'Nanda got 50/50': How Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy recruited Nandan Nilekani

As IT major Infosys commemorated 40 years of existence, co-founder Narayana Murthy recalled the story of how he hired Nandan Nilekani, the non-executive chairman of the company.

Murthy said he had developed a “learnability test” while he was the head of software at Patni Computer Systems (PCS).

“I define learnability as the ability to extract generic inferences out of specific instances and using them to solve new unstructured problems. That’s basically intelligence,” Murthy said.

He said that Nilekani walked into his room at PCS on February 18, 1979 and said "I want a job."

“No, I am good with dates, but not with faces,” he added.

"Out of all the people that I gave the test to, Nanda was the only person there who got 50/50,” he said.

Murthy further added that he was not satisfied with that. He then gave an IQ test to Nilekani, which he solved in about one-and-a-half minutes.

“I had developed an IQ test called matrix rotation, and the really intelligent people did it in about a minute and a half and the reasonably intelligent people did it in 5 minutes and he did it about a minute and a half,” Murthy recalled.

Nilekani, meanwhile, said that he is one of the "last jokers" left at Infosys.

Recently, Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani said that no Plan B for his eventual exit is in place currently, and that whoever takes over the reins from him will be a “non-founder”. Nilekani, however, said that he is yet to find a suitable person for the role.

“I will be handing over to a chairman, at whatever point I exit from the scene, who will be a non-founder. Now, there is no plan B. In case you handover to someone and it doesn’t work out, there is no plan B. I cannot come back at 75 or so. I don’t think any of these guys (other founders) want to come back either,” Nilekani added.

Also Read: 'I Am The Last Of The Jokers Left; No Plan B After I Leave Infosys', Says Nandan Nilekani