Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO of Folks Group, sparked a wave of introspection throughout India’s startup ecosystem with a thought-provoking put up on LinkedIn, the place he redefined greed — not as a vice, however as a misunderstood motivator that must be timed proper.
Quoting the notorious line from the movie Wall Avenue, “Greed is nice,” Mittal mirrored on how that ethos formed a technology of enterprise capitalists, founders, and fund managers, finally contributing to a few of the most infamous company collapses — Enron, Satyam, Theranos, and WeWork. Nearer residence, he named Byju’s, GoMechanic, and BharatPe as examples the place, in his phrases, “ambition outpaced ethics.”
However Mittal didn’t cease there. “Greed IS good. However not the impatient sort,” he wrote, citing Charlie Munger’s statement that “incentives run the world.” He argued that greed, when seen as self-interest, has pushed human progress — from railroads and rockets to platforms like Shaadi.com. The issue, he stated, isn’t greed itself, however short-term greed.
“Be long-term grasping,” Mittal urged. “The type that stretches self-interest throughout many years, forcing decisions that compound — skip the shortcut, take the boring assembly, say no to shiny distractions, construct when nobody’s clapping, and present up daily.”
He cited iconic builders like Warren Buffett, Ratan Tata, Jeff Bezos, and Mukesh Ambani as examples of leaders, who performed the lengthy recreation to create “disproportionate worth not only for themselves, however for workers, traders, and society.”
The put up resonated broadly, with a whole bunch of pros weighing in.
“True success requires endurance and integrity,” one person wrote. “Lengthy-term imaginative and prescient, coupled with moral ambition, will definitely drive innovation and significant impression.”
One other added, “It’s not greed that breaks programs — it’s impatience. Beloved the framing: ‘Hold the greed, simply set the clock to many years.’ That’s the mindset we’d like extra of.”
