Why Narayana Murthy turned down Air India to join IIM at half the salary

Narayana Murthy's first job after graduation was at IIMA

Narayana Murthy returned to the site of his first job – the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) – as chief guest at the institute’s 58th convocation ceremony. The Infosys co-founder had joined IIMA as chief systems programmer after graduating with a master’s degree from IIT-Kanpur in 1969.

As Narayana Murthy returned to IIMA today, the institute unearthed some interesting snippets about the pioneer of India’s IT sector. In a Facebook post, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad revealed that Murthy had received several lucrative job offers after graduating IIT. Among those who wanted the young graduate on board were companies like TELCO, TISCO and Air India. Each of these companies were offering him a salary of around Rs 1,600 per month.

Murthy, however, chose to join IIMA as chief systems programmer, earning half of what he would have earned at Air India or other potential employers.

In 2019, he revealed why he turned down better-paying jobs to join IIMA. Murthy explained that in 1969, IIMA was in the process of installing India’s first time-sharing system – and the third such in the world after Harvard and Stanford.

“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, about the opportunity to interact with very bright students, about the opportunity to create lots of interactive lessons using computers for students in accounting, in simulation, in finance, in production etc. So therefore I chose that path and that’s probably the best decision I made in my life,” Murthy concluded.