Wealth, Purpose and the Foundations of a Great Nation

After World War II, nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha had once imagined returning to the great universities of Europe or America. After all, they had the best intellectual atmosphere. But somewhere along the way, he got seduced by the idea of creating a world-class institution at home and turning India into a nuclear power.

In March 1944, Bhabha wrote a letter to the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust that would eventually lead to the establishment of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research where his atomic research started. Bhabha did not live to see the culmination of that ambition. He died in a plane crash in 1966, eight years before India conducted its first nuclear test in Pokhran in 1974.

The makers of modern India were, almost without exception, men who declined the easier lives held out to them. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were born to wealth, educated in Britain, and could have slipped into the upholstered comfort of a barrister's practice. BR Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution, carried doctorates in both law and economics. Vikram Sarabhai, Bhabha's protégé and the architect of India's space programme, grew up amid privilege and studied at Cambridge.

Each of them gambled on outcomes that would only materialise in decades or perhaps more. The greatest successes of India Inc have often carried something of the same stubbornness.

At a time when colonial India lacked capital, technology and even the freedom to determine its own industrial future, Jamsetji Tata dreamt of an Indian steel industry and a hotel that could rival the finest in Europe. It was an act of imagination much bigger than the country’s plight allowed. Decades later, Tatas have continued to keep pace with the aspirations of a rising India.

In 1981, a 34-year-old engineer named NR Narayana Murthy, raised in a middle-class household, joined a band of young engineers to build Infosys and helped ignite India’s IT-services gold rush. Before the turn of the millennium, another entrepreneur, Habil Khorakiwala, decided that India should make antibiotics. A couple of months ago, when the US drug regulator approved one of Wockhardt’s medicines, a quarter-century-old punt finally bore fruit. Not just out of necessity, great institutions are born from the obstinacy of those willing to play the long game.

India’s technology start-up boom over the past decade has created many billionaire-celebrity founders. Yet, there appears to be a critical shortage of doggedness in these founders, compared to the earlier generations.

As our cover story shows, many founders are walking away from the companies they created.

Some leave when the road becomes harder and capital scarcer. Some choose the rhythms of angel investing. Others appear content to hang up their boots and retire. In many cases, the start-ups they leave behind are barely a decade old.

If we look towards Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs’ return to Apple propelled the company's rise to one of the greatest corporations ever built. Without his founder’s intuition, there might never have been an iPhone. Google founders emerged from semi-retirement to help pull it back on course as it appeared to falter in the artificial-intelligence race.

There is nothing wrong with beginning a company in pursuit of wealth. But once personal financial security has been achieved and freedom from necessity won, founders must have the willingness to play the long game. From thereon, the driving force may be patriotism, a love for the craft or service to humanity. Only then can India's rockstar start-ups become generational companies.