Drivining Novation

Starting as a leader writer with the Indian Express Group, Satish Jha quickly had an opportunity to found a national daily that was a roaring success leading to a record circulation in six months of its beginning. He was appointed to lead the prestigious newsweekly Dinamaan at the competitor, Times of India Group, making him the youngest chief editor in the Indian national press at the time. Jha also co-founded Digital Partners India that seeded a couple dozen ventures, including Drishtee, SKS Microfinance etc. as an angel investor and mentored and advised several entrepreneurs. Chairman at Pinewood Partners, Jha brings two decades of international business experience gained at Fortune 100 companies such as Hoffmann La Roche, Switzerland and Caremark, Chicago and the leading newspapers in India. Pinewood Partners comprises senior corporate executives with deep global management experience in various industries, who have worked across the world tackling management challenges. In an exclusive interview with Corporate Citizen, Satish Jha talks about his experience of starting a newspaper and various businesses from vision-to-the-nail and what true innovation means

WHAT I DO NOW

I have startups in technology, mostly education, health and unique technology areas, including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Autonomous Vehicles (AV). And, at most of my startups, where I invest, I am on the board or I am asked to chair them, or mentor the founders and their families in those areas. I am an early-stage investor, which is past the point of angel investor. The early stage is when there is some bone and flesh to the company, the ideas have been put together, they have created a prototype, some are already market friendly that’s the time when different kind of investment comes in. So, I am in that group and I belong to three angel investor groups in the Boston area. The groups I work with, confine to the geography of north east America called New England, within 100–150 miles radius of Boston. So, we are able to talk to them, see them, know them most of the investments goes in those areas and few here in India because I know people here, so some in Pune and Delhi also.

LOOKING BACK

To learn about the world and not about completing the degrees - I come from a very normal usual middle class family and I initially studied at government municipal schools. Then I got admitted to study economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) located in New Delhi. After doing my masters in JNU, I got Hubert Humphrey Fellowship, which took me to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Tufts University, in Boston area. Then I spent some time at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. After that, I came to University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs. Then I was at the International Institute of Social Studies, in The Hague, what has now become a part of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Then I went to a school which was primarily founded with the support of MIT Sloan School, INSEAD, Politecnico de Milano, France Telecom, BNP among others, and was called Theseus Institute and now it is called EDHEC Business School. EDHEC is known as one of the important business schools in Europe now. So, they inherited the school I went to. I did my MBA from there. So, as degrees go, I have an MA Economics from JNU and an MBA from EDHEC, France. I have a few Fellowships - Humphrey Fellowship, Ford Fellowship, National Scholar, France Telecom Fellowship, BNP Grant, Netherlands Fellowship, among others, which allowed me to learn about the world and not just about completing the degrees.

Innovation is not survival, innovation is not an emergency response. Innovation is this is the way the world is doing things and we take it to the next stage, which had not been imagined so far

THIS YOUNG MAN WANTS TO DO SOMETHING JANSATTA AND DINAMAAN

But, before I went to Institute Theseus, I was the editor of a magazine with the Times of India Group Dinamaan, which was one of the most prestigious magazines of its time. For some reason, I was appointed the chief editor, which I did for about two years before I went to Washington DC. Before that, I founded the Jansatta newspaper, for Indian Express. So, my first real experience in starting a business was the founding of Jansatta. I gave it the name Jansatta, I wrote the way it was written, I virtually hired most of the people, almost singlehandedly. In a way I even hired my boss, who became the chief because I was very young i was only 24 years old and Prabhash Joshi was 47-48. Ramnath Goenka, the chairman of Indian Express told Prabhash Joshi, “This young man wants to do something, you become his boss and you let him do it”. That’s how I founded Jansatta, which finally grew from zero to one lakh circulation in just 180 days. And I was told at that time i did not know these things that was a record in the history of print journalism. No newspaper in India had gone to a circulation of one lakh copies daily in six months, on that day, in 1983.

On 16th November 1983, when we launched the newspaper, it was also my wife’s birthday, so it was a very personal experience for me to give it a name, get the people together, create a newspaper, which had the left right-centre and was not an ideological newspaper. We had people who believed in yesterdays, almost like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; we had people who believed in socialism, almost like Ram Manohar Lohia; we had people who believed in naxalism almost like Charu Majumdar; we also had people who were centrists and we had people who were kind of liberals. We brought in many flavours, so it would not become an ideological newspaper and it was interesting to let it grow, as far as it went. And that led me to become the Editor of Dinamaan magazine. So, those were very engaging experiences.

DID DABBLE INTO BUT COULDN’T SUCCEED

Then in 1990, January February, I basically created a joint venture, “CNN India” with Ted Turner’s CNN, and my partner was a grandson-in-law of Ramnath Goenka, who was also at one time on the board of Indian Express, Delhi. But, Indian Express did not understand television, so though I brought him on board and it was a joint venture between me and Ted Turner’s CNN, within six month time, because my Indian Express partner, while very excited about it, didn’t take enough interest and I didn’t have personal money, so I had to let it go. Then it went to Raghav Behl and others, and things happened as we now know. So, I did dabble into that, but that was not something I could succeed in, because my partners didn’t understand, I was new myself, resources were not easily available, and I didn’t know how to raise resources at that point in time.

WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING, SOMETHING HAPPENS

So, then I became chief information officer of Hoffmann La Roche Vitamin Division Worldwide. I was very young, probably one of the youngest globally. But my then chairman said, “I don’t know how you do things but we do know that when you do things, something happens. Though everybody who will work for you, would have spent more time in the company than how old you are and they will always know more than you will ever know those things. But you know something they don’t know either. So, what you know is unique and I don’t want to know what you know. But, all I know is, when you do something, something happens and that’s what our interest is.” So, that’s how I was pushed to head worldwide technology for vitamin division. There I learnt a lot of things, how to do things, how to take care of a large global 130 countries operation. I learnt how to look at the key issues, how to sort things out, how to prioritise, what are the key decisions you make, how do you make choices and so on.

Even now I am learning what entrepreneurship is and that’s the toughest thing anybody does. It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. It is very easy to do a job. Every job I did was because my employers were good to me. I never had to apply for a job and I never did a job that I applied for

LEARNING WHAT ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS

Then I was running a company called James Martin & Co, which was an information technology strategy company and I spent ten years there. That journey made me more of an entrepreneur because it required me to face the market and raise resources, bring in business, hire the best talent we could get, take care of people’s salaries and myself. Even now I am learning what entrepreneurship is and that’s the toughest thing anybody does. It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. It is very easy to do a job. Every job I did was because my employers were good to me. I never had to apply for a job and I never did a job that I applied for. Everything used to happen in just one meeting, one conversation and things were closed. Whether it was Hoffmann-La Roche, the Times of India, Indian Express and others, it was all one conversation, always. I also did a few international joint ventures, and each one of them was closed in just one meeting.

NOTHING TOO BIG, BUT INTERESTING ALWAYS

I started with my career in 1980, it is over 39 years now. This journey took me from working in the media industry to pharmaceutical, healthcare, technology and education. I was also chairman for One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project for India. And I have run small companies like Ecco Electronics in Delhi area, which was designing and making solar lamps they made very good design capability at that point of time and became one of the best in the world. Panasonic decided to establish their design centre in our company, in India. The chairman of Panasonic himself was excited about it. So, a few things happened, nothing too big, but interesting always.

WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT THE INDIAN STARTUP ECOSYSTEM, IS IT EVOLVING DYNAMICALLY?

I look at the world in a simple way there are two different frameworks I have. Culturally, the world is divided into three parts. Some people use fork and knife, some use chopsticks, and some use their fingers. Those who use a fork and knife, they obviously are more affluent. Those who use chopsticks, they are becoming very powerful in their own right. And those who use fingers have yet to escape the darker times but in India people who are progressing, they are the ones who are using fork and knife.

That’s one part and second is at the level of creativity in the market, there is a cultural differentiation. The US market creates an environment to go to the future, the other world is that which copies it very well and the third is that simply imitates. What creates is America these days, for the last seventy years they have created almost everything. Around 95 per cent of technology creation happens in America. Europe follows suit and improvises here and there, but they are part of the same ecosystem and Japan is also part of the same ecosystem, they are creating and refining. Every other economy follows America’s lead. When it comes to copying, nobody beats China. No matter what you have, they will copy to the T, every little bit and they can copy very quickly, produce exactly what you did. Today, almost all manufacturing in the world happens in China they learnt from America how to do things, but in the beginning thinking was missing. But, now China has started thinking as well. So, they are creating massive new things, for instance, their WeChat is a bigger deal than WhatsApp. They have begun creating systems which are competing with the west, but they are very good and hundred per cent precise at copying. Whereas India has a big challenge, it can’t even copy, it only imitates. So, imitation is different from copying in copying you get exactly the same thing that you wanted to copy while imitation is ‘something like this’. So, India is into ‘something like this’ framework. China grew up in copying and now it has begun thinking for itself. India will get there, while it will take its own different, and probably a bit longer route.

Recently I heard that IIT-Madras claimed they have the first-ever Indian made microprocessor chip, which can be used in computers and mobilephones. This is the first time when an entirely Indian made chip has been created. But this chip is seventy years behind the world in the process of chip making the first chip was made sometime seventy years back. It has taken us seventy years to make something that the world had already created. Similarly, we are very proud of our Chandrayaan mission man went on the moon fifty years back and we are not sending there any man just yet. America begin taking rounds of moon seventy years back and we are now talking about taking rounds of the moon, seventy years later. We want to feel good about it, but aren’t we imitating seventy years later? Think about the capabilities of the country which had done it seventy years back, think about the knowledge capacity and the future they can create now. Seventy years later, they reached the moon in less than three days and we are taking 48 days to reach there. It means that we are learning, we are trying to learn we will take a while to understand the nuances because these things are not easy.

So, those who created something seventy years back, they are 7–10 generations ahead of those who use it. And like the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen would say, “India is eighty years behind the world in thinking about anything”. It just follows, try’s to copy, imitates, but cannot think for itself yet. Because it takes a long time and a great deal of effort to create a culture of thinking. And don’t forget that at one time all innovations happened in Europe and then after World War II the epicentre of innovation shifted to America. Europe doesn’t do it anymore so what happened culturally. For over 300 years Europe was the world’s largest creator. Something happened in America in the middle of the twentieth century that they became the leaders in everything. Now they create over 95 per cent of all inventions and rest of the world is only following it. We have to understand the patterns of these developments. Meanwhile, India remains 70-80 years behind the world in imagining and thinking.

Innovation means imagining at the frontiers of what is possible today, how do we create a new world, how do we take it to the next stage, how do we create something new, which had not been possible until today, that will be innovative

DO WE IN INDIA LACK IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (R&D)?

It is not just about research and development, that’s over-simplifying the issue. It is the way we relate to our work environment. In cultural terms, what do we prioritise? What is important to us? How do we learn or observe something? How do we create a process? We are not a process based society. One good way to describe India is, we can bring good things from the west, then we use our mind and make it worse. Every time we bring something from the west and apply our mind, it becomes worse. It doesn’t become better, because we are obsessed with things like cost cutting. We saw a great experiment called ‘Nano’. What happened to that—if we start with cost cutting first, we can’t usually get it right. We can make cost cutting one of the parameters, but the first priorities should be: is it functional, is it stable, is it well designed, is it user-friendly, will people like it, we don’t look at these challenges as such, the way successful product creators do.

One of the major challenges India faces is that of “External Referencing”, which is very important if we really want to measure up to the global standards. In other words, if I am a student and I want to say I know everything, I have read everything, I am the best student, how would you take it? That’s not how things really work. We go to school, somebody else judges us. Throughout our lives, somebody else judges us. Of course, we don’t want to be judged by anybody else. So, until India is prepared to be judged by third parties or external forces, India will not know where to go. While individuals are judged by third persons, but India doesn’t want to be judged by others, it protests. So, if we don’t imbibe external referencing as a cultural motive, we can’t become better. We need a third party to judge everything we do and we don’t do that. I kept telling, everyone, every chief minister I met, or every prime minister I met, that when we want to do something right at the world-class level, let us not give it to any Indian company. We have to go global about it. Unless we start going global, we will not know the meaning of what is quality. There will of course be challenges and we will have to learn how to manage them also.

If we are going to be generous in condoning our inabilities, what will we create. Those who created, including in India, they are disciplined if we violate discipline, we are at fault. Why don’t we do the same thing in innovation?

BUT, INDIA HAS GIVEN MANY SUCCESS STORIES LIKE FLIPKART, INFOSYS, OYO AND SO ON.

I don’t think they are success stories—if it is copying or imitation, that’s not a success story, that’s copying it. Flipkart has no model where any originality is involved, it’s copying a global model in an imitating way. It was started some 15 years after Amazon. Talking about Oyo, there are many similar hotel chains in Europe, built around that model. Oyo may be successful because it is using technology, but it comes after Airbnb. Airbnb targeted homes of people, Oyo begin targeting hotels, it’s a kind of improvisation of the same model. The Oyo founder is not as educated in the traditional sense, he is a very different kind of human being and we have to give credit to him. That person is not well educated and he did that because he is not so well educated. Maybe he is an exceptional person, but he has created a model working on some other global model, expanding on that in some ways. And that’s a business model, it is not a new technology. Flipkart at least uses something like what Amazon invented. So, Oyo is a business model that learnt from the world of business and adapted that for their own environment. This can be done more easily than creating or adapting technologies. I don’t look at them as anything which India has done, rather something that is global. Flipkart is an imitation ten years later of Amazon. It is an imitation, but there is nothing unique about it.

To sustain our body, it requires nutrition and health. Secondly, we need to be capable of understanding the world, for that we need education. But then, we need to connect to the world, so we need some roads,communication etc. So, if we get these five, India would be a different place

WHERE DO YOU SEE INDIA AS FAR AS INNOVATION IS CONCERNED?

In my opinion, and I don’t think people like that, we don’t understand innovation as a concept. Somebody who worked with me at the Indian Institute of Public Administration became a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad and is known as the ‘God of innovation’. If he is the god of innovation, means anything he does is innovation, then there is hardly any innovation possible. Because innovation is not about survival. Innovation happens at the frontiers of human potential. For Anil Gupta, for example, a drowning man saving himself is an innovation that’s not innovation. Innovation is not survival, innovation is not an emergency response. Innovation is this is the way the world is doing things and we take it to the next stage, which had not been imagined so far. So, I think India does not understand innovation at all. It knows the word innovation, it misses the soul of innovation. It does not understand it deeply. It has a very superficial understanding of innovation. Therefore there is little innovation in India and I feel sorry about that.

For example, I discussed with Vajpayeeji, when he became the Prime Minister the Home Secretary of India, called me to meet him, to become a member of the planning commission for technology. I didn’t want to do all that. But, I had something for Vajpayeeji, I said, from whatever little I know, from the books I had learnt from and whatever I had picked up, please do not do more than five things, in the five years of your prime ministership. Pick up those five things which are essential, which will trigger higher growth, which will trigger a new set of possibilities, but pick up those five things carefully. Don’t pick up fifteen, just keep it to five. He was a person who didn’t talk much, he listened and smiled.

Then the question is, what are those five things? We can start with human life when we are born, our first need is to sustain our body? It requires nutrition and health. Secondly, after we have a body to support, we need to be capable of understanding the world, for that we need education. But then, we need to connect to the world, so we need some roads, communication etc. So, we need nutrition, health, clean water, education, roads, there you already have five things. If we get these five, India would be a different place.

So whenVajpayeeji began the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) I had an opportunity to sit with the chairman and its board members. And I said that I could guarantee that the chairman and board did not understand what a highway is. They were surprised and I said, “Let’s understand what each one of us understands what highway is.” It was very clear that each of them understood it differently and they didn’t have one clear defined way of looking at what a highway was. The US planned the national highway system in America, in the fifties, and India by 2000, fifty years later, was not willing to understand what highway was. You can see what they have done to Delhi-Jaipur highway. They have cuts in the middle where cows could cross or a citizen could walk across while vehicles were speeding at 80 km per hour. That’s not a highway. All we are making is another road. But there is a big difference between a highway and a road. However, India couldn’t even understand that much difference, in spite of they putting some of the smartest of us, bureaucrats, in charge of the project. Not because they can’t understand. It was because they have relaxed their conditions, they want to be good, they want to have pressures off politicians and the people decide for them. When we do that, we don’t get to the soul of things, the spirit of things. A highway means, nothing can enter or leave without getting through a process. So, once we enter, we can’t get out unless there is an exit. The highway has a set of strict rules, so we can travel fast. So, we can’t get the concept right on anything these are the challenges we face.

We take an idea from the world market and put our input into it and make it worse. That means I am not being generous to my own country and society. But, if we are going to be generous in condoning our inabilities, what will we create. Those who created, including in India, they are disciplined if we violate discipline, we are at fault. Why don’t we do the same thing in innovation? Just like games, we play have rules and we understand that. We understand rules in the cricket, we understand the role of a referee. Similarly, we need to have a referee in everything we do. Set the rules of the game first, be very clear and take rules of the games from the global system. Somebody has done the same thing hundred times and we want to do that today why should we do that without learning how it was done earlier? So, we aspire to innovate, without knowing what innovation means. Or we can say we give a new definition to it. Anything that’s different is innovative that’s not what it means. It means, imagining at the frontiers of what is possible today, how do we create a new world, how do we take it to the next stage, how do we create something new, which had not been possible until today, that will be innovative. Unless we create right definitions, we probably will not get there.