Ratan Tata

“What I would like to do is to leave behind a sustainable entity of a set of companies that operate in an exemplary manner in terms of ethics, values and continue what our ancestors left behind.”

“The early Rockefellers made their wealth from being in certain businesses and remained personally very wealthy.”

“People still believe what they read is necessarily the truth.”

“If a founder has passion and innovation, he needs to be supported. I am more intuitive than a numbers person, and I recognise that not all investments are going to be positive. Some may fail, and some may have problems for other reasons. That is life.”

“After I retired, it seemed to me that there was a whole new world out there, which was a digital world driven by a marketplace, basically, which had a huge potential driven by handheld devices, which would one day become the virtual retail store of India.”

“What are the crumple zones on scooters? The helmet is the only crumple zone I can think of.”

“There's a lot of interest in Nano outside India.”

“The most expensive part of any manufacturing unit is the paint shop.”

“I can tell you in all honesty that I am highly connected to my family, my wife, and my three children, though I don't get to spend dollops of hours with them.”

“New startups embody the creativity, the innovation of young people, and for me, it was and is a very worthwhile experience to interact with them.”

“Banana republics are run on cronyism.”

“I have two or three cars that I like, but today, Ferrari would be the best car I have driven in terms of being an impressive car.”

“People of great power wield great power, but people of lesser power or people who have fallen out of power go to jail without adequate evidence, or their bodies are found in the trunks of cars.”

“I may have hurt some people along the way, but I would like to be seen as somebody who has done his best to do the right thing for any situation and not compromised.”

“If I were to look in the United States or in Europe, in some of the garages, you would have a Bentley or two Bentleys or a high-end Mercedes, and you may find a Smart also in that same garage because that person thinks it's a fun extra car to have. He may have four cars but also have a Smart because he thinks it is cute.”

“Challenges need to be given to an organization.”

“Fiat has assembly plants in Brazil and Argentina.”

“I always felt that Nano should have been marketed towards the owner of a two-wheeler because it was conceived giving the people who rode on two wheels with the whole family an all-weather safe form of affordable transportation, not the cheapest.”

“Apart from values and ethics which I have tried to live by, the legacy I would like to leave behind is a very simple one - that I have always stood up for what I consider to be the right thing, and I have tried to be as fair and equitable as I could be.”