Reliance has built a refinery-led energy business and a materials business. In the energy business, we give 2% of the world's petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel.
The organizational architecture is really that a centipede walks on hundred legs and one or two don't count. So if I lose one or two legs, the process will go on, the organization will go on, the growth will go on.
China and India will, separately and together, unleash an explosion of demand.
Our established businesses of hydrocarbons, energy, and petrochemicals pretty much run on their own, with their own proven leaders. This has helped me focus almost exclusively on two things: Firstly, new businesses. And secondly, institutionalising what I call the Reliance Management System.
For my father, life was uni-dimensional. Reliance was his life. Yet, some of my most vivid memories are about spending time with him. However busy he may have been, whatever the pressure, Sunday was for his wife and kids. I try to do the same with my family.
As long as you've got your courage of conviction, it works for you. I think that the same applies, too, even where you don't, because in today's world, financial resources are the least important. World has moved to the power of ideas.
Until my father brought me into Reliance, I was pretty sure that I wanted to study in a U.S. university: hopefully, a little bit of time, either work at the World Bank or teach as a professor.
Nobody had anticipated that chemicals was the direction in which Reliance was headed. I did chemical engineering because it was supposed to be the future.
I am a big believer that whatever has gone lies in the past. You should only learn from it, and you should only look at the present and the future. That's been my father's philosophy and mine as well.
My big advantage was to have my father accept me as first-generation.
I don't think that ambition should not be in the dictionary of entrepreneurs. But our ambition should be realistic. You have to realise that you can't do everything.
I have always believed that technology drives human civilization's endeavor and progress.
Why will I not give free service to my customers to get them used to mobile Internet, and to get every small town and village to use it? Everybody does promotions. In the internet world, free is normal.
All of us know that the energy from the sun can now be harnessed, and we need to convert it sensibly to use it.
