Indian entrepreneur, industrialist, and philanthropist, Ratan Tata, dead at 86
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/ratan-tata-ins...
> the highlight of the day was going to a cafe at 10 pm in middle of work
Is it 'normal' to have to work late to 10pm, or does it mean second job, etc.? Or was that just a typo and you meant 10am?
My gut instinct is 10am, but wanted to ask directly out of curiosity if I was wrong and get a better cultural understanding.
Yes, of course and definitely I considered as I mention if he/she meant 2nd job, etc. Just the phrasing threw me off as it says 'day', then '10pm' and it's written as if it is a normal occurrence for the majority of the population (which would imply night shift/2nd shift is normal working times for the majority). Just wanted to get clarification from OP on exactly what was meant to satisfy my own curiosity.
> Call centre work is typically done overnight to accommodate time zones in the US, UK, and Australia
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/pack-of-s...
Just from the tons of articles from Google.
Are you talking about monkeys or dogs? I guess if you were talking about monkeys you forgot about how they raid the fridge and pretend to do laundry sometimes.
I've seen utter ignorance from ie older girls to stray dogs dying in the middle of the street, while I was reeling from mild shock sitting on the curb. I guess after few years there I would be desensitised too. Cows have it easy there, other animals not so much by western standards.
Its true that stray dogs specifically are also a potential threat, the picture ain't black & white.
Caring about something is no feat of character or strength when that just means making someone else do it.
During my work for Bentley Motors I was at one of the Geneve Motor Shows in the 2010s. During my stay at the fair, a new (1500 USD) Tata car was introduced. I visited the Tata stand with a friend, looking at their new car, which was quite the contrast in product philosophy, design and target group to the Bentley models. Thanking our host at the Tata stand for our personal tour, I gave him the invitation to return him the favour and show him the Bentley models and stand.
To my great surprise later that day Ratan Tata came to the Bentley stand with what appeared to be his family (some male and female family members) - and I was able to show him around. We could not talk much due to the bodyguards and press, but he seemed distinct in demeanor to his sons and entourage. Apart from the colourful and diverse customer group, I met Piech, other industrial magnates of our time, but Ratan managed to retain a humble and human aura. I sympathized with him.
While it's true that Tata has contributed positively in many areas, there are also significant controversies surrounding his legacy—like leasing coal mines for just 25 paise for 999 years before independence(1), among other issues(2)
It's important to consider both the positives and negatives to form a well-rounded opinion. Let's aim to be informed and objective rather than blindly idolizing anyone.
(1) https://www.firstpost.com/business/a-tata-coalgate-999-yr-mi...
This is like aiming for the trees and missing the forest - the corrupt entity here is the Indian government which facilitates such corruption and monopolization and makes it hard for new entrants to compete.
Having met the guy multiple times growing up he always stood out to me as a very humble man that loved the people and the institution he built. His love for dogs was something that helped me be closer to animals.
With regards to the comments about post-independence industrialization, most countries go through that phase where industrialists of the time stand to gain very lucrative opportunities to build value.
But yeah, lets find fault with everyone to form a "well-rounded opinion", because that is what we should strive to achieve
> And when threatened with recourse to the law, “the company started submitting the correct royalty.
IOW they continued doing what they had always been doing, and ignored a bunch of letters saying they should pay more. When the government took a more serious approach they started paying the royalty they were supposed to under the new rules.
Not a great look, but hardly beyond the norm.
If I had a penny...
Largest wholly owned and most advanced subsea fibre network, carrying around 30% of the world’s internet routes
Note "30% of the world’s internet routes" is BGP burden to other operators, but by the same token, a sign of widely distributed control of networks.
As an investor, "first Indian to buy a stake in Xiaomi" among dozens of startup investments. "Some senior executives from Xiaomi were quoted saying that they would seek Ratan Tata’s advice on how to expand globally."
As a philanthropist, perhaps larger still in relevance to seeding, supporting, & growing the hacker community, his philanthropy on US college campuses in tech, biotech & genetics, and scholarships, serve to support more bright, hungry, creative individuals to learn in the US.
Here’s a clearer and more concise version of your text:
Comment from mcint on HN:
From an external perspective, he can be viewed as a magnate who led a group comparable to Disney in terms of breadth, scale, and market share across multiple industries in India. His leadership was particularly notable during the massive telecom rollout in the country.
He oversaw the largest wholly owned and most advanced subsea fiber network, responsible for carrying around 30% of the world’s internet routes (source: Brave.com’s Llama, via Tata). While the "30% of the world’s internet routes" signifies a burden on BGP for other operators, it also highlights the distributed control of global networks.
As an investor, he was the first Indian to acquire a stake in Xiaomi, among many other startup investments. Some Xiaomi executives even noted that they sought Ratan Tata’s advice on global expansion.
As a philanthropist, his contributions are even more impactful. He has supported the hacker community, donated to US college campuses in tech, biotech, and genetics, and funded scholarships to foster talented, driven individuals who come to learn in the US.
(OP, I mean this in the kindest of ways)
Whenever a big brand wants to enter India and (due to FDI rules) has to partner with an Indian brand, invariably they go with Tata (Starbucks, Foxconn). The image of being upstanding, clean, and good at execution is hard earned.
I am sorry. Ambanis are not everyone's favourite. Definitely not even comparable to the Tatas. I can see why the hustle culture folks and fast money folks like ambanis. But that is not Shri Ratan Tata or Tatas at all.
I will quote Shri Ratan Tata himself: "They are business men(Referring to Ambanis). We are industrialists."
That quote properly differentiates the differences between them IMO. Not just the perception about them. But also how they think.
Ambani's wedding was a huge talking point in India, and most people did not like the display of spending power. It's not legally wrong obviously, but it's not an accepted social behavior. We expect the uber successful people to do the right thing by other people all the time, work towards uplifting the society, and be cognizant of other peoples' lives and challenges, not show off when you know other people are suffering, and be empathetic. A tall order, but this is pretty much how Ratan Tata would be described. He is not alone, there is Choksi family (Asian Paints) who are also similarly humble and upstanding, and quite a few others who built business from British times to the socialist times and then the liberal era.
Om Shaanti
Just observing, not saying that this is how it should be.
Another reason that a lot of Indians found this news shocking is because of the value and emotions attached to the name, "Tatas". Post India's independence, they were instrumental in helping India industrialized; the other were the Birlas.
Indian tycoon Ratan Tata dies aged 86
They've had an odd pseudo nepotistic passing-on-the-torch framework for 100+ years now. The Tatas adopt promising children in the extended family, instead of passing ownership by birth order. Ratan Tata's father was adopted into the extended family, and Ratan later got adopted by the main line of the family to be groomed into heir apparent. Keeping up with the tradition, Ratan never married or had his own children.
Cyrus Mistry, the head of another billionaire family, became one with the Tatas through marriage & mergers. Cyrus was groomed to be the next heir apparent. Unfortunately, he met an untimely death from a car accident in 2022.
2022 marked move away from the century long tradition of keeping it in the family. The new CEO is a self-made man with no relations to the family or the Tatas' shared religion (Parsi). Usually this merit based system would be cause for celebration, but the Tatas hold a paragon-esque reputation among well-run old-money family-owned institutions.
It'll be interesting to see if the company loses it's heart as it slowly morphs into a faceless conglomerate.
RIP to Ratan.
Ratan Tata was a gem to India
May his soul rest in peace.
This news has really taken me a back
I am personally feeling bad that he died. Can't remember any time in recent history when a person with whom I have no personal connecting died, and it is impacting me so much
They dont cut corners (like everyone) and are highly regarded as being genuinely good.
Case in point. From a tax perspective, historically reliance indistries was always known for being sneaky around taxes, dodging taxes, finding loopholes and such.
Tata OTOH, they are historically regarded as being much more honest and trustworthy in this regard.
we call it "service charges".
the officer has discretion to impose taxes, interest or penalty and on payment of service charges, discretion to look away, not mention the issue for later on.
in case the issue arises, or goes to litigation, service money ensures the officer will say yes its good to any reply you give.
Since Tata, Cyrus Mistry and Natarajan Chandrasekaran have headed the conglomerate.
It’s okay to like this guy but Tatas are considered saints because not many know their history.
My listening suggests he lived up to his legacy of above-board, gentlemanly conduct.
Compare Radia's phone calls to Ratan, with her conversations with the rest of the lot.
Ratan is a master class in, well class and restraint.
I think when you're that big and are so hard-wired into the real economy of a country as huge and populous as India, you can't not "play the game", so to speak.
The question is do you remain human despite every incentive to turn into a self-serving gluttonous tyrant?
The TATAs weren't and aren't saints. They are humans we should have more of, in those positions of wealth and power.
I worked for a division of GE during the Immelt years that outsourced large portions of IT to Tata, and was in charge of the transition.
It was a masterclass in waste and inefficiency.
Definitely one of the larger nails in the coffin of a former Fortune 5 company.
I started a thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41800114 let's see if people pick up on it.
The scale of the outsourcing I am talking about is far greater than whatever you're imagining.
We brought teams of people from India over to the US, housed and fed them, so they could be able to work with their counterparts overseas. On the India side we found their operating infrastructure to be woefully inadequate, so we helped them build entirely new facilities with perimeter fences, proper security, the works.
After all was said and done, the skills of the people we were getting were on par with someone with no programming experience that skimmed a java book in their spare time. The code quality was abysmal at best, and this was in the days before source control was popular.
One of the other huge problems was just the time zone difference. You get into work in the morning to have a meeting with some second-shift team in India, and find out about all of the work that didn't get done because they didn't know what they were doing .. spend the time to correct them, they say they will fix it the next day .. next day comes, same issues, no progress, repeat ad nauseum.
It physically hurt to be a part of all of this.
It does make a kind of sense to me now though - if Ratan Tata's goal was to pull money into India, he was massively successful. How he got there might be a different story. But that's just as true of all previous great capitalists as well.
That’ll conjure different emotions depending on where you sit in the world.
RIP.
Om Shanti Sir.
They don't deceive, they don't put money over people. Because their mission IS to the people. You can buy a Tata product with a level of trust that no other brand can provide. Seeing TATA along with a product is more than enough. They are the best definition of capitalism I have ever come across.
This is why you don't see Ratan Tatas in billionaire's list or rich people's list.
Everything India is because of the Tatas. They single handledly is responsible for building India's foundations. Whether it is in Health, Nuclear, Tech or anywhere. You will see Tata's presence everywhere.
I genuinely shed a tear today morning because of his passing. And I am not sure I would do the same for any other business man.
Today is indeed a sad day. May he rest in peace.
Nonetheless, it is one of the few large industrial groups in India to go above and beyond their commercial interests to look at the interests of Indians as a whole.
I remember the day JRD Tata died. I was still in college then and I had an overwhelming sense of grief over his death. It was a huge loss to lose a man of his caliber and my grief was for the country. With Ratan Tata, it is similar but not on the same scale as JRD.
There is also the fact that we humans are connected 24/7 unlike previous generations. This also means you don't hear the negativity or problems like we do today about someone. This is the norm these days. If you need to find the same for older generations, you really need to dig through it.
I say this cos everyone I admire from yester generations come out with a lot more mistakes and issues as I learn more about them. I find it humane. It just makes them human. What I admire about Ratan Tata is that he tried to be better person. As much as he can. And he was one of the nicest human as well. That is enough. :)
Maybe my favorite is their JV with Starbucks, which had just enough Indian touch to be special. I'll take an Indian Starbucks location over an American one anyday. RIP.
"Be Humble"
They are shining examples of how capitalists can help uplift society.
RIP
Its usually chanted during cremation as Oooooommmmm Shantiii.
Om (the same sound as you chant during yoga sometimes) in this context is like a moment of silence
Shanti means peace, in this context, eternal peace.
That being said, it always irks me when people worship "philantropic" billionaires. I'm sure he's done good things. But there are no ethical billionaires in capitalism. TATA is a giant corp with a lot of influence, I can't believe that they're a 'honest company which doesn't bribe, pays their taxes and are otherwise clean'.
Would probably be the first case of an ethical corporation/billionaire :)
Certainly cool that he helped stray dogs and people with cancer, but come on people, see through the corpo propaganda. Sounds the same to me as "[INSERT US BILLIONARE] has donated 5 milion dollars to [CUTE CAUSE], what a hero! (ignore the atrocious things done by their corps and themselves)."
In fact after a certain scale you need to bribe in the US too. It’s just that it’s legalized in the US as lobbying and PACs.
So like everything else with the government in India, if you’re using agents to get your work done you’re technically not bribing. But you are.
I got your point and you’re right in terms of worship philanthropic people with a lot of money.
However, there’s one aspect that is overlooked when a person that helped and/or serves as reference for a bunch of people that is the “emotional gratitude” or “sense of reference” that those people has in some peoples mind and no matter how much of objective and maybe correct post-mortem criticism will change people’s mind.
At the limit, any public figure can, with little scrutiny, be framed as bad.
One example from my country: Ayrton Senna (deceased F1 Driver) even being a millionaire, coming from a very privileged background in 80s in a country that used to have at least 40% of its people below the poverty line.
Even not doing (during life) objectively nothing for poor people, a lot of folks (me included) consider the guy as a reference, in some cases as a hero. When he died a lot of folks felt that they lost their “hero” and actually he had a state funeral that no other Brazilian will ever have again [1].
My point is that there’s more nuance and layers around that topic when someone with a lot of money dies, and there’s no right or wrong since we’re al humans.
I hate that people are using philanthropic to describe Tatas. The western description about it is some random guy who made a lot of money and then later in life decides to do some charity BS for good PR.
66% of everything of revenues from Tata Group of companies goes to Tata Sons - which is a charity trust. Not to the boardroom. This is not some random billionaire paid some money for PR.
This is also why you are wrong. He was never a billionaire because the majority of the money didn't come to him. But to the different charities which opens high class cancer treatment hospitals and other charitable endeavours.
You should read up more about Tata. How they operate. Then you will understand Tata - the brand and the Tatas the people behind it.