The Exchanges

Q But subconsciously, there was always the desire to educate others in you when, even when you were growing?

A No, honestly, I never thought about that, to be honest. Uh, however, now when I look back, My parents were very involved in doing things for others. So my father was the secretary of the Harijan Sevaksang and the Harijan Sevaksang used to run balwadis. One balwadi used to actually run next to our home in a garage for the local children. So I remember being part of all of that. I didn't realize what we were doing. I was too young to appreciate, one, the need for it, and the fact that we were imparting education. My mother was involved in many women's organizations, the All India Women's Conference, the Bihar Council of Women. So she would be constantly fundraising, organizing things, going to villages, selling items knitted by the women in the villages, or helping them get loans to Uh, get a cow that would help, you know, I guess this is before the help, the days of self-help groups and so on. So these women's organizations was very, were very active. My father was very active. Uh, we were very active in the village that we come from. Uh, even though we were living in the city, we were very closely connected with rural Bihar. So there was a lot of, uh, if you would want to call it social work going on in the family. Which I think may have informed my desire to then later in life give back. And I think again that inspiration did come from my parents.

AI assessment note: “No, honestly, I never thought about that, to be honest.”

Q When you and Rajat were initially thinking of setting up ISB inside IIT Delhi, there's a story that, you know, there were so many constraints that it couldn't have been set up inside IIT Delhi. You have to shift it to an independent, uh, autonomous, uh, university, right? So, so how did, uh, Chandra Babu Naidu came to know about it because it was a private affair, right?

A Yeah. Yeah. So there's a little bit of cheating going on. So what was happening was that I was at McKinsey at that time, and I had worked on this project in Malaysia, which was on the economic development of Malaysia. So Chandra Babu Naidu had visited Malaysia And heard from Mahathir that McKinsey had worked on creating a vision, 20, 20 for Malaysia. So when he came back, he tried to get in touch with McKinsey. And so to cut a long story short, now I was with McKinsey here in India, working on the Andhra Pradesh vision, 20, 20. Now, even though we were working with the state and we were doing a lot to attract investment into the state, honestly, in the early days of that, in parallel, I was working on ISB.

AI assessment note: “working on the Andhra Pradesh vision, 20, 20... in parallel, I was working on ISB.”

Q Right now, you have, you have studied in US universities, right? You did your PhD, and you did your undergrad from Indian University, right? Both the best of them, right? Do you think, ah, necessarily the US way of teaching works, will work here in India?

A Of course it will work, and there is no U.S. way of teaching as such. I mean, yes, the U.S. way of teaching is what we are trying to do at Ashoka, for example, right? And, and by the way, this is now called the U.S. way of teaching. Not being jingoistic, but this was the Takshila way of teaching or the Nalanda way of teaching. The idea is very simple. College me, aap spoon feed mat ka. Eighteen-year-old is the whole point of education when you're 18 and 20 is to make mistakes, screw up, make, you know, let the business fail, make a choice. You say, okay, I'm going to be a philosopher and You know, you go and become a philosophy major, and then you say, oh, my God. In fact, I never knew that bioscience also happens, or that even though I did not study math, I'm actually a great coder. So, I think the education system in the US, all it does is it gives you the flexibility to choose. That's the crux of it. On top of that, it says, Learn to read and write and think. That is the core of existence in your life. Now, reading today may become listening to Siddharth's podcast, or it may become watching a documentary on Netflix. That's fine. It's the same thing. Right? So how do you absorb information? How do you process that information? And how then do you put that information out? You could have been a print blogger. You could have been a, uh, uh, a professor. Yeah. Or you've chosen t…

AI assessment note: “Of course it will work, and there is no U.S. way of teaching”

Q So, I can choose and on my training that which, does it require hammer? Does it require a sword?

A What type of nail first? If you use nail or hammer analogy, it's a very good analogy. ہم بولتے ہیں کہ یہ ہی ایک نیل ہے اور یہ ہی ایک ہیمر ہے اگر تمہیں یہ دو چیزوں کو جوائن کرنا ہے تو یہ نیل لو اور یہ ہیمر لو And if you use that analogy, all you have to do in higher education, in K-II education, what you have to explain to people is that you have to join in two things. There is a nail and a hammer and it is necessary to stick with this reason. It is necessary to study. Because that is fundamental. Everybody needs to know that. But once you come out of K-II, Then you have to say that, listen, I have two, these two things, I have to join them. Now, whether you want to use a nail, whether you want to use Fevicol, whether you want to weld it, you decide, you figure it out. That's the crux of it. And I think that, that Freedom and that confidence we are not giving our people. That you can do it also. You don't need to be trained in welding to know that this has to be welded. If I taught you how to use a hammer and a nail, doesn't mean you cannot use adhesive glue.

AI assessment note: “Now, whether you want to use a nail, whether you want to use Fevicol”

Q At scale. At scale. At personally, let's say you are a partner at McKinsey and you would have taken 20 people under your mentorship outside. That would have been, you know, that I love unlocking human potential. Right? But but doing that at scale, at Didn't you think you would have realized that so much scale would be unlocked?

A One of my big inspirations in life was a gentleman called Professor Sumantra Ghoshal. So Sumantra was a management academic. Bengali was worked at ONGC. He went to US to do a PhD or, Harvard mein PhD karke, MIT mein padhate thai, MIT mein PhD karke, somehow my mind, but Harvard MIT say he was associated, and then he was INSEAD as a professor, and then London Business School. Wehaan se humne unko ISB ke liye hire kiya tha. He was going to be the founding dean actually. Founding dean man nahi tha, sumantra honne waale tha. So, Sumantra ke saad bahut baat hoti thi, and Sumantra died relatively young. He was 55 years and old, and he passed away. He has written some great books and papers, and was a very charismatic person. Uh, I would think that if he would have been alive today, he would have been one of the greatest management academics ever. That was his brilliance. So, muhe abhi bhi aad hai ki, uh, hum, log, ISB mein baithe goya tha hai. Or, I was on my first year, I was on a sabbatical from, ah, from McKinsey, and idea was that I would go back to McKinsey, and Sumantra, even though he had decided not to do the dean role, because he felt ki, yeh mujh se nahi hooga. Lekin, he, he was very committed to, ho, padhane aate te. And he was fond of his drink, and his cigarettes, to, hum, loog raat ko pohut baeht ke baad, kuch karne ko nahi tha to. To, I still remember, he says ki, yaar…

AI assessment note: “One of my big inspirations in life was a gentleman called Professor Sumantra Ghoshal.”

Q Thirty-seven-year-old, how can he become a dean?

A हाँ, नहीं, और वो लोग मुझसे senior थे, मतलब वो IIT, I.M. के पड़े हुए थे और मुझसे senior थे, actually. तो इंडिया में तो आप जानते हैं, there was a sense कि भई, ये तो बच्चा है, ये हमारा boss बन � मैंने हमेशा maintain किया कि मैं I went all out for the students to help them to place them तो वो सब बहुत resent करते थे क्योंकि इंडिया में और यही सब चीज़े हैं हमारे यहां कि हम students को students की तरह treat नहीं करते हम उनको commodity जैसा treat करते हैं like we are doing them a favor और अपने को बहुत faculty को बहुत बड़ा मानते हैं सब जगह नहीं लेकिन कही ज� سٹوڈنٹس اتنا کچھ کرنے کی کیا ضرور ہے اور why is so much focus on food and air conditioning and maintaining their ambience and ایسا نہیں تھا کہ ہم education پر focus نہیں تھے naturally education پر بھی focus تھے یا باہر سے جو faculty آ رہے ہیں ان کو ہم اتنا پیسے کیوں دے رہے ہیں اور اپنے faculty کو نہیں دیتے ہیں اور اب تم اتنا پیسہ اپنا اتنا time placement میں کیوں لگا رہے ہو یہ institution کا کام نہیں ہے لوگوں کو place کرنا ہم تو اپنی institutions میں کبھی jobs کے لیے bother نہیں کرتے تھے dean کیوں کر رہا ہے प्लेस्मेंट कमिटी है वो अपना करेगा तो I used to fight these things and तो मैं थोड़ा सा unpopular भी हो गया था तो उनके साथ बहुत relationships अच्छी नहीं थी और फिर वो लोग सब छोड़के चले गए तो मैं तो अंदर से मुझे بشواس تھا کہ وہ اچھی چیز ہے کہ وہ چھوڑ کے چلے گئے because they would not have been able to create the right culture. لیکن باق…

AI assessment note: “there was a sense कि भई, ये तो बच्चा है, ये हमारा boss”