Ram Shriram

Basically, I left Northern Telecom after 7.5 years of being in one company after school. And then, I ended up in a series of start-ups. The first of those was a company called Sitech, and they were in local area networks.

I've got to let the people who are in the business run the business. I can help them think through their decisions about products, about partners, about hiring. But in the end, the decisions are theirs, and so is the responsibility.

If America wants to lead the world, it needs to make sure new ideas can get to market. More opportunity will birth more companies that create more jobs.

I ended up working in Michigan for a young company called Sycor out of Michigan, worked there, and that company got bought by Northern Telecom. We became the Bell Northern Research Labs of Northern Telecom.

My only loyalty is to what's best for business, not to any set of constituents.

All the social things the consumer has gotten used to are being applied to business.

My focus is mainly on education. I believe education made all the difference for me, and it is certainly going to make all the difference for other children, too.

I had an ethnic preference, if you will, for the warm weather, coming from Chennai. So I finally said, 'Look, can I move to California?' because every time I come here, it would be in the 70s or 80s, and there would be beautiful blue sky and warm.

There are still some pieces that aren't being used, like the white-space bands between TV channels. With digital broadcasting, those buffers aren't needed anymore. The wireless telcos want to lease them, while the TV industry wants to maintain the status quo. Either decision would be a mistake.

There are times I think it might be nice to have deep-pocketed limited partners to provide me with some cushion. But I enjoy having no responsibilities except to myself, financially.

Young Indians are energetic and ambitious, have lots of ideas. They work around the difficult situation they face here. But the big challenge is to market products and services to the West, because costs there aren't coming down.

I've been fortunate to work with some really smart people. Larry Page is an extremely smart guy, most probably one of the smartest people I've worked with.