Did you feel at that time that you're really ready for the job following those legends or were you saying I can do a better job than they did.

The best advice I got from both Bill and Steve I think helped me a lot because their clear message was don't try to be like us.

Don't even bother to sort of say oh I'm succeeding.

These people just be your own.

In fact I remember very distinctly even during the interview process.

This is true for the board was conducting.

They asked me Hey do you want to be the CEO.

And I said only if you want me to be the CEO.

And the feedback I got was what.

But people who want to be CEOs are like I want to be CEO.

I said look that's not me.

And I remember when I'm going and and a half years the stock is up about I guess it's about 120 percent.

When you go to your annual shareholder meetings you get a standing ovation for what you've done.

No I get a lot of people asking me.

Hey look go come home and fix my computer.

OK.

You are a native of India.

What part of India.

I was born in Hyderabad which is in the central part of India.

And so growing up your parents outdoted on you I assume.

Yeah they did.

And they told you you were going to be prime minister or something important in the country.

What did they want you to be.

They just wanted me to stop playing cricket and take my studies a little more seriously.

Now you were an avid cricket player.

Yes that is correct.

I was in love with it.

And when did you realize you weren't going to be a professional cricket player.

Pretty soon.

Quickly I realized that at best I would play you know what is considered perhaps first class cricket in India.

But I was not going to go much further than that.

But you know that's when my dad in fact I remember one of the big decisions that changed my life was you know my entire outlook was so provincial when I look back at it which is hey I want to stay in Hyderabad maybe study economics and political science and work for a bank.

That was about the extent of my ambition.

And he looks at me and he says what are you doing.

You've got to get out of this place.

And so he pushed me out to get to an engineering school.

And that pretty much of course you know defined the trajectory afterwards.

Your father was a member of the senior civil service which is an important position I think in India.

Is that right.

Yeah.

My dad was a very different guy than me in terms of let me say his academic prowess.

So it is always humorous.

But you look at my report cards and he says oh I couldn't I don't understand how anybody can have these kind of marks.

And but the nice thing about it was he would say it in such endearing ways that he never made me feel bad.

I mean the marks weren't high enough or weren't not high enough.

They weren't high enough.

Yeah.

The guy had never met an exam.

He didn't ace as he would say.

OK.

And so he was like he was astounding to me that he would have a son who couldn't take an exam.

Now your father is still alive.

Yes.

He must be very proud of what you've achieved.

Not enough.

So you went to college in India and then you decided to get graduate school in the United States.

Yeah.

And I switched from electrical engineering to computer science.

But when you're in India University of Wisconsin Milwaukee can't be that well known in India.

So how did you happen to wind up there.

I'd never been to Western Bombay quite frankly.

And then I showed up in Milwaukee.

Did you have a winter coat or.

That was my first very valued possession in life.

A winter coat which is very important.

Unfortunately I picked up this bad habit of smoking in India in college.

And the one nice thing about going to school in Milwaukee is you if you're a smoker you have to go out in the winter and smoke.

And that one winter in Milwaukee cured me of my smoking.

So you've got a job after you graduated at Sun Microsystems.

And what was your job there.

I was a software developer.

And then you got recruited to go to another company called Microsoft.

And that was in 1992.

That's right.

So.

But you also had applied to go to the University of Chicago School of Finance.

Quite frankly David I I was very committed to saying oh I want to go to the business school.

Maybe who knows maybe even go to Wall Street.

That was sort of my the highest calling of mankind.

Says David Rubenstein.

And I thought wow maybe that's what I should do.

And then somewhere along the lines I started talking to people and said hey why would you do that.

You're in tech.

And you should really come back.

It was it's an amazing time because Windows NT which eventually became a server business and what have you was just starting out.

And and I subsequently went and did some combination of part time and other courses and actually finished my MBA which I find stunning.

And you were commuting.

In other words you were working.

And then on weekends you're