I remember the dinner meeting with Mike at Belvedere in 2007 in Bangalore. Mike told me something fundamental that had a profound impact. He said, “In 1992, five people came to me and asked for money, and everyone said don’t because IBM will eat them away, they became Cisco. Then three people came to me and asked for money, everyone said Microsoft will swallow them and they became Google.
If you believe your idea is good, you got to pursue it. Dream big for yourself.” If Microsoft and IBM could not kill some company, which other company in the world could? I thought. I had to chart my own course. Another memorable meeting was at a Hong Kong golf course with Ada Tse from AIG Global Investment Group. I remember her asking me, how big can Coffee Day get? I replied, “One coffee company in the world is valued at $30 billion, we should be at least $10 billion.” That other company has since rerated to $80 billion.
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