Book Lounge | The Groundbreaker by Kanwal Rekhi
On a freezing cold night in 1967, Kanwal Rekhi arrived at the Michigan Tech campus as a student. He was part of the first wave of Indian émigrés, known as the $8 Men, a moniker stemming from India's effort to stem the loss of brainpower from the country by allowing those who were leaving to take only $8 of currency. In the decades that followed, Rekhi went on to be the first Indo-American CEO to take a company public on NASDAQ and co-founded TiE.
Dubbed the “Godfather of the Silicon Valley's Indian Mafia” by Fortune magazine, Rekhi rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. and Larry Ellison on his meteoric ascent in the tech industry. He went on to advise Presidents and Prime Ministers on culture-shifting policies, and is perhaps best known for his work inspiring and launching the careers of thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs, many of whom have become millionaires and even billionaires.
In his book The Groundbreaker, Rekhi shares a firsthand account of what it meant to be an American at the dawn of the digital age, what it means to be an American now amid massive change and uncertainty, and why democracy is crucial to the role entrepreneurs play in moving the world toward a better tomorrow.
Join Nitin Pai, Director at the Takshashila Institution, in conversation with Kanwal Rekhi.