their studies before. However, three weeks into the place you realize that there are people who are smarter than you by quantum of magnitude. However, the one thing I learnt was that it wasn’t about how smart you were, but that you were in the company of smart people. MIT was a humbling experience and it is very necessary in life to have such experiences, which humble you as a person.
Q: Tell us about your professional journey. How did you start out and what were the building blocks of your success?
A: I graduated from Stanford in 1992 and it was the time when the American economy was in recession. I wanted to get into the automotive industry and work with General Motors. However, the automotive industry decided that they did not want to hire international students so it was either investment banking or consulting. I ended up in consulting. However, once I joined McKinsey, I found the environment very challenging, encouraging and intellectually stimulating. Being a very values-driven company, McKinsey always put clients first.
People consulting firms build amazing teams and at McKinsey I learned the importance of having an awesome team. The other thing that I learned was being swift in building strategies, understanding situations and being adaptable. One of my mentors was Ranjit Pandit (Ex-Director & Managing Partner for India McKinsey & Company) and I got to work with him for a year when I moved to India to work in the McKinsey India office. I learned how to be crazy from my father, I learned endurance and persistence from my mother, but I learned how to think big from Ranjit. He was a leader who always thought big and nothing was ever big enough. Having worked for him for a year, when I finally went back, I was a whole different person.
There were various other leaders that I worked with in my 11 years at McKinsey who all taught me a lot of things. I think that when you are young, you should work with people from whom you can learn, who will mentor you and will be there for you. After McKinsey, I went to Dell and got the opportunity to work with Michael S. Dell. I learned focus from Michael and the quality of being relentless. The easiest thing one can do is give up. I have found that higher your aspiration in business, the more challenges you will encounter and easier it will be to give up. It is when things get tougher that you should raise your ambitions and then just go for the goal.
Q: You crossed the chasm of Microsoft and Google and worked with both the giants. What were your thoughts when leaving Microsoft and what did you set out to do at Google?
A: Microsoft and Google are extraordinary companies, but very different. Microsoft is very good at business-to-business environments and very granular and detailed in execution. Google, on the other hand, is very focused on innovation and what it can do to change the world. Google has a bigger appetite for risk taking and trying new things. I was at Microsoft for two years and had a good time and now I have been at Google for four years and I am definitely having a great time.
At Google, we believe that the internet has the power to fundamentally change the world and in a country like India it has amazing transformative power. When I joined Google, India had just crossed the 100-million user mark and we embarked on the task of helping India increase that number to 300 million users. Last year, India crossed the 300-million user mark and we have now raised the bar to reach the 500-million user mark. We are not looking to just get consumers online but how we can go about building a vibrant ecosystem for internet users here. Our team in India has done some amazing projects on this front. It is never really about what I have done. It is about the team and the collective vision and dream. I am very pleased with what they have done, but it is just the first day of the Test match and we have barely hit the lunch break. And this is the first match in a series of Test matches. So, the best is yet to come for India and for Google.
Q: What is your leadership mantra and who were the main influencers/mentors? How do you go about instilling that culture in your organization?
A: I think I have learned immensely from the leaders I have worked with over time. Nikesh Arora hired me into Google and with him I learned to decide and decide quickly. The worst thing one can do in a business is to prolong decisions. Decide quickly, period. If you look at Larry Page, the founder of Google, his whole thing is to think really really big-moonshot thinking. If I go back to my time at Microsoft, I think I am a big fan of Steve Ballmer and his energy. When he walked into a room, everything just lit up.
So if I look at my own leadership style, I think the most important thing for me is having a very strong team and then we work collectively towards a common goal. I think it is very difficult to win the World Cup with two great players. You need 11 extraordinary players who work extremely well as a team. I, therefore, focus a lot of my time and energy in building teams and I think we have a killer team in India now.
Secondly, it is about the big dreams of where we want to take our business and the country that we are in. At Google, we have some really big ambitions. When I take on a new role or business, I tend to set very ambitious long term goals of where we want to be. I am a big believer of dreams, but it is in the execution of making the dream a reality where the power of a great team comes in. Lastly, it is about having fun at scale. We are a bit quirky, but we definitely have a good time.
Q. What is that one thing you look for in the people you work with and the people you hire?
A. Think big. It is very easy to grow a business 20 per cent; it is very difficult to grow a business 100 per cent once it is a certain size and scale. So I look for leaders who can grow a business a 100 per cent and not just 20 per cent. Also, I look for people who have done amazing things. One way to predict your future is to look at your past. If you want to do great things, you need to be passionate, have big ideas, take risks and put your neck on the line. So those are the things I look for.
Q: What keeps you awake at night?
A: I sleep very well at night and especially on planes…(laughs). However, from an Indian standpoint, we have 300 million internet users now, but we are a narrowband nation. We should be a broadband nation and we need to get our infrastructure in order. As a leader of the businesses I run and the teams I lead, for me, it is really about the people. The amazing teams we have built and the great leaders that we have got should be continuously excited. My view is, when you wake up in the morning, you should be really want to go to work and it should not feel like work but the very fiber of your being. When you have that, you have magic.