Krishna, Rama & Indian CEOs: Cred’s Kunal Shah decodes Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella & others’ success
Fintech start-up Cred founder Kunal Shah has said the Indian CEOs who have seen success globally are able to switch between the values represented by the gods Rama and Krishna.
In a conversation with Lenny Rachitsky on his podcast, Shah, a philosophy major-turned-tech entrepreneur, shared his views on the reasons why many global companies have Indian CEOs.
“I often wonder about it [why global companies have Indian CEOs] and I have had the good fortune to meet a fair bunch of these individuals. And had a chance to really explore with them what really went on. So there are few things that pop out. Again, these are all conjectures, which I can’t prove in any ways but it’s a thought experiment anyways to talk about these things,” Shah said.
“First is: In general immigrants that get out of the country usually have chip on the shoulder in a very different way. And the struggle they have to go through – to just get out and be successful, and that hunger that got them there. There was no privilege… like they came from very humble backgrounds, and literally no money to start with. So, I think this force is real.”
However, according to Shah, the same is true for immigrants from other countries too. So, the difference comes down to societies that are more inclined towards mathematics and logic and societies that are not.
“Appreciation for math in general or logic, come through the society in a big way. Let’s say for example lots of engineering graduates come from only a few countries because the society was bent towards earliness of mathematics. I think that kind of helps create status. That what will get appreciated, for example being an engineer, being a doctor,” he said.
Shah further compared the societal status different educational streams enjoyed.
“Like philosophy major, I was a write off for the society over here right. The reason I am the rare commodity [is] because you are not considered to be very bright unless you break into these very hard exams. The filtering criteria on its own is big.”
Beyond the ‘filtering criteria’, Shah said he had another theory for which he gave credit to Indian mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik.
“There’s another interesting framework all together, which I have actually learned from this gentleman Devdutt Pattanaik. He applies Indian mythology and management principles together, and it’s an interesting thing.”
“There are three major Indian gods. One is the Brahma, the god of creation. Shiva, the god of destruction. I’m super generalising but that’s the classification. And the third is Vishnu, which is the god of sustenance. And there are avatars, the word avatar comes from Vishnu, [he] keeps changing avatars. So we have had Rama, Krishna, who are avatars.”
He then gave a curious explanation of the value system represented by the gods on a two-by-two grid.
“What you notice is, if you take a two-by-two of people who are high on values and low on values, high on obedience and low on obedience, you make an interesting two-by-two. Now, Lord Krishna which is one of the very popular avatars, suits the entrepreneurial category, which is high on values but very low on obedience. He was known to be the naughty god and he could actually create lots of things. And, there is Rama, which is known to be the one who follows principles and [is] obedient. So, they will follow Dharma and scale on that. And then there are these notorious characters there is Ravana, which is low on values, low on obedience and there’s Duryodhana, he’s high on obedience but low on values. So, these are the people that you don’t want to be.”
Shah then made the case that the Indian CEOs were strong in following the ‘Dharma’ or the core principles of the founders.
“What you notice is that a lot of CEOs have done well because they follow the Dharma of the founders quite well. They have not diluted the Dharma of the founders who have started these companies, and managed to sustain that,” he said.
But not all CEOs can follow the ‘Dharma’, according to Shah.
“A lot of CEOs have this need to say ‘I’m going to change the company forever, and it will be my identity, and I will change the logo, and I will change the name, and I will do all sorts of things’. But maintaining Dharma, where I will say that ‘these are the principles given to me, and I’m going to sustain this and make it even bigger’ comes from humility of saying that something is built with some pure form factor and I think therefore that character stays on.”
He said the Indian CEOs of global companies he has met can swiftly move between the values represented by Krishna and Rama.
“When you think about the archetype of at least the Indian CEOs I have seen, they are fabulous at moving between Krishna and Rama all the time. They can play this consistently and therefore they keep evolving and keep making these companies bigger and bigger. I think we we’ll see a lot more of this in years to come because now they have the role models of these individuals who have kind of done well.”
“Rama is high on values and high on obedience and Krishna is high on values and low on obedience, but they both are high on values which means they will follow Dharma. And they will change the side, for example let’s say Satya [Nadella] during the Open AI crisis played Krishna and guarded things out, but he’ll switch back to being Rama and continue to keep scaling it up.”