N.R. Narayana Murthy co-founded Infosys in 1981, with just ₹10,000 borrowed from his wife. He built it into one of India’s biggest IT services companies, and is widely called the father of the Indian IT industry.
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Indian Economy · IndEco0144
N.R. Narayana Murthy
Father of the Indian IT industry
1981
Founds Infosys with 6 other engineers, on ₹10,000 borrowed from his wife.
1993
Infosys goes public in India, listing on Indian stock exchanges.
Mar 1999
Infosys becomes the first India-registered company listed on NASDAQ, as INFY.
2013-14
Returns as Executive Chairman during a rough patch; steps down as Vishal Sikka takes over as CEO.
Built the model, not just the company
Narayana Murthy’s Global Delivery Model became the backbone of India’s entire software services export industry, not just Infosys’s own growth.
Must Know
- Narayana Murthy was born on 20 August 1946, in Sidlaghatta, Karnataka.
- He earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1967, and a Master of Technology from IIT Kanpur in 1969.
- In 1981, he and six other engineers founded Infosys. Starting capital was just ₹10,000, borrowed from his wife, Sudha Murthy.
- He served as Infosys’s CEO from 1981 to 2002.
- Infosys went public in India in 1993. Its shares listed at ₹95, and opened trading at ₹145.
- In March 1999, Infosys became the first India-registered company listed on an American stock exchange, on NASDAQ under the ticker INFY.
- In 2013, he returned to Infosys as Executive Chairman, during a difficult period for the company. He stepped down in 2014, when Vishal Sikka became CEO.
Good to Know
- Before founding Infosys, Narayana Murthy worked in Paris in the 1970s. There, he helped design an operating system for handling air cargo at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
- Infosys’s six other co-founders were Nandan Nilekani, S. Gopalakrishnan, S.D. Shibulal, K. Dinesh, N.S. Raghavan, and Ashok Arora.
- Narayana Murthy conceived and implemented the Global Delivery Model. This is the practice of splitting a project across teams in different countries, and it became the backbone of India’s software services industry.
- In December 2012, Infosys moved its US share listing from NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
- Infosys was also an early adopter of employee stock options in Indian industry, alongside its 1993 IPO.
- He received the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, in 2008.
Test Yourself
Great to Know
- Infosys helped pioneer India’s software-services export model. It showed the world that Indian firms could deliver complex technology work reliably, not just cheap labour.
- The company’s early emphasis on transparent corporate governance and employee stock ownership was unusual for Indian industry at the time. It became a widely-copied model for later Indian startups.
- Narayana Murthy’s 2013 return, and 2014 exit, highlighted a recurring tension in Indian corporate history. Founders sometimes step back in for professional managers, and friction can follow.
- He is often described as the “father of the Indian IT industry.” That title reflects both Infosys’s own scale, and its influence on how the wider sector organised itself.
Current Affairs
- Since 2023, Narayana Murthy has repeatedly called for young Indians to work much longer hours, citing competition with faster-growing economies like China. (Source: Fortune, 30 Oct 2023)
- He first proposed a 70-hour work week. In a later 2025 interview, he raised this to 72 hours, matching China’s “996” schedule (9am-9pm, six days a week). (Source: Deccan Herald, 2025)
- Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai later clarified the remarks. He said they were aimed at entrepreneurs and startup founders chasing global scale, not ordinary salaried employees. (Source: Madhyamam, 2025)
- The comments triggered a wider, still-ongoing Indian public debate on work-life balance, productivity, and labour norms in the technology sector.
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