I have 3 special reasons for being affected thusly. Please allow me to explain.
I have been in the Financial Services Indusrty for 5 years now. And Rajat Gupta was a board member of Goldman Sachs, the pre-eminent financial services firm. Yet another pinnacle.
Two professions where I know first hand what it takes to craft a successful career; in both those professions he scaled the ultimate heights.
A third reason is that he is of Indian Origin and a shining example of how intellect and stellar performance gets you to the top.
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| Indian School of Business, Hyderabad |
I am not one to hero worship anyone, but am always looking for role models to learn from. And the news of this indictment was thus news that affected me.
Any man is innocent until proven guilty, but what of his reputation? His legacy? This is such a call to integrity and ethical behavior.
You might well call me naive and that the world is really like this. But I want to tell you a story from high school.
Five of us friends went to a restaurant when we were in high school for an evening meal. At the end of the meal, the waiter had given us a bill for an amount much lesser than we owed. One of my friends, went up to the counter and rectified the mistake and paid the whole amount.
A (friendly) debate opened whether my friend was naive in doing this. I supported his stance and was heckled for doing so as well. I remember the incident well to this day and always have regretted that I only supported my friend's stance and was not the first to jump and do what he did without hesitation - i.e. pay up.
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| Just the Gown Won't Do |
I am more than convinced that Rajat Gupta earned every one of his accomplishments meritoriously and through hard work and indeed has lived his life with integrity and ethically. He may yet be vindicated - and I hope he will be; hence the title of this piece is Falling Idol rather than a Fallen one. But yet, here we are.
A sobering lesson that a life well lived is worth more than fortune and infamy.
6 comments:
There are no words to describe this tragic development relating to Rajat Gupta. I do not know how one gets himself into this mess or what rewards are lusted for such a behavior. One parallel I can remember to this story is the mess Bill Clinton got himself in the Monica affair.
You wrote the other day about ethics. To me ethics are the ultimate strength of character and will power. Golf is a good school for this. No one is policing you and yet you penalize yourself strokes for minor infractions and walk away from championships (true story). I guess the reward is your own conscious and the feeling that you are honest to yourself and to your God.
It is indeed painful to read about a person like Rajat Gupta to suffer the kind of fall is likely to face from this infraction.
Yeah, I’ve thinking about asking you about this whole accused insider trader Raj Rajaratnam mess, but thought it might be too painful a subject. The combination of a network of Indian Americans and the hedge fund industry – which is essentially a condensation and refinement of what Wall Street does generally – got me to thinking in the strange way I do.
There’s the complicated issue of whether authorities are engaged in trying to draw borderlines around conceptual ‘entities’ as though they are digitally discreet when actually these ‘entities’ are but shorthand for boundaryless ‘areas’ in an analog reality. That is, beyond the letter of the law, what do we really mean by ‘insider trading’ and how it relates to the notion of tacit knowledge which is the reason places like New York and Boston and Connecticut are hubs for an industry like investment management when something so driven by information should have allowed industry plays to move to lower-cost locations anywhere in the country of the world for that matter. So while I get the social good of general ‘Insider Trading’ regulations, I’m concerned that legalistic and officious authorities are drawing lines where they can’t be drawn and making a ‘federal case’ out of what we all do everyday, all day, when we gossip or have any sort of conversation with friends, colleagues, and family – trading in ‘insider information’ of the sort that can never be regulated away, nor should it.
If Mr. Gupta is guilty of doing the first type of insider information trading (capital I, capital T) then he must pay the price. But if, ex post facto, the government is pushing the envelope into the ‘uncaptalized’ type, and using these ‘ferriners’ as popular villains for their careerist ambitions….
Well, that would be a true tragedy. And as you point out, even if Mr. Gupta is not guilty of the capitalized version and the government loses in its effort to criminalize the uncapitalized version – Mr. Gupta’s career and possibly his life have been ruined.
Though I am not in that field, after reading his acomplishmens, I also felt very sorry for the situation he is in. It will be worse, if it is true. I do hope that he will be vindicated and regain at least some of his dignity and name.
Sad about the news. I agree with you, few people for selfish motive try to tarnish the image of an individual, which one had build over a long period time being sincere,hard working and dedicated to work and is respected by many intellectuals.
The intellectual may feel bad and has tremendous effect on his image but he tries to put up with brave face to the world but heart in heart he will feel bad. The negative effect of the insult is also felt by all the fellowmen who respect him and look up him as their idol . Now a days I have been observing that the straight forward people are insulted and degraded my many good-for-nothing persons.
At the same time if the same thing happens with an Indian politician he will take the insult as a reward and tries to gain popularity with it. That is the difference between an intellectual and an ordinary person.
I wish that he comes out of this mess without any further damage to his image.
There are moments of weaknesses in every person's journey thru' life. During these weak moments, the integrity is tested. Rajat Gupta's case is probably one such.
Little men are noticed when they achieve something. When Great men achieve anything, it is not news. When they fail it becomes news.
This is the difference between Rajajis of the world and the Raja2Gs.
If you have been following the 2G scam in India...... I don't know how many zeros are there in the money involved, and now the latest is one of the persons involved has "Committed Suicide". Talk of Integrity.
The last line is very true "A sobering lesson that a life well lived is worth more than fortune and infamy."
My family who read also liked this punch line which said it all.
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