Infosys Co-founder Narayana Murthy Flies Economy Class To Bengaluru; Co-passenger’s Post Goes Viral

A man travelling from Delhi to Bengaluru recently got the opportunity to exchange some thoughts with Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy during the journey. Despite his notable stature, Narayana Murthy often prefers to travel in economy class. During his Bengaluru-bound flight, he shared the economy seats with a budding entrepreneur named Naren Krishna. Undoubtedly captivated by this unexpected encounter, the man expressed his excitement and gratitude in a detailed post on LinkedIn.

According to Naren Krishna, it seemed quite unbelievable to him when he first discovered Narayana Murthy seated just next to him in economy class. But he was more stunned by the humility of the 77-year-old. “The sheer disbelief of sharing an economy seat with a visionary of his stature lingered throughout the journey. What blew me away was how down-to-earth and approachable he was," Krishna wrote on LinkedIn.

While the entire journey took only a few hours, Krishna spent the time discussing several important topics with Murthy and the conversation helped boost his knowledge about different fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the role of the youth in shaping the Indian economy in recent times.

The duo further spoke about some initial challenges of a start-up including “dealing with stress and navigating through failures while building a company." In a bid to highlight the early struggle, Murthy explained the journey of founding Infosys to Krishna, putting stress on “the importance of detachment from results."

“He recounted instances from Infosys’ journey when, despite putting in relentless efforts, big contracts didn’t materialise, while unexpected deals surprisingly fell into place. The key takeaway for me in this discussion was the quote he mentioned from Louis Pasteur, ‘Chance favours the prepared mind’," Krishna added in the post.

Before they parted ways, Narayana Murthy also shared some insights about the transformative impact of AI on “industries like autonomous vehicles and precision surgery." The billionaire reckons “AI will exponentially boost human productivity by 10-100x in various sectors" in the coming few years. Before signing off, Krishna said that he would carry the memory of this meeting for a long time.