There is an unwritten law in the jungle which says that you must never ask a woman her age and a man his wage. However, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, the battle-hardened journalist with NDTV, is not deterred by such niceties. She cornered Nikesh Arora, President of Softbank, and pointblank asked him whether it is true that his salary was an astounding $135 million (Rs. 850 crore).
To Nikesh Arora’s credit, he didn’t blink at all. He stared back at Shweta Rajpal Kohli and said “A lot of the math around my compensation is sensational. People don’t have the numbers right”. He did, however, admit that he gets “paid well”. Unfortunately, he did not quantify what the “paid well” means.
What is astonishing is that Nikesh Arora’s salary, assuming it is close to the figure of Rs. 850 crore, is higher than that of Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Pepsi chief Indra Nooyi. He is the highest paid India-born executive today and the third-highest in the World according to Bloomberg.
Nikesh Arora’s salary for a day is about Rs. 2.72 crore (assuming he works 6 days a week). His annual take home is more than the cumulative net worth of three of our favourite stock pickers, Dolly Khanna, Vijay Kedia and Ashish Kacholia.
Nikesh Arora has the credentials to justify the stratospheric salary that he commands. He was the top brass at Google responsible for its mobile dominance and has a lot of experience in managing start-ups.
In SoftBank, Nikesh Arora has the challenging task of ensuring that the numerous e-com ventures that SoftBank has invested in turn profitable.
SoftBank has a lot of expertise in making investments in the digital field. Its investment of $20 Million in Alibaba is now worth a mind-boggling $80 Billion.
Bouyed by the success of Alibaba, SoftBank is now the largest investor in the Indian e-commerce segment. Its portfolio boats of Housing.com ($90M), Snapdeal.com ($627M), Ola Cabs ($210M), ScoopWhoop, etc.
SoftBank’s latest investment is $100 Million (Rs. 630 crore) in Oyo Rooms, a budget hotel aggregator, founded by Ritesh Agarwal, a 21-year old college dropout.
Here again, Shweta Rajpal Kohli cornered Nikesh Arora and asked him pointblank how he could invest such large sums of money in start-ups run by 21-year old school dropouts. However, Nikesh Arora had his answer pat “I have met many entrepreneurs around the world. He (Ritesh) will match them dollar-to-dollar in his maturity and ability to talk about business, ability to absorb and ability to listen“, Nikesh said.
Nikesh Arora is understandably gung ho about the Indian e-commerce space and is looking for more start-ups to fund. “India’s time has come. There will be a huge amount of growth in the next 10 years in India. Start-ups will create a new kind of consumerism in India” he said. He also hinted that the future Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Steve Jobs of the world could be from India.
Very Very heartening to see future of us as a Nation! God willing world will look up to India as a desired Destination!!!
Very optimistic Views…. Nice!
Great to hear…..India was world guru in past….and will again become daddy of wealth….
Remember, there is a ROI for CEOs too. So obviously, he will be measured accordingly by the owner of Softbank. Its how we value a company right? Companies sometimes are valued highly considering future cash flows, same here with Arora. We should be proud of this, and also it will enable us to think bigger for ourselves. And why should Arora be ashamed of his huge salary? That is his MARKET VALUE today. SO BE IT. Is one ashamed of the huge valuations of companies like TCS?
i think the networth of ashish kacholia himself is more than 850 crore though I am not sure. Vijay kedia also has a networth close to 500 cr is what I have heard.
Indeed an inspiring story and India’s future is forward looking statement. Matter of concern is not valuation and creating gates or jack ma but an equal distribution of income across the sectors (atleast better than today) is required for better economic and social orders. Given this accumulation of wealth by few may distort larger sense of economic living. How can we improvise upon that?
r u an MBA? or economist?
I have read that Google has hired a lot of Indians ..today Sundar Pichai has been named CEO, and Nikesh Arora’s role in taking Google from a competitor in the internet services world to the leadership position without compromising its ideals shows that Indians have the talent to do real good…also I cannot help notice that under Arora’s leadership SoftBank has invested so much in startups in India…that is commendable even if the rationale behind those decisions are more on business than nationality…
This also shows that India has got the talent to help the Top Companies of the World to flourish. When will the time come – and hope it comes sooner – when we create India’s Own Microsoft and our own Google and our own Facebook…
Kudos to Satya Nadella, Indra Nooyi, Sundar Pichai and of course, Nikesh Arora.. May your tribe increase.. May you do all your good work staying in India and help India rule the World!!
due to the caliber, indian executive are now playing major role in global industries or due to potential of huge market in India they are giving the position ?