Face value: The wired man of Bangalore

摘要

Unlike old soldiers, Indian tycoons rarely fade away. They stay around, beady eyes on their sons messing up their legacies. Yet on his 60th birthday on August 20th, N.R. Narayana Murthy will stand down as executive chairman of Infosys, the Indian information-technology star he co-founded in 1981. To step back at all so young and fit is a novelty. To do so in favour of younger professional colleagues rather than his own offspring is odder still. But the firm Mr Murthy has built seeks to follow not Indian tradition but the best of international practice. He has shown, as Nandan Nilekani, Infosys's chief executive, puts it, that business should be run to serve customers in America and Europe, and "not in the corridors of power in Delhi."