Nikhil Kamath probes Parth Jindal, Jay Kotak, Suzannah Muthoot: What is the happiness mantra for legacy entrepreneurs?

Today’s new-generation entrepreneurs at legacy companies neither necessarily endorse all aspects of how their family ran the business before their time nor are they afraid to bring about changes. But while carrying on the legacy of an established business and also proving themselves, is it harder to derive happiness from personal success?

At the recently held Investor Summit in Karnataka, Parth Jindal, Managing Director of JSW Cement Limited, JSW Paints Private Limited, and Founder of JSW Sports, had a candid admission to make—he is a lot more conservative than his father, Sajjan Jindal, Chairman of the JSW Group. And what makes him a lesser risk-taker has more to do with the stage at which he entered the JSW business.

Recalling the family’s Hisar roots, where the family matriarch, Savitri Jindal, still lives, Parth shared the story of his grandfather, who saw "Made in England" pipes in Calcutta, produced with Indian iron ore and coal sent to Sheffield, UK, which fuelled his resolve to produce steel in India. “For about three months, he dressed up as a truck driver—he grew his beard, wore a lungi, and would go inside the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur. He would then come back at night and draw the machines that he saw.”

To set up the steel empire, the family sold ancestral land, houses, and farmland to establish a small plant in Hisar, which still exists today. Perhaps those who have nothing to lose can afford to take all the risks—a trait that Parth still sees in his father. When cautioning Sajjan Jindal about the risks in his business decisions, “He’s like, ‘Oh, if it goes wrong, I'll go back and live in Hisar. It doesn’t bother me.’” Unlike his father, Parth always weighs business decisions against what he stands to lose. “I mean, his attitude, or any of my uncles’ attitude, is, ‘Listen, we’ll do what we want to do, and if we don’t succeed, we’ll go back and live in Hisar. We love Hisar, and we’ll go live there.’ So I think that type of mindset is very different from mine.”

When Nikhil Kamath—entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon, and Gruhas—who hosted the discussion, brought up the burden or boon of legacy and happiness, his analogy was interesting. “Somebody starting at zero and going to five has many instances in life where they can feel happy. But for you (Parth Jindal), starting at seven, is it much harder to be happy? Personally, I feel like Sachin Tendulkar’s son will be hard-pressed to find happiness.”

Even today, a trip back to Hisar hits differently. “I don’t think happiness is linked to business in general,” Parth said. For someone born and brought up in Mumbai, with an entire platform created by the hustle of his grandfather and father, the life his family still leads in Hisar—true to its roots, with ‘ganna,’ ‘gud,’ cows at home, and ‘sarson ka saag’ with ‘makai ki roti’ on the plate—connects him to a deeper sense of belonging. “I have seen the company at a certain level since I joined the business, so that’s always in the back of my mind. I think I would be a lot more conservative than my father, who goes to all these places and announces new steel plants everywhere. I probably wouldn’t be able to do that,” Parth admitted.

The other scion, legendary banker Uday Kotak’s son, Jay Kotak—who heads the digital arm of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Kotak 811—sees legacy as giving the incoming generation “a higher score to start within the context of happiness, because you don’t have some of the struggles that a first-generation entrepreneur would.” He also acknowledges this privilege. However, not being the original entrepreneur of the family comes with its downsides. “Undoubtedly, there’s less willingness to take risks, less boldness, sometimes a greater fear of losing something, and the comfort that comes from never actually having truly experienced hardship. But those are all very small in the context of the privilege that being second- or third-gen bestows on you.”

While happiness may or may not be related to the businesses they run, Suzannah Muthoot, Executive Director of Muthoot Housing Finance Company (MHFCL) at the Muthoot Pappachan Group—where six women have now been inducted—sees happiness as not something linear. The ups and downs in life come with no guarantees. “Business also goes through ups and downs. Your success in business, which I think is a major factor in happiness—even if you're talking about it in a business context—for the majority of people, is still tied to how others perceive you. So, the ups and downs in business and your successes and failures would also move up and down.”