A missed exam is not always a missed opportunity, and perhaps nobody understands that better than Nandan Nilekani. He missed his Indian Institute of Management (IIM) entrance exam, but it became one of the reasons he went on to make a significant impact in the Indian IT sector.
In an interview with Groww, Nilekani said that he intended to take the IIM entrance exam following his graduation from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay). He simply did not take the test because he "was not feeling well" on that day.
Nilekani also remarked that he was left hanging because he was "too lazy" to apply for the SAT or GMAT.
"I was not feeling well that day, so I didn't take the entrance exam. So, I had been too lazy to apply for SAT and this GMAT and all that. So I was actually at a loose end," the Infosys co-founder told Groww.
Then, Nilekani described how he received information about Patni Computer Systems, a small tech firm located in Mumbai, running online computers, a rarity at the time.
"I heard about this small company called Patni Computer Systems... what happened was in 77, IBM left India. So, there was sort of a vacuum here... So Patni was the agent for Digital Data General in India," he said.
He joined the company in Nariman Point, met his future partner and then-engineer NR Narayana Murthy, and was given a job offer upon solving a challenge.
That fortunate meeting paved the way for the founding of Infosys in 1981. Nilekani said that Murthy came up with the original idea, stating that "it was Murthy's vision. He always wanted to start a company. So, we joined him. So, we all worked for him. And so, we joined him and we started Infosys."
The business rapidly expanded under Nilekani's direction, and one of its fastest-growing stages occurred during his tenure as CEO. "And for a long time, we were growing, you know, up till the 90s, we were growing steadily," Nilekani added.
He also emphasised the approach that came to characterise Infosys: establishing "very large goals... get to 100 million, get to billion... whatever 10 billion."
"A mistake I'm glad I made. Not going abroad, not joining IIM," Nilekani said, looking back on the missing exam, adding that it allowed him to pursue a route he might not have otherwise.
Nilekani served as Infosys' CEO from March 2002 to April 2007. He was Narayana Murthy's successor and was succeeded by Kris Gopalakrishnan. This was one of Infosys' fastest periods of growth, with the company's sales increasing by about six times to around $3 billion.
Nilekani served as the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) from July 2009 to March 2014.
