Decoding Success: Cred’s Kunal Shah Draws Comparison Of Global CEOs With Lord Rama, Krishna

“I often wonder about it [why global companies have Indian CEOs], and I have had the good fortune to meet a fair bunch of these individuals," he said

Kunal Shah, the founder of fintech start-up Cred, highlighted that Indian CEOs who have achieved success on a global scale possess the capability to seamlessly transition between embodying the values symbolised by the Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. During an engaging conversation with Lenny Rachitsky on his podcast, released on Sunday, Shah, whose academic background includes philosophy but has transitioned into the tech entrepreneurship sphere, elaborated on his observations regarding the prevalence of Indian CEOs in leading positions within numerous global companies.

“I often wonder about it [why global companies have Indian CEOs], and I have had the good fortune to meet a fair bunch of these individuals. And had a chance to really explore with them what really went on. So, there are a few things that pop out. Again, these are all conjectures, which I can't prove in any way, but it's a thought experiment anyways to talk about these things,” Shah said.

“First is: In general, immigrants that get out of the country usually have a chip on the shoulder in a very different way. And the struggle they have to go through - to just get out and be successful, and that hunger that got them there. There was no privilege… like they came from very humble backgrounds and literally no money to start with. So, I think this force is real,” he added.

However, Shah noted that the same principle also applies to immigrants from other nations. Therefore, the disparity boils down to societies that prioritise mathematics and logic versus those that do not.

“Appreciation for math in general or logic, come through the society in a big way. Let's say for example lots of engineering graduates come from only a few countries because the society was bent towards earliness of mathematics. I think that kind of helps create status. That what will get appreciated, for example being an engineer, being a doctor,” Shah opined.

Shah also drew comparisons between the societal statuses enjoyed by various educational disciplines. "Like philosophy major, I was a write-off for the society over here right. The reason I am the rare commodity [is] because you are not considered to be very bright unless you break into these very hard exams. The filtering criteria on its own is big,” he said.

Apart from the "filtering criteria," Shah mentioned another theory, crediting Indian mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik for his insights. “There's another interesting framework all together, which I have actually learned from this gentleman Devdutt Pattanaik. He applies Indian mythology and management principles together, and it's an interesting thing,” added Shah.

“There are three major Indian gods. One is the Brahma, the god of creation. Shiva, the god of destruction. I'm super generalising but that's the classification. And the third is Vishnu, which is the god of sustenance. And there are avatars, the word avatar comes from Vishnu, [he] keeps changing avatars. So we have had Rama, Krishna, who are avatars.”

He proceeded to provide an intriguing interpretation of the value system represented by the gods, organising it into a two-by-two grid. “What you notice is, if you take a two-by-two of people who are high on values and low on values, high on obedience and low on obedience, you make an interesting two-by-two. Now, Lord Krishna which is one of the very popular avatars, suits the entrepreneurial category, which is high on values but very low on obedience. He was known to be the naughty god and he could actually create lots of things. And, there is Rama, which is known to be the one who follows principles and [is] obedient. So, they will follow Dharma and scale on that. And then there are these notorious characters there is Ravana, which is low on values, low on obedience and there's Duryodhana, he is high on obedience but low on values. So, these are the people that you don't want to be,” he said.

Shah subsequently argued that Indian CEOs excel at adhering to the 'Dharma', or the fundamental principles established by the founders. However, Shah also believes that not all CEOs can follow the ‘Dharma’.

“What you notice is that a lot of CEOs have done well because they follow the Dharma of the founders quite well. They have not diluted the Dharma of the founders who have started these companies and managed to sustain that,” he said.

He added, “A lot of CEOs have this need to say, ‘I'm going to change the company forever, and it will be my identity, and I will change the logo, and I will change the name, and I will do all sorts of things’. But maintaining Dharma, where I will say that ‘these are the principles given to me, and I'm going to sustain this and make it even bigger, comes from humility of saying that something is built with some pure form factor, and I think therefore that character stays on.”

He remarked that the Indian CEOs he encountered from global companies possess the ability to seamlessly transition between embodying the values symbolised by Krishna and Rama.

“When you think about the archetype of at least the Indian CEOs I have seen, they are fabulous at moving between Krishna and Rama all the time. They can play this consistently, and therefore, they keep evolving and keep making these companies bigger and bigger. I think we'll see a lot more of this in years to come because now they have the role models of these individuals who have kind of done well.”

“Rama is high on values and high on obedience, and Krishna is high on values and low on obedience, but they both are high on values, which means they will follow Dharma. And they will change sides. For example, let’s say Satya [Nadella], during the Open AI crisis, played Krishna and guarded things out, but he'll switch back to being Rama and continue to keep scaling it up,” Shah concluded.