P R and Narayana Murthy

 P.R. is  Public Relations. And one of the finest practitioners of this individually was, in my view, Mr. Narayana Murthy. I.T. industry as a whole benefited from it, and Infosys also, of which he was a founder with a few partners.

He would tirelessly go and speak at various forums, on various subjects, and I have heard him twice myself. At PES Bangalore, and later at IIM Indore. He spoke about the industry, of course, but also about the quality of education in India, etc. Having an opinion and expressing it are two different things. He was a rare combination of these two. He did this for more than two decades, probably three.

Combined with his company's story of how it brought I.T. to Bangalore, in the days when it was not easy to do I.T. from India. His story about importing a computer (for his company) through the red tape that was Indian bureaucracy also became a talking point for a long time.

The company also did a few things right, including increasing transparency in accounting- their Annual Report was a THING- and listing on an American stock exchange. But his use of personal P.R. techniques added a lot of value, in my opinion.

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