In a recent podcast of 3one4 Capital, The Record, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy sat with T V Mohandas Pai, to discuss India’s economic journey and the vision for a better future for the country. 

Giving an example of the post World War-II scenario in Germany and Japan, he said that the youngsters used to work 70-hours a week to rebuild their countries. “For the first time in the last 300 years, India has received some respect in the eyes of the committee of nations and it is the responsibility of every Indian, but more of the youth, to consolidate that respect.”

“Performance leads to recognition, recognition leads to respect, respect leads to power,” he said and asked the “wonderful youth of the country” to realise this and work 12 hours a day. 

He said that this should be done for the next 20 to 50 years so that “India becomes the number one or the number two nation in the world, in terms of GDP.” He highlighted that even if we become bigger than the US, our per capita would still be much lower.

Highlighting the impact of technology, Murthy said that technology is crucial for a country like India. Citing companies like Amazon and Byju’s, he said, “Thanks to technology, we are already doing better in the country.” He said that the biggest advantage of technology is that it raises the confidence of human beings.

Read: When Narayana Murthy endorsed tech for Indian cricket team

Murthy said, “Even direct benefit transfer is an excellent example… corruption has been eliminated… this is an extraordinary benefit that has accrued to our Indian people.”

“Technology is a great leveller. It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, educated or not, hail from urban or rural India, are powerful or weak, nothing matters as long as you can use the machine. So technology has to be embraced.”

A few months back, in an interview with CNBC, Murthy had said that ChatGPT won’t replace anybody, and is just an addition to human intelligence. “You will use ChatGPT output as a base, and then add your own differentiation.” He said that he is not worried about AI, and it would just take humans from the lower orbit to the upper orbit.

“I believe the human mind is the most powerful imagination machine. There is nothing that can beat the human mind.”