Founder Stories · IIT Kanpur · Published 8 November 2026
N. R. Narayana Murthy cleared the IIT entrance exam with a 17th rank, by his own account, and then could not go, because his father could not pay the fees. "In 1962, I secured third rank in PU," he told students in Mysuru in 2016, as reported by The Times of India. "In the joint entrance examination, I secured 17th rank. I had an interview at IIT (Madras) and chose IIT (Kanpur) for higher studies. But since my father couldn't afford to pay for studies in IIT, I studied in NIE."
He reached IIT Kanpur five years later anyway, as a master's student, and it is where he first saw a computer. In July 2023 he went back as chief guest at the institute's 56th convocation, Hindustan Times reported, introduced as a distinguished alumnus who did his M.Tech there in 1969.
He is 80 now and has had no management role at Infosys since August 2017, Mint noted on 5 November. He still sets the terms of one argument in Indian offices: on 29 October a Karnataka IT union attacked Union minister Piyush Goyal's remarks on long hours as "echoing demands" made by Murthy. This profile follows the IIT thread through his life: the seat he gave up, the two years at Kanpur, and what they put into Infosys.
Rank 17, and the IIT seat his father could not pay for
Murthy was born on 20 August 1946, according to Mint. He was "the fifth of eight children", and his father "worked as a school teacher in Mysore", an Asia Society case study records. Murthy described the family he grew up in to its authors: "You have to imagine a lower middle class family in a district headquarters in the '60s. My father used to tell us about the importance of putting public good before private good; mother would talk about sacrifice and truth."
That is the background to the rank story. People still ask about Narayana Murthy's IIT rank, and the only first-hand source for the number is his 2016 talk at the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Mysuru, so treat it as his own account. The exam he sat in the early 1960s was the IITs' joint entrance examination of that time, not the JEE Advanced students sit today.
He went to NIE instead and took a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Infosys's 2014 annual filing with the US SEC records it as "a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mysore". In the same 2016 talk he credited two NIE teachers and his own habits: "I did not miss a single class then. I used to do my homework every day," TOI reported.
IIT Kanpur, 1967 to 1969: a computer behind a glass window
The same SEC filing gives the second degree: "a Master's degree in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur". Murthy dates his time there himself. A 2022 newspaper tribute he wrote ends with the line that he "was a student at IIT Kanpur between 1967 and 1969" (The Times of India).
He enrolled in electrical engineering, and the computer found him within a day or two. "One my first or second day at IIT Kanpur, one of my friends said he would show me the computer. I was very excited," he told The Economic Times in 2016. "Through a glass window, he showed me a machine making a lot of noise and spewing paper. He said, 'That is a computer.'" Looking back with the Asia Society, he said Kanpur was where he was introduced to computers, and summed up the effect in four words: "I was hooked."
Kanpur had an IBM 1620 by 1963, ET reported, and one professor, H. N. Mahabala, was working with the electrical engineering faculty on what the paper calls "the first computer science education modules in India." Murthy consulted Mahabala on his thesis topic. In his 2022 tribute he wrote: "It was very clear that Prof Mahabala's objective was to find the best in me and not to intimidate me with his tough questions."
By his second year he was teaching. "I was a laboratory instructor for a course on Fortran programming being conducted by IIT Kanpur for the IAS officers of the UP government in 1968," he wrote in that tribute. His job was to help them run "their Fortran IV programs on an IBM 1620, a small batch processing computer at the IITK computer centre." One officer told him the professor had said the night before that computers could arrange marriages.
Then came the first real decision. After his M.Tech in 1969, Murthy had offers from TELCO, TISCO and Air India, each paying "around Rs 1,600 per month", Moneycontrol reported from an IIM Ahmedabad archive post. He took a job as chief systems programmer at IIM Ahmedabad for about half that. In the institute's oral history he said: "So I was the only person from my batch of 16 students to have taken half the salary in quest of learning about a modern operating system." He called it "probably the best decision I made in my life."
What drew him, he told the Asia Society, was a professor's pitch that IIM Ahmedabad would be the third business school in the world, after Harvard and Stanford, to run a time-sharing system. The Kanpur years had taught him what a computer could do. Ahmedabad let him work on one full time.
The night at Nis in 1974 that ended his socialism
In 1974 Murthy was on a train through Nis, "a border town between what is now Serbia and Bulgaria", as The Economic Times put it, reporting a talk he gave to IIT Bombay's tech fest in January 2020. He had been chatting with a young woman in French. "We were talking about life in Bulgaria. I think the boy, who was accompanying the girl, got upset with us for some reason. So, he went and brought the police," he said.
Guards took his passport and luggage and held him in an 8 by 8 room, ET reported. "I thought they would open the door in the morning and get me some breakfast since I was the state guest, but nothing happened," he said. In an interview quoted by Times Now, he put it at "about 120 hours without water and food" before he was pushed into the guard's compartment of a freight train. Accounts of the exact length differ; his own is about five days.
"That cued me from being a confused leftist to a determined compassionate capitalist."
N. R. Narayana Murthy on the 1974 arrest at Nis, as quoted by The Economic Times
His first company did not survive. Softronics, which tried to sell IT services to Indian customers from Pune, was closed because "he could not see any future prospects", ET reported. Sudha Murty, his wife, remembered the failure years later when describing the money she gave him for the next attempt (Business Standard, 2024): "I had Rs 10,250 in my savings. I saved Rs 250 for myself and gave him the rest because he failed in his earlier venture Softronics, so I took a risk."
Between Softronics and Infosys he worked at Patni Computer Systems; in 1979, while there, he approached Wipro for a job and never heard back, Mint recounted. At Patni he met Nandan Nilekani, a story told in our Nandan Nilekani profile.
Infosys, 1981 to 1999: two years for a computer licence
Infosys "was incorporated at Mumbai, in the state of Maharashtra, in India on July 2, 1981", its 1999 SEC filing says. The company's own history page, archived in 2013, says it was "established by N. R. Narayana Murthy and six engineers in Pune, India, with an initial capital of US$ 250", and that its first client was Data Basics Corporation in New York. It moved its head office to Bangalore in 1983.
The 1980s were slow, and Murthy blames the licence raj more than the market. "It took us a year to obtain a telephone connection, two years to get a license to import a computer, and 15 days to get foreign currency for travel abroad," he told Wharton's MBA graduates in 2001 (Knowledge at Wharton). In a 2021 interview he said the computer licence took "two to three years and anywhere between 30 and say 50 visits to Delhi."
By 1990 his co-founders were tired. "During 1990, as you perhaps know, there was an offer to buy us out for a small sum of Rs 2 crore," about $1 million at the exchange rate of the time, he told Moneycontrol in 2021. "When this offer came most of my colleagues were quite enthusiastic about selling the company." Moneycontrol reports that he refused and offered to buy them out himself, and that they stayed.
The 1991 reforms changed the arithmetic. Hiring abroad, opening offices, going public and creating employee stock options became board decisions, "without having to waste time in the corridors of North Block in New Delhi," he said in the same interview. The February 1993 IPO on the Bangalore Stock Exchange raised about $4.4 million, the 1999 filing says, and it was "in serious danger of being undersubscribed" until underwriter Enam Securities picked up the unsubscribed portion, CNBC-TV18 reported. On listing day, 14 June 1993, the shares rose to ₹145 in early trading against an issue price of ₹95, CNBC-TV18 reported.
The stock options came next. "Infosys instituted an employee stock option plan with two components in 1994," Murthy told Moneycontrol, and "the founders were not eligible for any of these." On 11 March 1999 Infosys listed American Depositary Shares on NASDAQ at $34 each, raising about $70.4 million. Revenue for the year to March 1999 was $120.96 million; by the year to March 2004 it was $1,062.6 million.
N. R. Narayana Murthy and Infosys: key dates
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1962 | 17th rank in the IIT joint entrance exam; cannot afford IIT, goes to NIE | TOI (his account) |
| 1967 to 1969 | M.Tech at IIT Kanpur | Murthy in TOI, Infosys 20-F, 2014 |
| 2 July 1981 | Infosys incorporated | Infosys 20-F, 1999 |
| February 1993 | IPO on the Bangalore Stock Exchange, about $4.4 million raised | Infosys 20-F, 1999 |
| 1994 | Employee stock option plan; founders not eligible | Moneycontrol |
| 11 March 1999 | NASDAQ listing, 2.07 million ADSs at $34 | Infosys 20-F, 1999 |
| 30 March 2002 | Steps down as CEO; becomes Chairman and Chief Mentor | Infosys 20-F, 2002 |
| Year to March 2004 | Revenue $1,062.6 million | Infosys 20-F, 2004 |
| 1 June 2013 | Returns as Executive Chairman | Infosys 20-F, 2014 |
| 6 November 2026 | Real-time net worth $4.2 billion | Forbes |
The rules he ran Infosys by, and the 70-hour week
Murthy handed the CEO's job to Nilekani in 2002. He was "Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from inception to March 30, 2002" and then Chairman and Chief Mentor, the 2002 filing says. The 2014 filing adds that he was Chairman Emeritus from August 2011 to May 2013, and the board brought him back as Executive Chairman from 1 June 2013. He left at the June 2014 AGM, crediting his son Rohan, who had worked as his executive assistant, with the turnaround work (Gulf Times, IANS).
The ideas he is quoted on most are older. At Wharton in 2001 he said: "Our core corporate assets walk out every evening, mentally and physically tired." And: "The best form of leadership is leadership by example." When he took on the board over governance in 2017, he listed six principles in a letter to shareholders, including "In God we trust, everybody else brings data and facts to the table" and "Bad news must take the elevator and good news can take the stairs."
The line he is best known for now is newer. In late 2023 he said on a podcast: "So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, 'This is my country. I'd like to work 70 hours a week'," the BBC reported on 1 November 2023. In November 2024 he told a CNBC-TV18 summit "I don't believe in work-life balance" (Indian Express). In November 2025 he cited China's 9-9-6 rule, "9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. And that is a 72-hour week", on Republic TV (Hindustan Times).
The reaction has been sharply divided, the BBC noted at the time, and it has not faded. When Piyush Goyal said last month that "Nobody in India will tell you it's 5 o'clock", the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union said his remarks "echoed demands made by business leaders, including Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy" (Deccan Herald, 29 October 2026).
On Reddit, students and IT employees mostly push back. Under a May 2026 r/india post on his latest call for a 72-hour week, one reply read: "How generous and humane of him to not ask us to work 168 hours a week!" (u/AllIsEvanescent, r/india, 974 upvotes, 5 May 2026). Six months earlier, another r/india commenter set the demand against the March 2024 share gift: "He gifted 15 lakh shares of Infosys, valued at over ₹240 crore at the time, to his four-month-old grandson and want us to work 72 hours for peanuts" (u/roman_77_77, r/india, 959 upvotes, 20 November 2025).
A more measured answer came from a user who said they were not Indian: "I’ve always found this debate stupid as a foreigner. The man has equity in his company. Its success is his success." Employees asked for the same hours, they went on, need equity or overtime pay to match (u/random120604, r/india, 764 upvotes, 21 January 2025). Some readers defend him. In r/bangalore one wrote: "People like him are just built different maybe... What we think they missed, for them it probably didn't matter as much." (u/funnyBatman, r/bangalore, 130 upvotes, 31 December 2022). Asked in r/IndianStreetBets what Infosys had ever invented, another answered: "Approximately 2 lakh 70 thousand employment opportunities in india." (u/vegetable-dentist95, r/IndianStreetBets, 29 upvotes, 12 March 2025).
Engineering students have their own angle. When Murthy said in 2024 that he did not believe in coaching classes, an r/Btechtards reply joked: "Log coaching leke iit, nit chale jayenge to 3.5 lpa ka job kaun karega", roughly, "if everyone takes coaching and gets into an IIT or NIT, who will do the ₹3.5 lakh-a-year job?" (u/funkytown_treatment, r/Btechtards, 63 upvotes, 14 September 2024). These are individual users, not surveys, but they show how a generation that never saw Infosys start now reads him: through its fresher salaries and his hours.
Where Narayana Murthy is now, and five lessons for IITians
Murthy describes himself as a shareholder now, with no say in Infosys's decisions, Mint reported on 5 November 2026. Infosys was worth about ₹4.7 lakh crore that day. The same piece retold how Azim Premji never called him back about that 1979 Wipro job: "No he didn't say no, he didn't call me back, that's all," Murthy said in a 2024 CNBC-TV18 interview.
His money now works through Catamaran Ventures, his family office. On 23 October it bought into Bonfiglioli Transmissions on the day the company listed, alongside Equism Capital, in deals worth close to ₹175 crore together, Moneycontrol reported. Forbes put his real-time net worth at $4.2 billion on 6 November 2026. Infosys's promoter group, which includes Murthy, Sudha Murty and their children, held 13.90% of the company at the end of September 2026, per Value Research's copy of the filing; his own stake was 0.41% at the end of 2025, Business Today reported.
He still talks about IIT Kanpur. More than two decades ago he offered the institute ₹8 crore in Infosys shares, and the government did not allow it to accept an equity donation, he told Moneycontrol in June 2025. "If they had accepted the shares and simply held on to them, today they would be worth Rs 2,000 crore," he said. "Even the dividends alone would have brought them Rs 500 crore over the past eight years."
On AI and jobs, his view in February 2026 was blunt: "the world will not end for the smart and the hard-working," he told Moneycontrol, as Mint reported.
Five things worth taking from his story, if you are at an IIT now:
- A missed IIT seat is not the end of the road. Murthy gave up a 17th rank because his family could not pay, did his B.E. at NIE, and reached IIT Kanpur five years later for the M.Tech. The PG route into an IIT is real.
- Use the machine your institute gives you. At Kanpur he saw his first computer on day one or two and was a lab instructor for a Fortran course on its IBM 1620 by 1968. Labs, clusters and GPUs on campus are a head start.
- Pick the job that teaches you, even at half the pay. He took ₹800 a month at IIM Ahmedabad over ₹1,600 at TELCO, TISCO or Air India, to work on a time-sharing system.
- A failed first company is normal. Softronics closed. Infosys started with ₹10,000 from Sudha Murty's savings and took 12 years to list.
- Share the upside. His 1994 stock-option plan rewarded employees "from the best peon to the best non-founder executive director", he told Moneycontrol, and left the founders out.
From IIT Kanpur, or headed there? Wear it: IIT Kanpur hoodies, tees and varsity jackets, shipped across India.
For more on the institute, read our IIT Kanpur campus guide and IIT Kanpur placements 2026. Another IIT Kanpur profile is Arvind Krishna of IBM, and his Infosys co-founder has his own: Nandan Nilekani. Last week's profile was Tarun Mehta of Ather Energy.
FAQ
What is Narayana Murthy's educational qualification?
He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mysore, studied at the National Institute of Engineering (1967), and a master's degree in technology from IIT Kanpur (1969), according to Infosys's 2014 SEC filing and his own account of studying at Kanpur from 1967 to 1969.
What was Narayana Murthy's IIT rank?
By his own account in a 2016 talk, he secured a 17th rank in the joint entrance examination in the early 1960s and chose IIT Kanpur, but his father could not afford the fees, so he studied at NIE Mysuru. He joined IIT Kanpur later for his M.Tech.
What is Narayana Murthy's net worth?
Forbes put his real-time net worth at $4.2 billion on 6 November 2026. Infosys's promoter group, which includes his family, held 13.90% of the company in September 2026. His own stake was 0.41% at the end of 2025. He also invests through his family office, Catamaran Ventures.
What did Narayana Murthy say about the 70-hour work week?
In October 2023 he said young Indians should be willing to work 70 hours a week. He repeated it in November 2024 ("I don't believe in work-life balance") and in November 2025, citing China's 72-hour 9-9-6 schedule. A Karnataka IT employees union cited it again in October 2026 to criticise long-hours remarks by a Union minister.
Hero photo: N. R. Narayana Murthy at the CIF Gala in Toronto, 2014, cropped from a photo by ps482207 on Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The cropped photo is shared under the same licence. Card design: IITianVibes.
By Arun Raghav S · Co-founder, IITian Vibes · B.Tech, IIT Jodhpur. Last updated: 8 November 2026. Corrections to hello@iitianvibes.com.