The poster boy of Indian entrepreneurs of the 21st century, Narayana Murthy, is back in business at Infosys with a renewed mission to reverse the slide that had happened in his absence. Of course, the economic slowdown had its own role to play, but the Infosys slide has been mainly engineered by a rising attrition rate, probably because of eroding values of employee welfare; values that were initially laid down by Murthy himself. The catchword of ‘employees first’ resonating with equal importance to ‘customers first’ was pioneered in India by Infosys, not just as a business strategy to foster higher revenues but also higher happiness levels of its workers. You can call it altruism, but trust me, it is better than the ‘me only’ capitalist doctrines, as was evidenced through the Occupy Wall Street campaign and President Obama’s second term.

An equitable distribution of wealth is as much important in an economy as ‘wealth creation’ per se is. And Narayana Murthy understood this perfectly, an understanding that set the standard for ESOPs in Infosys. He distributed Rs 50,000 crore among his employees and made all of them shareholders of Infosys. That’s socialism at its best — upholding dignity and ownership from the topmost to the lowermost in a flat employee structure.