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THE
NEW ECONOMY: ADVENTURE CAPITALISTS
Adventure
Capitalists
Thumbing a ride on the new economy brandwagon, these are the players
to watch
They
are the Bill Gates, Bill Hewlett, and Jeff Bezos of India. A bunch of
dare dreamers with one bright idea-virtually no money to speak of but
an abundance of confidence.
They are
the leading lights of India's new economy. A group of entrepreneurs with
no industrial empire but more competitive and global than some of the
country's biggest business houses.
They are
as disparate as apples and oranges. A pack of wealth creators ranging
from a filmstar's daughter to a former public-sector manager, all starting
with nothing more than their savings as seed capital.
The nine
faces that India Today chose to represent the new spirit of enterprise
in India may not be India's largest wealth creators or employers-yet.
They are surely not the faces you have known or seen often. But there
is something about them that makes them taller and more promising than
some of the best known names in Indian industry. They welcome what big
industrialists of India fear most: foreign competition. They fear what
some big industrialists want most: protection and government. They prove
that in the new Indian economy, entrepreneurship isn't just about getting
licences, making products and selling it to the consumer. It's about taking
big risks and collecting bigger rewards.
So Varaprasad
Reddy of Hyderabad quit his secure job at a PSU at the age of 40 and went
on to produce India's first genetically engineered product. Raman Roy
in Delhi quit a high-flying career with American Express and GE Caps to
start a business that would actually be competing with his formidable
former employers. Then there is Ekta Kapoor, daughter of former matinee
idol Jitendra, who is building a behind-the-camera business in India's
thriving entertainment industry.
Some are
not entrepreneurs. They are the people who have helped the ice (information
technology, communications, entertainment) economy take shape or have
ensured that the benefits of the new economy spread across the country's
regions and classes. Helped by the opportunities unleashed by the liberalising
economy and evolving consumer tastes, these are the faces of India's new
economy.
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