From Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates, N.R.

Murthy,
Warren Buffet, Steve Job to Azim Premji.
 Our DHIRUBHAI AMBANI

D hiruBhai Ambani built India's largest private sector company

and created an equity cult in the Indian capital market. Reliance is the
first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list.

Dhirubhai Ambani was the most enterprising Indian

entrepreneur. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story.
He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history
and built a truly global corporategroup.

Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born on

December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His
father was a school teacher. Dhirubhai Ambani started his
entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar
over the weekends.

After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai

moved to Aden, Yemen. On reaching Aden, Dhrubhai joined office on
the very day of his arrival. It was a clerk's job with the A. Besse &
Co., named after its French founder Antonin Besse. Those days Aden
was the second busiest trading and oil bunkering port in the world
after London handling over 6,300 ships and 1,500 dhows a year. And,
there in Aden, A. Besse & Co. was the largest transcontinental trading
firm east of Suez. Dhirubhai was first sent to the commodities trading
section of the firm. Later, he was transferred to the section that
handled petroleum products for the oil giant Shell.
Speculation in manufactured goods and commodities was rife all
over the Aden bazaars. Dhirubhai felt tempted to speculate but had no
money for that and was still raw for such trading. To learn the tricks
of the trade he offered to work free for a Gujarati trading firm. There
he learnt accounting, book keeping, preparing shipping papers
and documents, and dealing with banks and insurance
companies, skills that would come handy when he launched himself
into trading about a decade afterwards in Bombay. At the Besse office
during the day he polished his skills in typing and Pitman
shorthand, drafting commercial letters, and composing legal
documents. He also gorged on dozens of books and magazine
articles on psychology that became his favorite subject for a long
time. After he thought he had learnt the basics of commodities
trading, Dhirubhai began speculating in high seas purchase and sales
of all sorts of goods. He did not have enough money of his own for
such speculative trading. So he borrowed as much as he could from
friends and small Aden shopkeepers on terms nobody had ever offered
them. "Profit we share and all loss will be mine" became his
motto. During lunch break and after office hours he was always in the
local bazaar, trading in one thing or the other. He had an uncanny
knack for such speculative trading. He seldom lost money in any
deal.

Meantime, the Shell oil refinery and the first oil harbor came
up in Aden in 1954, Dhirubhai had done well at the office during his
first five years. Now he was sent on promotion to the oil filling
station at the newly built harbor. By the late 1950s it became clear
that the British rule in Aden would not last long in the face of growing
Yemeni movement for independence. The large Indian community of
Hindu and Parsee Gujaratis began preparing to move out of Aden.
Some began returning home to India, while some chose to settle in
Britain. Aden Indians those days were allowed to settle in Britain.
Dhirubhai weighed his options. By now he had saved some money and
was thinking of setting up some business of his own. Although
Dhirubhai's father had died in 1952, he had in the meantime been
blessed with his first son, Mukesh D. Ambani, in April, 1957. Kokilaben
and Mukesh were back home in India.The choice of opening a shop
somewhere in London was tempting but he felt India was calling him
home. Dhirubhai was now 26 years, full of youthful vigour and vitality,
and filled with high hopes for himself and for the new India of Nehru's
dreams. He just could not miss the excitement of being in India in such
tumultuous times. He decided to return home, instead of going to
London to live a life of ease there.

Majin Commercial Corporation

Ten years later, Dhirubhai Ambani returned to India and started

"Majin" in partnership with Champaklal Damani, his second
cousin, Majin was to import polyester yarn and export spices to
Yemen. The first office of the Reliance Commercial Corporation
was set up at the Narsinatha Street in Masjid Bunder. It was
350 sq ft (33 m2). room with a telephone, one table and three
chairs. Initially, they had two assistants to help them with their
businessn. In1965, Champaklal Damani and Dhirubhai Ambani
 ended their partnership and Dhirubhai started on his own.
It is believed that both had different temperaments and a
different take on how to conduct business. While Mr. Damani
was a cautious trader and did not believe in building yarn
inventories, Dhirubhai was a known risk taker and he believed in
building inventories, anticipating a price rise, and making
profits.In 1968, he moved to an upmarket apartment at Altamount
Road in South Mumbai. Ambani's net worth was estimated at
about Rs.10 lakh by late 1970s.

Reliance Textiles

Dhirubhai started his first textile mill at Naroda, in

Ahmedabad in the year 1966. Dhirubhai started the brand "Vimal",
which was named after his elder brother Ramaniklal Ambani's son,
Vimal Ambani. Extensive marketing of the brand "Vimal" in the
interiors of India made it a household name. Franchise retail outlets
were started and they used to sell "only Vimal" brand of textiles. In the
year 1975, a Technical team from the World Bank visited the
Reliance Textiles' Manufacturing unit. This unit has the rare
distinction of being certified as "excellent even by developed
country standards" during that period.

Diversification
In 1982 Ambani diversified into chemicals, petrochemicals,
plastics, power. The final phase of Reliance’s diversification occurred
in the 1990s when the company turned aggressively towards
petrochemicals and telecommunications.

Sad Demise:

He died on July 6, 2002. He is survived by Kokilaben

Ambani, his wife, two sons, Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani,
and two daughters, Nina Kothari and Deepti Salgaonkar.
Dhirubhai Ambani started his long journey in Mumbai from the Mulji-
Jetha Textile Market, where he started as a small-trader. As a mark of
respect to this great businessman, The Mumbai Textile Merchants'
decided to keep the market closed on July 8, 2002. At the time of
Dhirubhai's death, Reliance Group had a gross turnover of Rs.
75,000 Crore or USD $ 15 Billion. In 1976-77, the Reliance group
had an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore and it is to be remembered that
Dhirubhai had started the business with just Rs.15,000.

DHIRUBHAI QUOTES:

“Think big, think fast, think ahead. Ideas are no one’s

monopoly”

“You do not require an invitation to make profits.”

“Don’t give up, courage is my conviction.”

BILL GATES

B ill Gates commonly known as William Henry Gates III, is

the co-founder and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of

Microsoft. Bill Gates who was born in Seattle attended the Lakeside
School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school, where he was able to
develop his programming skills on the school's minicomputer. He later
on went to study at Harvard University, but dropped out without
graduating to pursue what would become a lifelong career in software
development.

While he was a student at Harvard, he co-authored with

Paul Allen the original Altair BASIC interpreter for the Altair
8800 (the first commercially successful personal computer) in
the mid 1970s. It was inspired by BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming
language developed at Dartmouth College for teaching purposes.

BILL GATES THROUGH THE YEARS:

In 1975, Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft

Corporation to market their version of BASIC, called
1975 Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary interpreted computer
language of the MS-DOS operating system, and was key to
 Microsoft's early commercial success.

Gates wrote an open letter to THE HOBBYISTS which

FEB 1976 shocked
Computer hobbyist community by asserting that a
commercial market existed for computer software. Gates
stated in the letter that software should not be copied
without the publisher's permission, which he
equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates’ proposal
was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by
its ham radio legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations
and knowledge were freely shared in the community.
Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market prospects
and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became
one of the world's most successful commercial
enterprises, and a key player in the creation of a
retail software industry.

THE LATE  Microsoft's key moment came when, IBM was

1970’S planning to enter the personal computer
market with its IBM Personal Computer (PC), which
was released in 1981.
 Gates licensed MS-DOS to IBM, which it had
acquired from a local computer manufacturer. The
story of how Microsoft acquired the original system
(QDOS) has inspired much folklore, which often
portrays Gates pouncing on a trivial mistake by
Digital Research and stealing that company's lead in
microcomputer operating systems. It is frequently
 cited by those who accuse Gates of unethical
business practices.
 In reality, IBM did approach Digital Research for
a version of CP/M (CONTROL PROGRAM FOR
MICROCOMPUTERS)

For its upcoming IBM PC. IBM representatives wanted

digital to sign their standard non-disclosure agreement,
which Digital considered overly burdensome. IBM then
returned to talk to Microsoft.
 Gates obtained rights to a cloned design of CP/M,
QDOS, from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer
products, licensed it to IBM, and MSDOS/IBMDOS
was born. Later, IBM discovered that Gates'
operating system could have infringement
problems with CP/M, and in exchange for a
promise not to sue, made an agreement with
DIGITAL RESEARCH’S GARY KIDDEL that CP/M
would be sold along with IBMDOS when the
IBM PC was released. The price set by IBM for
CP/M was $250 and for MSDOS/IBMDOS it was
$40
 Obviously, MSDOS/IBMDOS outsold CP/M many
times over, eventually becoming the standard.
By marketing MS-DOS aggressively to manufacturers
of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained
unprecedented visibility in the microcomputer
industry, even rivaling IBM.

The Gates used his company's growing resources to displace

following competitors such as WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3,
years among many others

Gates became excited about the possibilities of

mid- compact
1980s Disc for storage, and sponsored the publication of the
book CD-ROM: The New Papyrus that promoted the
idea of CD-ROM.

The late  Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development

1980’s of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The
operating system was marketed in connection with a
new hardware design, the PS/2, that was proprietary
and secret to IBM.
 Gates oversaw continuing friction with IBM over the
system's design, hardware support, and user
interface. Ultimately he came to believe that IBM
wanted to marginalize Microsoft from having any
input in OS/2's development.

1991 Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2

partnership was over and Microsoft would
henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and
the NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell to the side
and Windows became the favored PC platform.
TODAY SOME 90% OF ALL PERSONAL COMPUTERS
USE MICROSOFT WINDOWS.

1991 Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book

 that shows how computer technology can solve
business problems in fundamentally new ways. The
book was

published in 25 languages and is available in more than

60
Countries. Business @ the Speed of Thought has received
wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists
of the New York Times, USA Today,

1994 Bill Gates married Melinda French.

Bill Gates bought Leonardo da Vinci's "Codex" for
$30,800,000

1995 FORBES MAGAZINE announced bill gates as the richest

man in the world (&12.9 bill)

2000 Microsoft chairman Bill Gates steps aside as chief

executive and promotes company president Steve
Ballmer to the position

2010: Bill Gates is No.1 with $54 billion, For the 17th year in a
row, Bill Gates has been named as the richest person in world.
He is having diversify investment in Stocks, Bonds, Investment
company etc, It’s almost like a mutual fund. The Microsoft Corp.
founder’s wealth was estimated at $54 billion, up from $40
billion in 2009. The collective net worth of the 400 billionaires rose
by 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the
list, while 85 saw a decline. With a fortune estimated at $45 billion
Warren Buffett, remained No. 2 on the list. On Forbes’ list of the
400 richest Americans, Software tycoon Larry Ellison was in third
place and Wal-Mart heir Christy Walton was fourth.

Bill gates net worth: (recent years)

Year Earnings

2008 $58 Billion

( first half)

2008 $57 billions

(second half)

2009 $40 billion

2010 $54 billion

BILL GATES QUOTES:

“Its fine to celebrate

success but it is more
important to heed the lessons
of failure”
“Success is a lousy teacher. It
seduces smart people into
thinking they can't lose.”

N.R. MURTHY
Born in 1946, N. R. Murthy grew up one of eight children in a
middle-class family of high caste but meager means. His father was a
math teacher, and both parents taught him strong values, such as
working hard and serving the public good. Murthy grew up a socialist,
which was typical at the time in India. He studied electrical
engineering, earning a master's degree at the prestigious Indian
Institute of Technology in Kanpur.

During the 1970s he worked for a computer company in Paris,

France. In 1974 Murthy decided to return to India, first touring the
socialist countries of Eastern Europe. The harsh conditions there made
Murthy realize that capitalism was not a sin. Before wealth could be
dispersed, it must be created.

Back in India, Murthy began working in the software industry. There he

saw how his country could harness its large pool of English-speaking,
highly trained technical personnel who worked for a fraction of U.S.
salaries. An Indian firm could supply Western companies with low-cost
custom software by writing it in India. Murthy also wanted to contribute
to his country, and by providing jobs locally large numbers of
technicians would not have to leave India to find work. In 1981
Murthy and six other software engineers pooled their savings
of about $1,000, and started Infosys in a Mumbai apartment.
Murthy was the new company's chairman and CEO.

THE RISE OF INFOSYS

Infosys Technologies designed custom software for companies

worldwide. But in 1981 the tightly regulated business environment of
India made that difficult to accomplish. The company had to wait
nearly a year for its first telephone line to be installed. It took over two
years and 25 trips to Delhi to obtain import licenses for the company's
first computers. Without computers at their Indian offices, employees
had to travel abroad to work, often waiting weeks for travel permits
and foreign currency. Despite these problems Infosys landed
major accounts, including Reebok International, and managed
to stay afloat.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism in Eastern

Europe, the Indian government liberalized its attitude toward
capitalism and instituted free-market reforms in 1991. This made it
possible for Indian companies to move goods, services, people, and
currency more freely across national borders. The impact on Infosys
was direct and rapid. It experienced annual growth rates of 27
percent to 106 percent during the 1990s, and acquired over
three hundred new clients, many of them American giants like
Citigroup, Aetna, Gap, Dell, and Cisco Systems. In March 2000 Infosys
became the first Indian firm traded on an American stock exchange,
the NASDAQ. Infosys continued to grow even in periods of stagnation
and downturn for the American software industry. In 2004 Infosys
was one of India's top three information-technology services
firms, along with Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services. It had
over 25,000 employees and earned record profits of $270 million on
sales of $1 billion.

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALIST

Even though Murthy became one of India's most successful

entrepreneurs, he remained committed to what he called
"compassionate capitalism," spreading wealth to employees and
Indian society in general, not just senior executives. Infosys paid high
wages for the local market and was the first Indian company to offer
stock options to its employees. The company built a 42-acre
campus in Bangalore with employee exercise and relaxation
facilities and cafeterias that were partly subsidized by the
corporation.

Murthy also believed in contributing to his country as a whole. He told

the New York Times , "In this country, people have to start putting the
public ahead of the personal good" (December 16, 1999). Murthy
served on several academic and government boards and established
the Infosys Foundation in 1996. Headed by his wife, Sudha, the
foundation established vocational training, science centers, hospital
wards, and libraries in underprivileged and rural areas. Murthy won
numerous national and international honors, including the Padma Shri
in 2000, one of India's highest civilian awards for distinguished service
to the nation, and Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur of the Year in
2003.

N.R. Murthy quotes:

“If the tea stall owner in a small
village can say, 'Hey, these guys
can do it; so can I,' and get his
business into the next orbit, then
our job is done"

WARREN BUFFET

W arren Edward Buffet born on August 30, 1930 to his

father Howard, a stockbroker-turned-Congressman. The only

boy, he was the second of three children, and displayed an amazing
aptitude for both money and business at a very early age.
Acquaintances recount his uncanny ability to calculate columns of
numbers off the top of his head - a feat Warren still amazes business
colleagues with today.
At only six years old, Buffett purchased 6-packs of Coca Cola
from his grandfather's grocery store for twenty five cents and
resold each of the bottles for a nickel, pocketing a five cent
profit. While other children his age were playing hopscotch and jacks,
Warren was making money. Five years later, Buffett took his step into
the world of high finance. At eleven years old, he purchased three
shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 per share for both
himself and his older sister, Doris. Shortly after buying the stock, it fell
to just over $27 per share. A frightened but resilient Warren held
his shares until they rebounded to $40. He promptly sold them -
a mistake he would soon come to regret. Cities Service shot up to
$200. The experience taught him one of the basic lessons of
investing: patience is a virtue.

Warren Buffett's Education

In 1947, a seventeen year old Warren Buffett graduated from High
School. It was never his intention to go to college; he had already
made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in
2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the
Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett
stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his
professors. When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional
race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Working full-time, he managed to
graduate in only three years.

Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance

he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply
to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission
decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted,
Warren applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and
David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his
life.

But before the report proceeds it is wise to know about the BEN
GRAHAM

Ben Graham had become well known during the 1920's. At a

time when the rest of the world was approaching the investment arena
as a giant game of roulette, he searched for stocks that were so
inexpensive they were almost completely devoid of risk. One of
his best known calls was the Northern Pipe Line, an oil
transportation company managed by the Rockefellers. The
stock was trading at $65 a share, but after studying the balance
sheet, Graham realized that the company had bond holdings worth
$95 for every share. The value investor tried to convince
management to sell the portfolio, but they refused. Shortly thereafter,
he waged a proxy war and secured a spot on the Board of Directors.
The company sold its bonds and paid a dividend in the amount of $70
per share.

When he was 40 years old, Ben Graham published Security

Analysis, one of the greatest works ever penned on the stock market.
At the time, it was risky; investing in equities had become a joke. It
was around this time that Graham came up with the principle of
"intrinsic" business value - a measure of a business's true worth
that was completely and totally independent of the stock price. Using
intrinsic value, investors could decide what a company was worth and
make investment decisions accordingly. His subsequent book, The
Intelligent Investor, which Warren celebrates as "the greatest book
on investing ever written", introduced the world to Mr. Market - the
best investment analogy in history.
Through his simple yet profound investment principles, Ben Graham
became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one year old Warren
Buffett. Reading an old edition of Who's Who, Warren discovered
his mentor was the Chairman of a small, unknown insurance
company named GEICO. He hopped a train to Washington D.C. one
Saturday morning to find the headquarters. When he got there, the
doors were locked. Not to be stopped, Buffett relentlessly pounded on
the door until a janitor came to open it for him. He asked if there was
anyone in the building. As luck (or fate) would have it, there was. It
turns out that there was a man still working on the sixth floor. Warren
was escorted up to meet him and immediately began asking him
questions about the company and its business practices; a
conversation that stretched on for four hours. The man was none
other than Lorimer Davidson, the Financial Vice President. The
experience would be something that stayed with Buffett for the rest of
his life. He eventually acquired the entire GEICO company
through his corporation, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY.

Flying through his graduate studies at Columbia, Warren Buffett was

the only student ever to earn an A+ in one of Graham's classes.
Disappointingly both Ben Graham and Warren's father advised
him not to work on Wall Street after he graduated. Absolutely
determined, Buffett offered to work for the Graham
partnership for free. Ben turned him down. He preferred to hold his
spots for Jews who were not hired at Gentile firms at the time. Warren
was crushed.

Warren Buffett Returns Home

Returning home, he took a job at his father's brokerage house and

began seeing a girl by the name of Susie Thompson. The relationship
eventually turned serious and in April of 1952 the two were married.
They rented out a three-room apartment for $65 a month; it was run-
down and served as home to several mice. It was here their daughter,
also named Susie, was born. In order to save money, they made a bed
for her in a dresser drawer.

During these initial years, Warren's investments were predominately

limited to a Texaco station and some real estate, but neither was
successful. It was also during this time he began teaching night
classes at the University of Omaha (something that wouldn't have
been possible several months before. In an effort to conquer his
intense fear of public speaking, Warren took a course by Dale
Carnegie). Thankfully, things changed. Ben Graham called one day,
inviting the young stockbroker to come to work for him.
Warren was finally given the opportunity he had long awaited.

Warren Buffett Goes to Work for Ben Graham

The couple took a house in the suburbs of New York. Buffett spent his
days analyzing S&P reports, searching for investment opportunities. It
was during this time that the difference between the Graham and
Buffett philosophies began to emerge. Warren became interested
in how a company worked - what made it superior to competitors. Ben
simply wanted numbers whereas Warren was predominately
interested in a company's management as a major factor when
deciding to invest, Graham looked only at the balance sheet and
income statement; he could care less about corporate leadership.
Between 1950 and 1956, Warren built his personal capital up to
$140,000 from a mere $9,800. With this war chest, he set his sights
back on Omaha and began planning his next move.

On May 1, 1956, Warren Buffett rounded up seven limited

partners which included his Sister Doris and Aunt Alice, raising
$105,000 in the process. He put in $100 himself, officially creating
the Buffett Associates, Ltd. Before the end of the year, he was
managing around $300,000 in capital. Small, to say the least, but
he had much bigger plans for that pool of money. He purchased a
house for $31,500, affectionately nicknamed "Buffett's Folly", and
managed his partnerships originally from the bedroom, and later, a
small office. By this time, his life had begun to take shape; he had
three children, a beautiful wife, and a very successful business.

Over the course of the next five years, the Buffett partnerships
racked up an impressive 251.0% profit, while the Dow was up
only 74.3%. A somewhat-celebrity in his hometown, Warren never
gave stock tips despite constant requests from friends and strangers
alike. By 1962, the partnership had capital in excess of $7.2
million, of which a cool $1 million was Buffett's personal stake
(he didn't charge a fee for the partnership - rather Warren was entitled
to 1/4 of the profits above 4%). He also had more than 90 limited
partners across the United States. In one decisive move, he
melded the partnerships into a single entity called "Buffett
Partnerships Ltd.", upped the minimum investment to
$100,000, and opened an office in Kiewit Plaza on Farnam street.

In 1962, a man by the name of Charlie Munger moved back to his

childhood home of Omaha from California. Though somewhat snobbish,
Munger was brilliant in every sense of the word. He had attended
Harvard Law School without a Bachelor's Degree. Introduced by mutual
friends, Buffett and Charlie were immediately drawn together,
providing the roots for a friendship and business collaboration that
would last for the next forty years.

Ten years after its founding, the Buffett Partnership assets were up
more than 1,156% compared to the Dow's 122.9%. Acting as lord over
assets that had ballooned to $44 million dollars, Warren and Susie's
personal stake was $6,849,936. Mr. Buffett, as they say, had arrived.

Wisely enough, just as his persona of success was beginning to be

firmly established, Warren Buffett closed the partnership to new
accounts. The Vietnam war raged full force on the other side of the
world and the stock market was being driven up by those who hadn't
been around during the depression. All while voicing his concern for
rising stock prices, the partnership pulled its biggest coup in 1968,
recording a 59.0% gain in value, catapulting to over $104 million in
assets.

The next year, Warren went much further than closing the fund to new
accounts; he liquidated the partnership. In May 1969, he informed
his partners that he was "unable to find any bargains in the current
market". Buffett spent the remainder of the year liquidating the
portfolio, with the exception of two companies - Berkshire and
Diversified Retailing. The shares of Berkshire were distributed
among the partners with a letter from Warren informing them
that he would, in some capacity, be involved in the business, but
was under no obligation to them in the future. Warren was clear in his
intention to hold onto his own stake in the company (he owned 29% of
the Berkshire Hathaway stock) but his intentions weren't revealed.

Warren Buffett Gains Control of Berkshire Hathaway

Buffett's role at Berkshire Hathaway had actually been somewhat

defined years earlier. In 1965, after accumulating 49% of the
common stock, Warren named himself Director.

In 1970, Buffett named himself Chairman of the Board of

Berkshire Hathaway .That same year, the Chairman's capital
allocation began to display his prudence; textile profits were a pitiful
$45,000, while insurance and banking each brought in $2.1 and $2.6
million dollars. The paltry cash brought in from the struggling looms
in New Bedford, Massachusetts had provided the stream of capital
necessary to start building Berkshire.

A year or so later, Warren Buffett was offered the chance to buy

a company by the name of See's Candy. The gourmet chocolate
maker sold its own brand of candies to its customers at a premium to
regular confectionary treats. The balance sheet reflected what
Californians already knew - they were more than willing to pay a bit
"extra" for the special "See's" taste. The businessman decided
Berkshire would be willing to purchase the company for $25 million in
cash. See's owners were holding out for $30 million, but soon
conceded. It was the biggest investment Berkshire or Buffett
had ever made.

Following several investments and an SEC investigation (after causing

a merger to fail, Warren and Munger offered to buy the stock of
Wesco, the target company, at the inflated price simply because they
thought it was "the right thing to do". Not surprisingly, the
government didn't believe them), Buffett began to see Berkshire's net
worth climb. From 1965 to 1975, the company's book value rose
from $20 per share to around $95. It was also during this
period that Warren made his final purchases of Berkshire
stock (when the partnership dolled out the shares, he owned 29%.
Years later, he had invested more than $15.4 million dollars into the
company at an average cost of $32.45 per share). This brought his
ownership to over 43% of the stock with Susie holding another 3%.
His entire fortune was placed into Berkshire. With no personal
 holdings, the company had become his sole investment
vehicle.

In 1976, Buffett once again became involved with GEICO. The

company had reported amazingly high losses and its stock was
pummeled down to $2 per share. Warren wisely realized that the
basic business was still in tact; most of the problem was caused by an
inept management. Over the next few years, Berkshire built up its
position in this ailing insurer and reaped millions in profits.
Benjamin Graham, who still held his fortune in the company, died in in
September of the same year, shortly before the turnaround. Years
later, the insurance giant became a fully owned subsidiary of
Berkshire.

“Wall Street is the

only place that people ride to
in a Rolls Royce to get advice
from those who take the
subway."

STEVE PAUL JOB

S teven Paul Jobs is the co-founder, two-time CEO, and

chairman of Apple Inc. Born in San Francisco in 1955, Jobs attended

high school in Cupertino, Calif., the city where Apple is based. In 1972,
he briefly attended Reed College in Portland, Ore., but dropped
out after a semester. Jobs returned to California in 1974 and landed a
job with Atari, where his friend and eventual business partner
Steve Wozniak also worked.

Apple – Rise and Eventual Ouster

Jobs co-founded Apple, then known as Apple Computer, with

Steve Wozniak to provide a circuit board for hobbyists who built their
own computers. Despite that homebrew beginning, Apple helped usher
in the age of the personal computer with the introduction of the
Apple II line in 1976.

Those machines soon gave way to a revolutionary change in

desktop computing – the Macintosh. The Mac OS was the first
commercially available and widely embraced system to use the
graphical user interface that is common today and a mouse for
interacting with the icons on the screen. The Mac was a giant success
and rocketed Jobs and Apple into position as one of the world’s
most important computer companies.
The company made a huge splash with its 1984 Super Bowl
commercial that introduced that Macintosh, which played on
George Orwell’s novel 1984 and positioned IBM as Big Brother,
while Apple represented heroic rebels struggling for freedom.

By that time, Jobs had lured John Sculley, an experienced executive,

away from PepsiCo to be Apple’s CEO. But, in 1985, amid a sales
slump, Jobs lost a corporate power struggle to Sculley and the
company’s board of directors, and left Apple.

NeXT – A New Challenge

Upon leaving Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Computer; a computer

company that took the graphical lessons learned from the success of
the Mac and married them to the computing power of UNIX. The stylish
and technologically advanced, but expensive, NeXT computers
never caught on in the way that the Apple II or Mac lines did,
though NeXT maintained a steady business from 1985-1997.
And, come 1997, NeXT would take on a new and much more central
role -- at Apple.

Pixar – A Hobby Becomes a Powerhouse

While at NeXT, Jobs purchased a computer graphics division of

Lucas film Ltd. in 1986 for $10 million. That division became Pixar
Animation Studios, with Jobs as its CEO and majority
shareholder.

It was originally intended as a computer hardware company to aim

high-end machines at Hollywood, and when that business failed to
take off, the company transformed into a maker of animated movies
with a contract with Disney.
Under Jobs’ leadership, Pixar became a dominant movie-making
force in Hollywood, churning out a string of smash hits,
including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo,
the Incredibles, and Wall-E, among others.

In 2006, Jobs engineered the sale of Pixar to the Walt Disney Co.,
a deal which landed him a spot on Disney’s board and made him
the company’s largest individual shareholder. After the conclusion of
that deal, Fortune Magazine named Jobs its Most Powerful
Businessman of 2007.

The Return to Apple – Triumph

Jobs earned that title not only due to his role at Disney but also
because, by that time, he had returned to Apple as its Chairman
and CEO.

In late 1996, Jobs had overseen the sale of NeXT to Apple and
returned to a leadership position in the company he co-founded. The
technology underlying NeXT’s hardware and software was acquired in
a $429 million deal in 1996 and became the foundation of Apple’s
next-generation Mac OS X operating system.

When Apple CEO Gil Amelio was ousted by the company’s board of
directors in 1997, Jobs returned to the company as its interim CEO.

At that time, Apple was foundering under low marketshare, a confused

licensing strategy, diffuse product line, and lack of focus, all of which
led to much speculation in the press and online that the company
would either merge with another or go under. In order to keep the
company afloat, Jobs immediately began a series of sometimes-
unpopular cuts, including paring from Apple’s product lines
middlingly successful but passionately followed products like the
Newton PDA.

The first major hit product of Jobs’ second tenure at Apple was the
iMac, an all-in-one computer introduced in 1998, which continues in
production today. The iMac was followed by a string of hit laptop
and desktop computers, though some failures - such as the Power
Mac G4 cube - were mixed in.

Under Jobs’ leadership, Apple returned from the brink of bankruptcy

to again become a stable, successful company. But, thanks to the
introduction of a small gadget, the company would soon skyrocket.

In October 2001, Apple unveiled the first iPod. The cigarette-pack-

sized digital music player offered 5GB of storage (enough for about
1,000 songs) and a simple interface. It was an instant hit.

The development of the iPod had been ordered by Jobs – who disliked
existing digital music players and their difficult interfaces – and was
overseen by engineering head Jon Rubinstein and product designer
Jonathan Ive.

The iPod worked with Apple’s music management software,

iTunes, which had been introduced in January 2001. The combination
of the two, with their ease of use and powerful features, made the iPod
a smash. Apple began a quick expansion of the iPod product line to
include the Mini, nano, Shuffle, and later the touch,
introducing new iPods roughly every six months.
ITunes also evolved and added the iTunes Store for downloadable
sales of music in 2003 and movies in 2005. With that move, Apple
cemented its place in the music industry and made the
iPod/iTunes combination the de facto standard for digital music
consumption and playback. By 2008, Apple had become the
world's largest retailer of music (online or offline), and record
companies began to worry about Apple’s dominance in their business.
In 2009, the iTunes Store sold its 6 billionth song.

The iPhone

In January 2007, Apple expanded on the success of the iPod, and

positioned itself to revolutionize another market, when it announced
the iPhone. That device was developed with Jobs’ oversight and
involvement and was an instant hit upon its release. The first iPhone
sold 270,000 units in its first 30 hours of availability, while its
successor, the iPhone 3G, sold 1 million units in its first three days just
a year later.

By March 2009, Apple had sold over 17 million iPhones, and had
surpassed quarterly sales of the previously dominant
smartphone, the Blackberry.

Following on the success of the iTunes Store, the iPhone got an App
Store, offering third-party software, in July 2008. By January 2009, it
had registered 500 million downloads, a mark it took the iTunes Store
two years to reach. Apple had another hit on its hands.

Health Leave

Amidst this success, Jobs was dogged by questions about his health,
especially after the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)
appearance in 2006.
In January 2009, Jobs issued a statement saying that his appearance
was related to a hormonal imbalance that drained his body of
necessary proteins. The statement added that his doctors thought
they’d found a cause, that he’d seek treatment, and that he wouldn’t
speak more on the topic, as he felt it was a personal matter.

However, less than 10 days later it was announced that Jobs’ health
problems were more serious than first realized and that he’d be taking
a six-month leave of absence from the company. The company’s
stock initially took a beating, but recovered to a level only a
few points below the announcement within about a week. Tim
Cook, the company’s chief operating officer, served as CEO in
Jobs’ stead.

Jobs returned to work at Apple in late June 2009, as scheduled. He

has reportedly been deeply involved with Apple since his return.

Steve Jobs’ Legacy

Perhaps no other executive in modern memory, with the possible

exception of Bill Gates, has been as closely tied to his company, and
its success – or the public perception of that success, at least – as Jobs.

Some, including Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper, have even

compared Jobs and his legacy to those of legendary business
figures like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Walt Disney.
Others, however, have been less laudatory, placing him on a second
tier of historical business figures due to his smaller accumulated
wealth and charitable contributions.

Despite any analysis that places Jobs in rare historical company, his
management and personal styles have also been the subject of legend
and anxiety. Jobs has been jokingly said to possess a “reality distortion
field,” a term used by many to describe the force of his personality and
presence, and his ability to convince people of the correctness of his
positions.

His personality has also led to criticism of a management style

that included strong doses of both fear and secrecy. Under Jobs,
Apple has been notorious for tightly protecting details of new products
launches, going so far as to sue rumors websites and hold up deals
with partners who leaked information. In the new millennium, Apple
has become known for its desire to — and general success in doing so
— control press coverage about it.

Despite these criticisms, the Apple Jobs has built is strong, with over
$24 billion in cash on hand, growing marketshare, and a deeply
devoted customer base.

Criticism notwithstanding, it’s clear that Steve Jobs is a technology

visionary who has transformed at least two markets — computers and
digital music — and might yet have a lasting impact on a third, cell
phones.

“Being the richest man in the cemetery

doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying
we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what
matters to me.”

AZIM PREMJI
 A zim Premji is Chairman of Wipro Technologies, one of the

largest software companies in India. He is an icon among Indian

businessmen and his success story is a source of inspiration to a
number of budding entrepreneurs.

Born on July 24, 1945, Azim Hashim Premji was studying Electrical
Engineering from Stanford University, USA when due to the
sudden demise of his father, he was called upon to handle the family
business. Azim Premji took over the reins of family business in 1966 at
the age of 21.

At the first annual general meeting of the company attended by Azeem

Premji, a shareholder doubted Premji's ability to handle
business at such a young age and publicly advised him to sell his
shareholding and give it to a more mature management. This
spurred Azim Premji and made him all the more determined to
make Wipro a success story. And the rest is history.

When Azim Premji occupied the hot seat, Wipro dealt in

hydrogenated cooking fats and later diversified to bakery fats,
ethnic ingredient based toiletries, hair care soaps, baby
toiletries, lighting products and hydraulic cylinders. Thereafter
Premji made a focused shift from soaps to software.

Under Azim Premji's leadership Wipro has metamorphosed from a

Rs.70 million company in hydrogenated cooking fats to a pioneer in
providing integrated business, technology and process solutions on a
global delivery platform. Today, Wipro Technologies is the largest
independent Research
and Development service provider in the world.

Azim Premji has several achievements to his credit. In 2000, Asiaweek

magazine, voted Premji among the 20 most powerful men in the
world. Azim Premji was among the 50 richest people in the world
from 2001 to 2003 listed by Forbes. In April 2004, Times Magazine
rated him among the 100 most influential people in the world by
Time magazine. He is also the richest Indian for the past several
years. In 2005, Government of India honored Azim Premji with Padma
Bhushan.

“Character is one factor that will guide all our

actions and decisions. We invested in
uncompromising integrity that helped us take
difficult stands in some of the most difficult
business situations.”