Infosys founder Narayana Murthy’s advice to entrepreneurs: ‘Just saying great things and not doing…’

Infosys founder Narayana Murthy recently emphasized the need for businesses and entrepreneurs to treat employees with respect, reduce pay disparities, and adopt "compassionate capitalism". Speaking at TiE Con Mumbai 2025 in conversation with former TiE Mumbai founding president Harish Mehta, Murthy stated "To praise people in public and criticize in private, and to the extent possible, to share the fruit of the corporation in a fair manner amongst all employees of the company", highlighting the importance of dignity in the workplace.

He also stated that India's development and poverty alleviation depend on businesses embracing capitalism with compassion. Murthy said the country cannot progress under its existing socialist mindset. He explained:

"Capitalism is all about providing opportunity for people to come out with new ideas to create wealth for themselves and their investors; to create jobs for people and thereby reduce poverty; and to contribute to taxes in the country so that a lot of public good work can take place”.

Narayana Murthy advocates 'compassionate capitalism’

Stressing upon the role of entrepreneurs as "evangelists" of capitalism, he noted that their conduct would determine how the concept is perceived in a country long accustomed to socialism.

He said "It is incumbent on every one of us to conduct ourselves in a way that those sceptics will also say, 'Yeah, there is something good in this thing called capitalism. There is something good in entrepreneurship.'”

“And to do that, all of us have to become strong evangelists, and we have to walk the talk. Just saying great things and not doing them will not be sufficient," he added further.

Narayana Murthy on AI

Speaking at the event, Murthy said, “I think somehow it has become a fashion in India to talk of AI for everything. I have seen several normal ordinary programs touted as AI.”

He explained, “There are two fundamental principles in AI. One, machine learning, which is a large-scale correlation. Therefore, it helps you based on a large amount of data, to predict.”

“That is simple machine learning. The second is what is called deep learning. Deep learning imitates how the human brain works,” he added.



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