Quotes from Azim Premji

Colleges produce more sports therapists than engineers. Perhaps because America is a sporty country: a lot of outdoors.

I want Wipro to be among the top ten IT companies in the world.

Success is achieved twice. Once in the mind and the second time in the real world.

People are realistic enough to appreciate what the market values of different people are.

I.B.M. was not really bringing their best technologies to India. They were dumping old machines in the country that had been thrown away in the rest of the world 10 years before.

There's a reasonable amount of traction in college education, particularly engineering, because quite a lot of that is privatized, so there is an incentive to set up new colleges of reasonably high quality.

Even if a media of a TV is not available in a home, there's this concept of community homes, where a reasonably well-off villager will have a TV - and a nice TV - and he'll keep it outside the house in the evenings.

What is excellence? It is about going a little beyond what we expect from ourselves. Part of the need for excellence is imposed on us externally by our customers. Our competition keeps us on our toes, especially when it is global in nature.

The customer is a remarkably selfish person: He takes the relationship to where the execution is in his favor.

The U.S. is a complex country. It has a high predominance of immigrants who have been eminently successful.

We entered the global market only in the end-'80s, and that was because imports became more liberal.

When I took over the family business, it had already been a publicly traded company for 20 years. During one of the first annual meetings I attended, one shareholder stood up and advised me and everyone in attendance that I should resign.

The Western world loves liberalisation, provided it doesnt affect them.

The U.K. and the U.S. are quite similar in that they have high-productivity, English-speaking workforces who don't mind working long hours. Working in those countries is not a problem.

There are 600 districts in India. Every district in India has a teacher-training institute.

All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.

Over these years, I have irrevocably transferred a significant part of the shareholding in Wipro, amounting to 39% of the shares of Wipro, to a trust.

The test of our social commitment and humanity is how we treat the most powerless of our fellow citizens, the respect we accord to our fellow human beings. That is what reveals our true culture.

Even if I was to give my children a small part of my wealth, it would be more than they can digest in many lifetimes.

The Indian community in Canada has integrated much better than the Indian community in United States. They've become really Canadian at the same time as keeping all their Indian characters and customs and social groups.

Wipro is one of the fastest growing companies regionally and globally, and I am personally very excited with our journey in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

How can you contribute towards building the Indian society and the Indian nation? No better way than to upgrade the quality of young people in school, particularly the schools which are run by the state government in the villages.

As an advisor, I can say what I want. If I were a politician, I would constantly have to compromise, and I'm incapable of doing that.

I feel that business leaders with their ability to create businesses, with their ability to scale, need to play an important role in social service.