GREAT PEOPLE A MUST SEE.................!! From Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates, N.R.Murthy, Warren Buffet, Steve Job to Azim Premji.

Our DHIRUBHAI AMBANI

DhiruBhai Ambani built India's largest private sector company and created an equity cult in the Indian capital market. Reliance is the first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list.

            Dhirubhai Ambani was the most enterprising Indian entrepreneur. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story. He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history and built a truly global corporategroup.

           Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His father was a school teacher. Dhirubhai Ambani started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends.

           After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. On reaching Aden, Dhrubhai joined office on the very day of his arrival. It was a clerk's job with the A. Besse & Co., named after its French founder Antonin Besse. Those days Aden was the second busiest trading and oil bunkering port in the world after London handling over 6,300 ships and 1,500 dhows a year. And, there in Aden, A. Besse & Co. was the largest transcontinental trading firm east of Suez. Dhirubhai was first sent to the commodities trading section of the firm. Later, he was transferred to the section that handled petroleum products for the oil giant Shell.

 

Speculation in manufactured goods and commodities was rife all over the Aden bazaars. Dhirubhai felt tempted to speculate but had no money for that and was still raw for such trading. To learn the tricks of the trade he offered to work free for a Gujarati trading firm. There he learnt accounting, book keeping, preparing shipping papers and documents, and dealing with banks and insurance companies, skills that would come handy when he launched himself into trading about a decade afterwards in Bombay. At the Besse office during the day he polished his skills in typing and Pitman shorthand, drafting commercial letters, and composing legal documents. He also gorged on dozens of books and magazine articles on psychology that became his favorite subject for a long time. After he thought he had learnt the basics of commodities trading, Dhirubhai began speculating in high seas purchase and sales of all sorts of goods. He did not have enough money of his own for such speculative trading. So he borrowed as much as he could from friends and small Aden shopkeepers on terms nobody had ever offered them. "Profit we share and all loss will be mine" became his motto. During lunch break and after office hours he was always in the local bazaar, trading in one thing or the other. He had an uncanny knack for such speculative trading. He seldom lost money in any deal.

               Meantime, the Shell oil refinery and the first oil harbor came up in Aden in 1954, Dhirubhai had done well at the office during his first five years. Now he was sent on promotion to the oil filling station at the newly built harbor. By the late 1950s it became clear that the British rule in Aden would not last long in the face of growing Yemeni movement for independence. The large Indian community of Hindu and Parsee Gujaratis began preparing to move out of Aden. Some began returning home to India, while some chose to settle in Britain. Aden Indians those days were allowed to settle in Britain. Dhirubhai weighed his options. By now he had saved some money and was thinking of setting up some business of his own. Although Dhirubhai's father had died in 1952, he had in the meantime been blessed with his first son, Mukesh D. Ambani, in April, 1957. Kokilaben and Mukesh were back home in India.The choice of opening a shop somewhere in London was tempting but he felt India was calling him home. Dhirubhai was now 26 years, full of youthful vigour and vitality, and filled with high hopes for himself and for the new India of Nehru's dreams. He just could not miss the excitement of being in India in such tumultuous times. He decided to return home, instead of going to London to live a life of ease there.

                             Majin Commercial Corporation                      

Ten years later, Dhirubhai Ambani returned to India and started "Majin" in partnership with Champaklal Damani, his second cousin, Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder. It was 350 sq ft (33 m²). room with a telephone, one table and three chairs. Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their businessn. In1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani ended their partnership and Dhirubhai started on his own. It is believed that both had different temperaments and a different take on how to conduct business. While Mr. Damani was a cautious trader and did not believe in building yarn inventories, Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he believed in building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making profits.In 1968, he moved to an upmarket apartment at Altamount Road in South Mumbai. Ambani's net worth was estimated at about Rs.10 lakh by late 1970s.

                                                                                            

Reliance Textiles

                     Dhirubhai started his first textile mill at Naroda, in Ahmedabad in the year 1966. Dhirubhai started the brand "Vimal", which was named after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambani's son, Vimal Ambani. Extensive marketing of the brand "Vimal" in the interiors of India made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets were started and they used to sell "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the year 1975, a Technical team from the World Bank visited the Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit. This unit has the rare distinction of being certified as "excellent even by developed country standards" during that period.

Diversification                                            

In 1982 Ambani diversified into chemicals, petrochemicals, plastics, power. The final phase of Reliance’s diversification occurred in the 1990s when the company turned aggressively towards petrochemicals and telecommunications.

Sad Demise:

                He died on July 6, 2002. He is survived by Kokilaben Ambani, his wife, two sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, and two daughters, Nina Kothari and Deepti Salgaonkar. Dhirubhai Ambani started his long journey in Mumbai from the Mulji-Jetha Textile Market, where he started as a small-trader. As a mark of respect to this great businessman, The Mumbai Textile Merchants' decided to keep the market closed on July 8, 2002. At the time of Dhirubhai's death, Reliance Group had a gross turnover of Rs. 75,000 Crore or USD $ 15 Billion. In 1976-77, the Reliance group had an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore and it is to be remembered that Dhirubhai had started the business with just Rs.15,000.

DHIRUBHAI QUOTES:

“Think big, think fast, think ahead. Ideas are no one’s monopoly”                            

“You do not require an invitation to make profits.”

“Don’t give up, courage is my conviction.”

 

                                BILL GATES

Bill Gates commonly known as William Henry Gates III, is the co-founder and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft.  Bill Gates who was born in Seattle attended the Lakeside School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school, where he was able to develop his programming skills on the school's minicomputer. He later on went to study at Harvard University, but dropped out without graduating to pursue what would become a lifelong career in software development.

                     While he was a student at Harvard, he co-authored with Paul Allen the original Altair BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 (the first commercially successful personal computer) in the mid 1970s. It was inspired by BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language developed at Dartmouth College for teaching purposes.

 

BILL GATES THROUGH THE YEARS:

 

1975	In 1975, Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft Corporation to    market their version of BASIC, called Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary interpreted computer language of the MS-DOS operating system, and was key to Microsoft's early commercial success.
FEB 1976	Gates wrote an open letter to THE HOBBYISTS which shocked Computer hobbyist community by asserting that a commercial market existed for computer software. Gates stated in the letter that software should not be copied without the publisher's permission, which he equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates’ proposal was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by its ham radio legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations and knowledge were freely shared in the community. Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market prospects and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became one of the world's most successful commercial enterprises, and a key player in the creation of a retail software industry.
THE LATE    1970’S	Ø  Microsoft's key moment came when, IBM was planning to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which was released in 1981. Ø  Gates licensed MS-DOS to IBM, which it had acquired from a local computer manufacturer. The story of how Microsoft acquired the original system (QDOS) has inspired much folklore, which often portrays Gates pouncing on a trivial mistake by Digital Research and stealing that company's lead in microcomputer operating systems. It is frequently cited by those who accuse Gates of unethical business practices. Ø  In reality, IBM did approach Digital Research for a version of CP/M  (CONTROL PROGRAM FOR MICROCOMPUTERS)   For its upcoming IBM PC. IBM representatives wanted digital to sign their standard non-disclosure agreement, which Digital considered overly burdensome. IBM then returned to talk to Microsoft. Ø  Gates obtained rights to a cloned design of CP/M, QDOS, from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer products, licensed it to IBM, and MSDOS/IBMDOS was born. Later, IBM discovered that Gates' operating system could have infringement problems with CP/M, and in exchange for a promise not to sue, made an agreement with DIGITAL RESEARCH’S GARY KIDDEL that CP/M would be sold along with IBMDOS when the IBM PC was released. The price set by IBM for CP/M was $250 and for MSDOS/IBMDOS it was $40 Ø  Obviously, MSDOS/IBMDOS outsold CP/M many times over, eventually becoming the standard. By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivaling IBM.
The following years	Gates used his company's growing resources to displace competitors such as WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3, among many others
mid-1980s	Gates became excited about the possibilities of compact Disc for storage, and sponsored the publication of the book CD-ROM: The New Papyrus that promoted the idea of CD-ROM.
The late 1980’s	Ø  Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The operating system was marketed in connection with a new hardware design, the PS/2, that was proprietary and secret to IBM. Ø  Gates oversaw continuing friction with IBM over the system's design, hardware support, and user interface. Ultimately he came to believe that IBM wanted to marginalize Microsoft from having any input in OS/2's development.
1991	Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell to the side and Windows became the favored PC platform. TODAY SOME 90% OF ALL PERSONAL COMPUTERS USE MICROSOFT WINDOWS.
1991	Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was   published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 Countries. Business @ the Speed of Thought has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, USA Today,
1994	Bill Gates married Melinda French. Bill Gates bought Leonardo da Vinci's "Codex" for $30,800,000
1995	FORBES MAGAZINE announced bill gates as the richest man in the world (&12.9 bill)
2000	Microsoft chairman Bill Gates steps aside as chief executive and promotes company president Steve Ballmer to the position

 

2010: Bill Gates is No.1 with $54 billion, For the 17th year in a row, Bill Gates has been named as the richest person in world. He is having diversify investment in Stocks, Bonds, Investment company etc, It’s almost like a mutual fund. The Microsoft Corp. founder’s wealth was estimated at $54 billion, up from $40 billion in 2009. The collective net worth of the 400 billionaires rose by 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline. With a fortune estimated at $45 billion Warren Buffett, remained No. 2 on the list. On Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans, Software tycoon Larry Ellison was in third place and Wal-Mart heir Christy Walton was fourth.

Bill gates net worth: (recent years)                                                                                  

Year	Earnings
2008 ( first half)	$58 Billion
2008 (second half)	$57 billions
2009	$40 billion
2010	$54 billion

 

BILL GATES QUOTES:

“Its fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure”

 

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.”

 

                 N.R. MURTHY

Born in 1946, N. R. Murthy grew up one of eight children in a middle-class family of high caste but meager means. His father was a math teacher, and both parents taught him strong values, such as working hard and serving the public good. Murthy grew up a socialist, which was typical at the time in India. He studied electrical engineering, earning a master's degree at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur.

 

During the 1970s he worked for a computer company in Paris, France. In 1974 Murthy decided to return to India, first touring the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. The harsh conditions there made Murthy realize that capitalism was not a sin. Before wealth could be dispersed, it must be created.

Back in India, Murthy began working in the software industry. There he saw how his country could harness its large pool of English-speaking, highly trained technical personnel who worked for a fraction of U.S. salaries. An Indian firm could supply Western companies with low-cost custom software by writing it in India. Murthy also wanted to contribute to his country, and by providing jobs locally large numbers of technicians would not have to leave India to find work. In 1981 Murthy and six other software engineers pooled their savings of about $1,000, and started Infosys in a Mumbai apartment. Murthy was the new company's chairman and CEO.

THE RISE OF INFOSYS

 Infosys Technologies designed custom software for companies worldwide. But in 1981 the tightly regulated business environment of India made that difficult to accomplish. The company had to wait nearly a year for its first telephone line to be installed. It took over two years and 25 trips to Delhi to obtain import licenses for the company's first computers. Without computers at their Indian offices, employees had to travel abroad to work, often waiting weeks for travel permits and foreign currency. Despite these problems Infosys landed major accounts, including Reebok International, and managed to stay afloat.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism in Eastern Europe, the Indian government liberalized its attitude toward capitalism and instituted free-market reforms in 1991. This made it possible for Indian companies to move goods, services, people, and currency more freely across national borders. The impact on Infosys was direct and rapid. It experienced annual growth rates of 27 percent to 106 percent during the 1990s, and acquired over three hundred new clients, many of them American giants like Citigroup, Aetna, Gap, Dell, and Cisco Systems. In March 2000 Infosys became the first Indian firm traded on an American stock exchange, the NASDAQ. Infosys continued to grow even in periods of stagnation and downturn for the American software industry. In 2004 Infosys was one of India's top three information-technology services firms, along with Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. It had over 25,000 employees and earned record profits of $270 million on sales of $1 billion.

                      

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALIST

Even though Murthy became one of India's most successful entrepreneurs, he remained committed to what he called "compassionate capitalism," spreading wealth to employees and Indian society in general, not just senior executives. Infosys paid high wages for the local market and was the first Indian company to offer stock options to its employees. The company built a 42-acre campus in Bangalore with employee exercise and relaxation facilities and cafeterias that were partly subsidized by the corporation.

Murthy also believed in contributing to his country as a whole. He told the New York Times , "In this country, people have to start putting the public ahead of the personal good" (December 16, 1999). Murthy served on several academic and government boards and established the Infosys Foundation in 1996. Headed by his wife, Sudha, the foundation established vocational training, science centers, hospital wards, and libraries in underprivileged and rural areas. Murthy won numerous national and international honors, including the Padma Shri in 2000, one of India's highest civilian awards for distinguished service to the nation, and Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003.

N.R. Murthy quotes:

“If the tea stall owner in a small village can say, 'Hey, these guys can do it; so can I,' and get his business into the next orbit, then our job is done"

 

       WARREN BUFFET

Warren Edward Buffet born on August 30, 1930 to his father Howard, a stockbroker-turned-Congressman. The only boy, he was the second of three children, and displayed an amazing aptitude for both money and business at a very early age. Acquaintances recount his uncanny ability to calculate columns of numbers off the top of his head - a feat Warren still amazes business colleagues with today.

At only six years old, Buffett purchased 6-packs of Coca Cola from his grandfather's grocery store for twenty five cents and resold each of the bottles for a nickel, pocketing a five cent profit. While other children his age were playing hopscotch and jacks, Warren was making money. Five years later, Buffett took his step into the world of high finance. At eleven years old, he purchased three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per share for both himself and his older sister, Doris. Shortly after buying the stock, it fell to just over $27 per share. A frightened but resilient Warren held his shares until they rebounded to $40. He promptly sold them - a mistake he would soon come to regret. Cities Service shot up to $200. The experience taught him one of the basic lessons of investing: patience is a virtue.

Warren Buffett's Education

In 1947, a seventeen year old Warren Buffett graduated from High School. It was never his intention to go to college; he had already made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in 2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his professors. When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Working full-time, he managed to graduate in only three years.

Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted, Warren applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his life.

But before the report proceeds it is wise to know about the BEN GRAHAM

Ben Graham had become well known during the 1920's. At a time when the rest of the world was approaching the investment arena as a giant game of roulette, he searched for stocks that were so inexpensive they were almost completely devoid of risk. One of his best known calls was the Northern Pipe Line, an oil transportation company managed by the Rockefellers. The stock was trading at $65 a share, but after studying the balance sheet, Graham realized that the company had bond holdings worth $95 for every share. The value investor tried to convince management to sell the portfolio, but they refused. Shortly thereafter, he waged a proxy war and secured a spot on the Board of Directors. The company sold its bonds and paid a dividend in the amount of $70 per share.

When he was 40 years old, Ben Graham published Security Analysis, one of the greatest works ever penned on the stock market. At the time, it was risky; investing in equities had become a joke. It was around this time that Graham came up with the principle of "intrinsic" business value - a measure of a business's true worth that was completely and totally independent of the stock price. Using intrinsic value, investors could decide what a company was worth and make investment decisions accordingly. His subsequent book, The Intelligent Investor, which Warren celebrates as "the greatest book on investing ever written", introduced the world to Mr. Market - the best investment analogy in history.

Through his simple yet profound investment principles, Ben Graham became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one year old Warren Buffett. Reading an old edition of Who's Who, Warren discovered his mentor was the Chairman of a small, unknown insurance company named GEICO. He hopped a train to Washington D.C. one Saturday morning to find the headquarters. When he got there, the doors were locked. Not to be stopped, Buffett relentlessly pounded on the door until a janitor came to open it for him. He asked if there was anyone in the building. As luck (or fate) would have it, there was. It turns out that there was a man still working on the sixth floor. Warren was escorted up to meet him and immediately began asking him questions about the company and its business practices; a conversation that stretched on for four hours. The man was none other than Lorimer Davidson, the Financial Vice President. The experience would be something that stayed with Buffett for the rest of his life. He eventually acquired the entire GEICO company through his corporation, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY.

 

Flying through his graduate studies at Columbia, Warren Buffett was the only student ever to earn an A+ in one of Graham's classes. Disappointingly both Ben Graham and Warren's father advised him not to work on Wall Street after he graduated. Absolutely determined, Buffett offered to work for the Graham partnership for free. Ben turned him down. He preferred to hold his spots for Jews who were not hired at Gentile firms at the time. Warren was crushed.

Warren Buffett Returns Home

Returning home, he took a job at his father's brokerage house and began seeing a girl by the name of Susie Thompson. The relationship eventually turned serious and in April of 1952 the two were married. They rented out a three-room apartment for $65 a month; it was run-down and served as home to several mice. It was here their daughter, also named Susie, was born. In order to save money, they made a bed for her in a dresser drawer.

During these initial years, Warren's investments were predominately limited to a Texaco station and some real estate, but neither was successful. It was also during this time he began teaching night classes at the University of Omaha (something that wouldn't have been possible several months before. In an effort to conquer his intense fear of public speaking, Warren took a course by Dale Carnegie). Thankfully, things changed. Ben Graham called one day, inviting the young stockbroker to come to work for him. Warren was finally given the opportunity he had long awaited.

Warren Buffett Goes to Work for Ben Graham

The couple took a house in the suburbs of New York. Buffett spent his days analyzing S&P reports, searching for investment opportunities. It was during this time that the difference between the Graham and Buffett philosophies began to emerge. Warren became interested in how a company worked - what made it superior to competitors. Ben simply wanted numbers whereas Warren was predominately interested in a company's management as a major factor when deciding to invest, Graham looked only at the balance sheet and income statement; he could care less about corporate leadership. Between 1950 and 1956, Warren built his personal capital up to $140,000 from a mere $9,800. With this war chest, he set his sights back on Omaha and began planning his next move.

On May 1, 1956, Warren Buffett rounded up seven limited partners which included his Sister Doris and Aunt Alice, raising $105,000 in the process. He put in $100 himself, officially creating the Buffett Associates, Ltd. Before the end of the year, he was managing around $300,000 in capital. Small, to say the least, but he had much bigger plans for that pool of money. He purchased a house for $31,500, affectionately nicknamed "Buffett's Folly", and managed his partnerships originally from the bedroom, and later, a small office. By this time, his life had begun to take shape; he had three children, a beautiful wife, and a very successful business.

Over the course of the next five years, the Buffett partnerships racked up an impressive 251.0% profit, while the Dow was up only 74.3%. A somewhat-celebrity in his hometown, Warren never gave stock tips despite constant requests from friends and strangers alike. By 1962, the partnership had capital in excess of $7.2 million, of which a cool $1 million was Buffett's personal stake (he didn't charge a fee for the partnership - rather Warren was entitled to 1/4 of the profits above 4%). He also had more than 90 limited partners across the United States. In one decisive move, he melded the partnerships into a single entity called "Buffett Partnerships Ltd.", upped the minimum investment to $100,000, and opened an office in Kiewit Plaza on Farnam street.

In 1962, a man by the name of Charlie Munger moved back to his childhood home of Omaha from California. Though somewhat snobbish, Munger was brilliant in every sense of the word. He had attended Harvard Law School without a Bachelor's Degree. Introduced by mutual friends, Buffett and Charlie were immediately drawn together, providing the roots for a friendship and business collaboration that would last for the next forty years.

Ten years after its founding, the Buffett Partnership assets were up more than 1,156% compared to the Dow's 122.9%. Acting as lord over assets that had ballooned to $44 million dollars, Warren and Susie's personal stake was $6,849,936. Mr. Buffett, as they say, had arrived.

Wisely enough, just as his persona of success was beginning to be firmly established, Warren Buffett closed the partnership to new accounts. The Vietnam war raged full force on the other side of the world and the stock market was being driven up by those who hadn't been around during the depression. All while voicing his concern for rising stock prices, the partnership pulled its biggest coup in 1968, recording a 59.0% gain in value, catapulting to over $104 million in assets.

The next year, Warren went much further than closing the fund to new accounts; he liquidated the partnership. In May 1969, he informed his partners that he was "unable to find any bargains in the current market". Buffett spent the remainder of the year liquidating the portfolio, with the exception of two companies - Berkshire and Diversified Retailing. The shares of Berkshire were distributed among the partners with a letter from Warren informing them that he would, in some capacity, be involved in the business, but was under no obligation to them in the future. Warren was clear in his intention to hold onto his own stake in the company (he owned 29% of the Berkshire Hathaway stock) but his intentions weren't revealed.

Warren Buffett Gains Control of Berkshire Hathaway      

Buffett's role at Berkshire Hathaway had actually been somewhat defined years earlier. In  1965, after accumulating 49% of the common stock, Warren named himself Director.

In 1970, Buffett named himself Chairman of the Board of Berkshire Hathaway .That same year, the Chairman's capital allocation began to display his prudence; textile profits were a pitiful $45,000, while insurance and banking each brought in $2.1 and $2.6 million dollars. The paltry cash brought in from the struggling looms in New Bedford, Massachusetts had provided the stream of capital necessary to start building Berkshire.

A year or so later, Warren Buffett was offered the chance to buy a company by the name of See's Candy. The gourmet chocolate maker sold its own brand of candies to its customers at a premium to regular confectionary treats. The balance sheet reflected what Californians already knew - they were more than willing to pay a bit "extra" for the special "See's" taste. The businessman decided Berkshire would be willing to purchase the company for $25 million in cash. See's owners were holding out for $30 million, but soon conceded. It was the biggest investment Berkshire or Buffett had ever made.

Following several investments and an SEC investigation (after causing a merger to fail, Warren and Munger offered to buy the stock of Wesco, the target company, at the inflated price simply because they thought it was "the right thing to do". Not surprisingly, the government didn't believe them), Buffett began to see Berkshire's net worth climb. From 1965 to 1975, the company's book value rose from $20 per share to around $95. It was also during this period that Warren made his final purchases of Berkshire stock (when the partnership dolled out the shares, he owned 29%. Years later, he had invested more than $15.4 million dollars into the company at an average cost of $32.45 per share). This brought his ownership to over 43% of the stock with Susie holding another 3%. His entire fortune was placed into Berkshire. With no personal holdings, the company had become his sole investment vehicle.

In 1976, Buffett once again became involved with GEICO. The company had reported amazingly high losses and its stock was pummeled down to $2 per share. Warren wisely realized that the basic business was still in tact; most of the problem was caused by an inept management. Over the next few years, Berkshire built up its position in this ailing insurer and reaped millions in profits. Benjamin Graham, who still held his fortune in the company, died in in September of the same year, shortly before the turnaround. Years later, the insurance giant became a fully owned subsidiary of Berkshire.                                             

       “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

                                 

STEVE PAUL JOB

 

Steven Paul Jobs is the co-founder, two-time CEO, and chairman of Apple Inc. Born in San Francisco in 1955, Jobs attended high school in Cupertino, Calif., the city where Apple is based. In 1972, he briefly attended Reed College in Portland, Ore., but dropped out after a semester. Jobs returned to California in 1974 and landed a job with Atari, where his friend and eventual business partner Steve Wozniak also worked.

 

Apple – Rise and Eventual Ouster                                 

                                                                                             

Jobs co-founded Apple, then known as Apple Computer, with Steve Wozniak to provide a circuit board for hobbyists who built their own computers. Despite that homebrew beginning, Apple helped usher in the age of the personal computer with the introduction of the Apple II line in 1976.

Those machines soon gave way to a revolutionary change in desktop computing – the Macintosh. The Mac OS was the first commercially available and widely embraced system to use the graphical user interface that is common today and a mouse for interacting with the icons on the screen. The Mac was a giant success and rocketed Jobs and Apple into position as one of the world’s most important computer companies.

The company made a huge splash with its 1984 Super Bowl commercial that introduced that Macintosh, which played on George Orwell’s novel 1984 and positioned IBM as Big Brother, while Apple represented heroic rebels struggling for freedom.

By that time, Jobs had lured John Sculley, an experienced executive, away from PepsiCo to be Apple’s CEO. But, in 1985, amid a sales slump, Jobs lost a corporate power struggle to Sculley and the company’s board of directors, and left Apple.

NeXT – A New Challenge

Upon leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer; a computer company that took the graphical lessons learned from the success of the Mac and married them to the computing power of UNIX. The stylish and technologically advanced, but expensive, NeXT computers never caught on in the way that the Apple II or Mac lines did, though NeXT maintained a steady business from 1985-1997. And, come 1997, NeXT would take on a new and much more central role -- at Apple.

Pixar – A Hobby Becomes a Powerhouse

While at NeXT, Jobs purchased a computer graphics division of Lucas film Ltd. in 1986 for $10 million. That division became Pixar Animation Studios, with Jobs as its CEO and majority shareholder.

It was originally intended as a computer hardware company to aim high-end machines at Hollywood, and when that business failed to take off, the company transformed into a maker of animated movies with a contract with Disney.

Under Jobs’ leadership, Pixar became a dominant movie-making force in Hollywood, churning out a string of smash hits, including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, the Incredibles, and Wall-E, among others.

In 2006, Jobs engineered the sale of Pixar to the Walt Disney Co., a deal which landed him a spot on Disney’s board and made him the company’s largest individual shareholder. After the conclusion of that deal, Fortune Magazine named Jobs its Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.

                                                                                                          

The Return to Apple – Triumph    

Jobs earned that title not only due to his role at Disney but also because, by that time, he had returned to Apple as its Chairman and CEO.

In late 1996, Jobs had overseen the sale of NeXT to Apple and returned to a leadership position in the company he co-founded. The technology underlying NeXT’s hardware and software was acquired in a $429 million deal in 1996 and became the foundation of Apple’s next-generation Mac OS X operating system.

When Apple CEO Gil Amelio was ousted by the company’s board of directors in 1997, Jobs returned to the company as its interim CEO.

At that time, Apple was foundering under low marketshare, a confused licensing strategy, diffuse product line, and lack of focus, all of which led to much speculation in the press and online that the company would either merge with another or go under. In order to keep the company afloat, Jobs immediately began a series of sometimes-unpopular cuts, including paring from Apple’s product lines middlingly successful but passionately followed products like the Newton PDA.

The first major hit product of Jobs’ second tenure at Apple was the iMac, an all-in-one computer introduced in 1998, which continues in production today. The iMac was followed by a string of hit laptop and desktop computers, though some failures - such as the Power Mac G4 cube - were mixed in.

Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple returned from the brink of bankruptcy to again become a stable, successful company. But, thanks to the introduction of a small gadget, the company would soon skyrocket.

In October 2001, Apple unveiled the first iPod. The cigarette-pack-sized digital music player offered 5GB of storage (enough for about 1,000 songs) and a simple interface. It was an instant hit.

The development of the iPod had been ordered by Jobs – who disliked existing digital music players and their difficult interfaces – and was overseen by engineering head Jon Rubinstein and product designer Jonathan Ive.

The iPod worked with Apple’s music management software, iTunes, which had been introduced in January 2001. The combination of the two, with their ease of use and powerful features, made the iPod a smash. Apple began a quick expansion of the iPod product line to include the Mini, nano, Shuffle, and later the touch, introducing new iPods roughly every six months.

ITunes also evolved and added the iTunes Store for downloadable sales of music in 2003 and movies in 2005. With that move, Apple cemented its place in the music industry and made the iPod/iTunes combination the de facto standard for digital music consumption and playback. By 2008, Apple had become the world's largest retailer of music (online or offline), and record companies began to worry about Apple’s dominance in their business. In 2009, the iTunes Store sold its 6 billionth song.

The iPhone

In January 2007, Apple expanded on the success of the iPod, and positioned itself to revolutionize another market, when it announced the iPhone. That device was developed with Jobs’ oversight and involvement and was an instant hit upon its release. The first iPhone sold 270,000 units in its first 30 hours of availability, while its successor, the iPhone 3G, sold 1 million units in its first three days just a year later.

By March 2009, Apple had sold over 17 million iPhones, and had surpassed quarterly sales of the previously dominant smartphone, the Blackberry.

Following on the success of the iTunes Store, the iPhone got an App Store, offering third-party software, in July 2008. By January 2009, it had registered 500 million downloads, a mark it took the iTunes Store two years to reach. Apple had another hit on its hands.

Health Leave

Amidst this success, Jobs was dogged by questions about his health, especially after the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) appearance in 2006.

In January 2009, Jobs issued a statement saying that his appearance was related to a hormonal imbalance that drained his body of necessary proteins. The statement added that his doctors thought they’d found a cause, that he’d seek treatment, and that he wouldn’t speak more on the topic, as he felt it was a personal matter.

However, less than 10 days later it was announced that Jobs’ health problems were more serious than first realized and that he’d be taking a six-month leave of absence from the company. The company’s stock initially took a beating, but recovered to a level only a few points below the announcement within about a week. Tim Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, served as CEO in Jobs’ stead.

Jobs returned to work at Apple in late June 2009, as scheduled. He has reportedly been deeply involved with Apple since his return.

Steve Jobs’ Legacy                                           

Perhaps no other executive in modern memory, with the possible exception of Bill Gates, has been as closely tied to his company, and its success – or the public perception of that success, at least – as Jobs.

Some, including Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper, have even compared Jobs and his legacy to those of legendary business figures like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney. Others, however, have been less laudatory, placing him on a second tier of historical business figures due to his smaller accumulated wealth and charitable contributions.

Despite any analysis that places Jobs in rare historical company, his management and personal styles have also been the subject of legend and anxiety. Jobs has been jokingly said to possess a “reality distortion field,” a term used by many to describe the force of his personality and presence, and his ability to convince people of the correctness of his positions.

His personality has also led to criticism of a management style that included strong doses of both fear and secrecy. Under Jobs, Apple has been notorious for tightly protecting details of new products launches, going so far as to sue rumors websites and hold up deals with partners who leaked information. In the new millennium, Apple has become known for its desire to — and general success in doing so — control press coverage about it.

Despite these criticisms, the Apple Jobs has built is strong, with over $24 billion in cash on hand, growing marketshare, and a deeply devoted customer base.

Criticism notwithstanding, it’s clear that Steve Jobs is a technology visionary who has transformed at least two markets — computers and digital music — and might yet have a lasting impact on a third, cell phones.                                                 

    “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

                          AZIM PREMJI

 

Azim Premji is Chairman of Wipro Technologies, one of the largest software companies in India. He is an icon among Indian businessmen and his success story is a source of inspiration to a number of budding entrepreneurs.

Born on July 24, 1945, Azim Hashim Premji was studying Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, USA when due to the sudden demise of his father, he was called upon to handle the family business. Azim Premji took over the reins of family business in 1966 at the age of 21.

At the first annual general meeting of the company attended by Azeem Premji, a shareholder doubted Premji's ability to handle business at such a young age and publicly advised him to sell his shareholding and give it to a more mature management. This spurred Azim Premji and made him all the more determined to make Wipro a success story. And the rest is history.

When Azim Premji occupied the hot seat, Wipro dealt in hydrogenated cooking fats and later diversified to bakery fats, ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, lighting products and hydraulic cylinders. Thereafter Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software.

Under Azim Premji's leadership Wipro has metamorphosed from a Rs.70 million company in hydrogenated cooking fats to a pioneer in providing integrated business, technology and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Today, Wipro Technologies is the largest independent Research

                                                 

 

and Development service provider in the world.

Azim Premji has several achievements to his credit. In 2000, Asiaweek magazine, voted Premji among the 20 most powerful men in the world. Azim Premji was among the 50 richest people in the world from 2001 to 2003 listed by Forbes. In April 2004, Times Magazine rated him among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is also the richest Indian for the past several years. In 2005, Government of India honored Azim Premji with Padma Bhushan.

                                                                                                                       

 

“Character is one factor that will guide all our actions and decisions. We invested in uncompromising integrity that helped us take difficult stands in some of the most difficult business situations.”