Remembering Dr. A. L. Rao: A Lesson Beyond Leadership;The CXO Who Never Let Power Change Him;The Corporate Lessons We Never Teach.

Dear Friends

In these last 15 years of the Inspire to Innovate Storytelling Movement, I have written one story every week. Many stories are related to corporate success, entrepreneurs’ success, employability, carbon emission, and many other contemporary technology- and lifestyle-related topics.

But this story is personal, yet definitely a life lesson for many aspirational corporate leaders.

Yesterday, Dr. Sridhar Mitta garu, a founding member of Wipro, wrote an emotional post about Dr. A. L. Rao garu, Founding Member of Wipro, on his LinkedIn wall. (www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7484113269713137664/). Wipro Limited echoed a similar emotional post on their wall (https://www.instagram.com/p/Da7quyMsDSx/). Being the former President of Sri Sri University, they also resounded the same (www.instagram.com/p/Da5PZInjQxZ/).

By God's grace, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend time closely with A. L. Rao Garu, both personally and professionally. Rao Garu gave me the liberty to walk into his office as well as his home at any time. I also thank his family for graciously tolerating my barging into their home at almost any time of the day.

Many times, once you become a CXO of a large corporation, you act differently at the office and at home. Status, money, power, and network spoil both the individual and the family. For the first time, I saw someone in whom none of these four spoilers had infiltrated. I saw how a CXO can stay calm and composed in the most tense moments.

For certain issues, I become emotional. Like me, many people cannot tolerate even a small pressure situation. However, Dr. Rao remained a typical example of how one can handle pressure without hurting others.

Though we had a huge age gap, we used to share many personal things. In every piece of advice he gave, I saw impartiality, non-judgment, and fairness. The same ethics he exhibited in his professional life.

I used to say, "Many of your colleagues have started companies and become successful entrepreneurs. Why don't you start one? I will dedicate my life to your company." I used to ask this question countless times over the last 30 years.

I am sure Premji Sir would also echo me. He used to say, "I am from a small village near Vizianagaram (Gajapathinagaram). From there, with a small 10×10 office in IISc and a little-known company in those days named Wipro, I got an opportunity in 1980. I had seen one side of life, and Premji Sir gave me a different opportunity that I had never dreamt of in my life. I am indebted to Wipro forever."
The same he lived throughout his life—for Wipro.

He joined as one of the first few members of Wipro, retired as COO, and finally served as an Independent Director of Premji Invest until recent times. He remained loyal to Wipro.

Yesterday, during his last rites, when many founding members of Wipro visited him, I realized how much he had influenced them and how he had breathed Wipro throughout his life. He became the definition of loyalty to an organization.

Probably this influenced me and helped me stay back at Wipro throughout my corporate career. I joined as a fresher and moved out of Wipro only to change my profession to teaching. I admire a leader like Azim Premji Sir, on how much he influenced Rao garu.

Once you have a lot of money, unfortunately, the word simplicity gets erased from life. He remained so humble and simple in his thought process and never allowed success to influence his lifestyle.

25 years back, One day, early in the morning around 4:30 a.m., he had to go to the airport to catch a flight. The car did not arrive on time. I asked, "Shall I drop you on my two-wheeler?" Without a second thought, he said yes.

I see two elements in this—Work First attitude and staying grounded in the face of uncertainty.

I have seen many leaders shout at the driver or cancel the flight. He did not say a single word and simply moved on.

I cannot write everything in this blog. He remained resilient through many personal instances as well.

Many times, we ignore our family while being busy professionally. However, he was deeply connected to every family member and provided customized support, including special care for extended family members. Many corporate leaders and Gen Z founders should learn this great lesson.The success of an individual lies in helping the people close to them grow along with their own growth.

Dr. A. L. Rao, you showed a path to this life and corporate lesson.
We teach ethics and corporate governance. Maybe I would recommend teaching only the life lessons of great leaders like Azim Premji Sir, Dr. Rao, and others—"the life outside, the life inside, and the life innerside”.

Dr. Rao had that spiritual inner side. He left the body, but his soul reached the right destination.

Thank you for providing all the opportunities that helped me become who I am today, Rao Garu.

Adieu... Forever remembering you.

Ravi Saripalle

The Myth of Self-Made Success and Great Managers Build Systems, Not Stars

Dear Friends,

Forty years ago, I heard about an incident involving one of my relatives. In their village, an envious post office clerk hid a neighbor's offer letter and failed to deliver it to the candidate on time. He delivered it only after the joining date. In those days, the postman used to decide the fate of an individual. Think about it—no SMS, WhatsApp message, email, or any indication of an offer. The final letter would arrive only by mail. Any clerical mistake or personal grudge could decide your fate!

We all think, I can stand on my own, live on my own, and succeed in life without anybody's support. This is the greatest myth.

The strict gate-closing policy for NEET exams mandates that students be denied entry if they arrive even a minute late. Recently, we have seen so much chaos and the tears of children and parents.

The bus is late. The train is late. The road is blocked by a traffic jam. But they are all acceptable in society. Yet, let a student be two minutes late. Suddenly, understanding expires. The gate closes.

What I realize from this is our dependency on support and the ecosystem around us. No matter how great the achievement is, there is always some support behind the scenes.

A couple of days back, I read two news items simultaneously.

News #1: Better India posted this incident. Just months before JEE Advanced, Gunjan Kumar's IIT dream nearly came to a halt. A collapsed lung left him bedridden for almost three months. Attending classes wasn't even an option. So his mother quietly stepped in.

She attended every online lecture, made detailed notes by hand, and sat beside him so that his preparation wouldn't stop. A homemaker with a B.Ed. degree, she returned to her studies after years—not for herself, but for her son's dream. As if that wasn't enough, Gunjan was also living with over 70% vision loss. Yet, he refused to give up. He is now set to pursue Computer Science at IIT Delhi.

Success isn't built by one person's hard work alone. It is built by the people who quietly carry your dream when you can no longer carry it yourself.

News #2: A Class 9 girl brought her 1.5-year-old brother to school because, after her mother passed away and with her father at work, there was no one else to care for him. She chose education anyway—proof that progress comes from moving forward, not from waiting for perfect conditions.

An elephant herd rescues a trapped calf because survival depends on the strength of the herd, not the individual. Buffaloes form a protective circle around their calves, proving that systems protect their weakest members first.

Geese fly in a V-formation, sharing leadership and reducing the effort required for the entire flock. Penguins survive Antarctic winters by rotating positions, showing that shared responsibility sustains the system. Trees in a forest exchange nutrients through underground fungal networks, demonstrating that hidden connections create resilience. A beehive thrives because thousands of bees perform specialized roles toward one common purpose. Wolf packs hunt successfully because each member plays a complementary role in the system.

Our success is not ours alone! Many people silently contribute to our success. If we forget them, it is our loss. God will not spare us!!

That is why great managers don't build stars—they build systems where everyone contributes to collective success.

Ravi Saripalle

AI Is Changing Jobs. Innovation Doesn't Guarantee Jobs. Are We Changing Education? What Is Left for Humans?

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, I was invited by Ratan Tata Innovation Hub (RTIH) to address educators on Design Thinking for Problem Solving. There were around 80 participants, including Deans (R&D), Professors, Innovation Council members, etc.

One of the interesting questions was, "We were unable to motivate students towards innovation, as we were unable to provide convincing justification that innovation leads to jobs. Students are looking for jobs, and the job selection process is not demanding innovation-driven outcomes. Hence, students are losing interest in this process." Yes, I agree with the participant's view, but we need to be personally convinced that participating in the innovation process helps students sustain employment in the future.

When I started the "Inspire to Innovate (i2i)" storytelling movement in 2011, this question was raised 15 years ago. It was the same situation and the same opinion. When I started the Design Thinking campaign in 2020 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rga2aqobKgs), the question remained the same, as did the opinion.

In 2026, when an AI model can read 750,000 words (≈2,500 pages) in minutes, which usually takes a human 3–5 weeks of full-time effort, who is needed in companies? When 30,000 lines of code can be written in minutes, and refinement after a few prompts takes only a few hours, whereas the same task requires 4–8 developers working for 2–6 months, who is needed in the IT industry? An HR professional generally takes five days to review 1,000 resumes, whereas an AI model can do it in 30 minutes. Who is needed in the HR department?

There are two indispensable skills needed in the industry: the Problem-Solving Mindset and the Art of Storytelling.

Read this story. A couple of days back, TOI published an article on Ford. It has brought back more than 350 retired or laid-off senior technical specialists, affectionately called "Gray Beards," to lead physical quality reviews. It seems AI-driven inspection systems consistently failed to detect critical mechanical and design errors before vehicles rolled off the assembly line.

At the human level, there is another quality we need to develop in our next generation of children. In English, there are four words.

Pity means feeling sorry for someone, but from a distance. You see that they are suffering, but you usually do not do anything to help. Sympathy means you care about someone who is going through a difficult time. You may offer kind words or comfort, but you may not fully understand what they are feeling.Empathy means trying to understand how the other person feels by putting yourself in their place. You connect with their emotions and understand their pain. Compassion goes one step further. It means you understand their suffering and also want to do something to help reduce it.

In simple words: Pity says, "I feel sorry for you." Sympathy says, "I care about you." Empathy says, "I understand how you feel." Compassion says, "I understand your pain, and I want to help you."

The projects we provide to our students should cultivate empathy and compassion. Unfortunately, many students are failing to develop these two qualities nowadays.

In summary, we should promote three aspects—Compassion and/or Empathy, the Problem-Solving Mindset, and finally the Art of Storytelling. These three can define Engineering, Management, and Design Education, and the survival strategy for 2035!!

Do you agree?

Ravi Saripalle 

The Infrastructure That Doesn't Appear on Maps: The Next Billion-Dollar Opportunity in the Age of AI

Dear Friends,

When my father was in a hospital bed in a city during his last days, he insisted that we take him back to our hometown. Though we didn’t have that oxygen infrastructure at home, we managed to arrange it there. I am not a fan of the hometown concept, but I understand that it was his emotional attachment. In some cases, I have observed that owning a house vs. renting a house is an emotional issue in that age group.

Why am I bringing this concept now?

Yesterday, there was news about a 94-year-old US citizen who submitted a request to the Government of India to regain her Indian citizenship. She wants to be in her home village during this last phase of her life. It seems it was her final wish, and her children are working towards the same.

Interestingly, Vani Kola, an Indian venture capitalist, talked about Emotional Infrastructure in her weekly newsletter yesterday. She was writing about how cuteness is a powerful emotional cue and how big businesses were built across the world. She started explaining that big brands like Nemo, Noddy, Hello Kitty, and the Duolingo owl all draw on the same emotional language of innocence and playfulness.

She says, "Japan turned this into a cultural force through kawaii, where cuteness moved across toys, stationery, fashion, food, public signs, mascots, and brands. Hello Kitty turned 50 recently and still reportedly earns billions every year." She was talking about the Kidults market, as they also hold the buying power. It seems adults spend USD 9 billion annually worldwide.

If we delve deeper into this subject and business, emotional infrastructure is not limited to toys, fashion, and stationery. It is much bigger than that. In my view, a ventilator is emotional infrastructure. I have seen many cases where a patient is technically dead but kept on a ventilator as the zodiac stars (religious belief) are not good during that period. Palliative care is a similar subject. Memorial parks are emotional infrastructure. Google Photos is emotional infrastructure.

For that matter, WhatsApp's Last Seen feature is emotional infrastructure. Old fountain pens, watches, and birthday gifts are emotional infrastructure. If we broadly classify this, it is of four types: Memory Infrastructure, Relationship Infrastructure, Hope Infrastructure, and Identity Infrastructure.

Roads connect places. Emotional infrastructure connects people. Sometimes, physical infrastructure helps us live. Emotional infrastructure gives us reasons to live.

In line with this thought, Taarangam Tales recently launched Netra Raksha – Eye Care Tips for the 4–8-year age group. Their maiden character, Ranga, like Spiderman, presents this book. All pictures are drawn, and the content is curated using HI (Human Illustrated for Human Intelligence), without using AI.

You may preview this book at: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/cbf3ba52ec.html

Wishing Ranga becomes part of your emotional infrastructure.

What emotional infrastructure are you holding now?

Ravi Saripalle

From Guru-Shishya to AI Agents: Will AI Replace Teachers?

Dear Friends,

I am a 5th-generation teacher in my family. My great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather followed the Guru-Shishya Parampara way of teaching. It was an oral tradition, and the teacher was the sole authority. The thought was that books would destroy memory. However, both my parents were school teachers. By then, books had become the authority. The teacher’s role was to transmit knowledge from books.

When I joined teaching in 2010, MOOCs were starting to pick up. The role of teachers had shifted toward mentoring and inspiring students in the classroom. During the pandemic, I recorded my Design Thinking classes at home for the first time and shared them with students. In 2022, one of my friends started a startup to develop an AI Avatar (skill2030.com) to replace an English teacher. Last year, I taught AI for Business and helped all our MBA students develop one or another AI Agent. In spite of this, as of 2024, 269 million students are enrolled worldwide. Universities survived in 2026 as well.

You might be wondering why I am talking about this journey. Today, I have to deliver a webinar on how careers are going to change, especially for MBA students, in the context of AI disruption. The moot question I need to answer is whether university enrolment will decline, increase, or remain stagnant. This is a hard question. However, teaching patterns and methodologies will change drastically.

1000 AD–1450: Gurus and Monasteries focus

1450–1900: Printing Press focus

1900–1980: Radio, Film, and Television focus

1980–2000: Computer, CD, and Multimedia era

2000–2010: Internet era

2010–2020: MOOCs era

2020–2023: Remote classes during COVID

2023–2026: GenAI era

2026 onwards: Personal AI Tutor / Agentic Era

Every time, the same question popped up: "Is the teacher still relevant?"

In the last 1,000 years, teachers survived every disruption. However, there is a catch. The teachers who changed and transformed during each of these phases survived.

What is the one skill required for a teacher across all these phases?

The mindset to adapt.

I recently read a small case. Two neighbours were fighting over apples supposedly damaging tulips. Law students produced pages of legal arguments. The professor ended the discussion with one observation:

"Apples fall in autumn. Tulips bloom in spring."

The case itself did not make sense.

In the age of AI, judgment matters more than information.

Hence, in my view, we as teachers need to bring that judgment into the classroom. We need to teach human-centeredness, empathy, design thinking, and commensurability rather than merely bringing theories and research into the classroom.

More than producing research papers, teachers have to spend time building simple, inspiring stories and short cases and bringing them to the table for discussion. Today, a good AI agent like Jenni.ai can produce a better research paper than a human teacher spending hours and hours writing one. The teacher's role now is to read such AI-produced information and turn it into meaningful capsules for classroom consumption.

I am seriously considering changing my teaching methodology in this direction rather than spending most of my time on in-depth research and other activities. This, in my view, will be the biggest help to students in the age of AI.

The Mindset That Kept Teachers Relevant for 1,000 Years

Ravi Saripalle

40 Years to Malgudi Days: Still Relevant in the Age of Reels :From Debugging Antennas to Debugging Life

Dear Friends,

We bought a TV in 1986! I remember it was a Dynora TV. It was a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) television with a wooden or dark plastic cabinet. It had manual channel tuning knobs and a rooftop antenna connection. It had to be pointed toward the nearest Doordarshan transmission tower. TV signals traveled through the air and were captured by the antenna. When strong winds came, the picture became blurry, or "snow" appeared on the screen. Two people used to operate it. One changed the direction, and the other, at home, shouted about the picture quality!! In IT language, it is called debugging and testing!!

Today, we have transitioned to Cable TV, DTH (Dish TV, Tata Play, Airtel), and Internet streaming (YouTube, Netflix, Hotstar). In those days, the total number of National Hindi serials was around 10–20. A typical household probably knew 80–90% of them. Today, across the world, there are approximately 5,000–10,000 TV serials and 3,000–5,000 OTT originals. The total number of active shows today is around 10,000–15,000. If you include library content, the total would be 100,000–300,000 serials/shows/series available for streaming globally.

Today, I don't think any family member discusses any serial because viewership is completely fragmented. We moved from content scarcity to content abundance, and now the new scarcity is attention.

In those days, the prominent programs were News, Krishi Darshan, Chitrahaar, Hum Log (started in 1984), Sunday movies, and regional programming. However, I still remember a serial named Malgudi Days. Malgudi Days (1986) is one of India's most beloved television series, based on the works of R. K. Narayan and directed primarily by Shankar Nag.

I asked GPT a simple question—what was the title song, to test GPT's performance!! It gave the right answer: Tan-na-na-na... tan-na-na-na...

Why did I get captivated by Malgudi Days? Malgudi Days teaches empathy, observation, moral reasoning, and cultural roots without sounding preachy. Malgudi is a fictional small town. The episode I remember was The Missing Mail/Maa Aur Beta. A mother keeps waiting for her son at the railway station. I don't remember whether the son comes back or not—mostly not. Trains come and go. Passengers come and go. But a mother's hope remains.

Where are such programs today? Where is the time to share such emotions? The other day, I was traveling in a local bus. Two children were simply playing video games and fighting virtually while sitting side by side. The parents were watching their own reels!

"Taarangam Tales" (@taarangam.tales) recently launched Emotions of Ranga, a book that presents various emotions, their importance, and what is good and what is wrong. We need such books now because they are missing from our lives.

Malgudi Days was written by R. K. Narayan in 1943 as a short story collection. Shankar Nag, the director of this serial, lived a short life (35 years), but he became a true legend in Karnataka. Shankar Nag was not just a filmmaker; he was a visionary urban planner and social reformer. In 1989, he invested his own money and conceptualized the Bengaluru Metro blueprint, envisioning a modern public transport system decades before its actual implementation. His brother, Anant Nag, who acted in Malgudi Days, is active in public life.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (R. K. Narayan), the author of Malgudi Days, and his youngest brother, the famous Indian cartoonist and illustrator R. K. Laxman, are true legends who influenced many families across India.

Do you have any nostalgic moments with Malgudi?

Ravi Saripalle

Layoffs, Mangoes, and the Meaning of Life

Dear Friends,

A couple of days back, I read a LinkedIn post that said: “CTC of ₹80 lakhs. A house in the US. A successful career. And yet, a man died by suicide after losing his job. Recently, a young couple in Bengaluru reportedly died by suicide after the husband was laid off. He had earlier lost a job in the US, rebuilt his career in India, and then faced another layoff in India.”

At the same time, I also read an interesting post about Deba Padhyami from Tamasa village in Malkangiri district, Odisha, who has successfully grown the famous Japanese Miyazaki mango. This fruit is so rare and valuable that premium-quality mangoes have reportedly sold for nearly ₹3 lakh per kilogram in international markets. However, Deba is now facing a completely different problem because he has no idea how to sell them in international markets. He has been spending sleepless nights guarding the tree. Buyers are usually HNIs, luxury fruit stores, premium hotels, and high-end restaurants.

Layoffs are definitely stressful. In my first job after campus, I worked for nine months at a company and tasted what a layoff feels like. Dreams get shattered. We become low and insecure. We get drained. We undersell ourselves in every situation. Even if you are highly talented, a lack of confidence leads you to make multiple mistakes.

Then I realized that when you are at a highly comfortable stage and at the peak of your career, you should quit your job, rank, and earnings and start fresh. It does not mean shifting between multiple companies for a higher package. That is another insecurity process.

In my view, ten years is a decent period to prove yourself in any organization. After that, if you are doing well in that organization, we should move on and start from scratch, as if we were freshers again, in terms of experience, learning, and skills. I attempted two different transitions with different skill requirements. They partly worked and partly failed.

Now I have crossed 50! I do not think God permits me another major transition due to age, skills, health, and many other family parameters. Maybe the next transition will be learning how to lead a retirement life without a proper pension and with fluctuating financial markets that offer no fixed returns!

You might be wondering how these things are connected.

For the last few months, many highly paid executives have been getting laid off. Maybe Japanese Miyazaki mangoes could be part of the solution! If someone with international experience and someone with traditional farming techniques join together, India can become a truly Atmanirbhar Bharat.

We also have different desi varieties. Kesar mango, a GI-tagged variety from Gujarat, sells for $15 to $25 per box in international markets. Alphonso mango from Maharashtra sells for ₹700 to ₹2,000 per dozen. Noorjahan mango from Madhya Pradesh costs between ₹500 and ₹1,500 per piece. Safeda from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu sells for $10 to $15 per kilogram.

If we have enough money for food, healthcare, shelter, and a few basic luxuries, it is more than sufficient to lead a comfortable life.

We should also realize that even if we leave behind a lot of wealth for our children, statistics show that they may not always get along well. Their trajectories, lifestyles, choices, aspirations, and spending patterns will be different. These differences often become reasons for disagreements among siblings.

God has already designed a way for us to live on this earth and has also fixed a time for our departure. Accept the fact, live meaningfully, and move on.

Ravi Saripalle