Vikas Khemani, founder of Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors Pvt, called out IT firms for not adopting forward-looking mindsets, especifically Infosys founder Narayana Murthy for not furthering investment in research and development and censured him for not creating venture funds to spur further growth of startups.
"People like Mr Narayana Murthy who have preached government all along their life to invest in R&D has not done anything for R&D despite having billions at their disposal," Khemani said in a post on social media platform X. "If nothing else, they should have created/inverted every year 2% of their profit in venture funds (internal or external)."
Khemani was replying to a post by market veteran Samir Arora who alleged that IT companies "cannot see beyond their nose" and are too preoccupied with orders and guidance for the upcoming quarter rather than building a vision for the future.
His remarks are contextualised by the Rs 2-lakh-crore dip in value that IT stocks saw after investors engaged in widespread selloffs after Anthropic announced its new AI assistant Claude Cowork, which helps non-technical professionals automate complex workflows.
Released with 11 plugins, the AI's plugin that focused on automatic legal work, such as contract review, compliance checks and more, was the major reason for the panic sell-off.
Khemani also pointed towards Infosys not creating a venture fund in order to provide funding to other tech startups, arguing that it would not jeopardize the firm's profits but instead spurr innovation in the country. "This wouldn't compromise their profits but money which earns 5% in treasure will get to innovation," Khemani said.
Google Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of US-based tech giant Alphabet Inc., is well known for funding successful corporations such as Uber, Slack and more.
Infosys was not the only company that Khemani addressed, tagging prominent names in the IT space such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Wipro Ltd., Nasscom, Coforge Ltd. as well as Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani.
"Have wondered why these stalwarts have never done it!!!! It's never too late. Time to wake up," Khemani said.
Read More: 'Easy Jobs Are Gone': Ramesh Damani Warns AI Boom Could Kill Entry-Level Tech Placements
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