Indian billionaire Shiv Nadar has something in common with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Net Worth 2015: $14.8B
Forbes pegs the 72-year old Nadar’s fortunes at $14.8 billion, which is almost twice of his company’s annual revenues.
In 2018, he jumped three positions in the rich list, leaving behind steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, the oil-to-trading business owners Hinduja brothers, and construction tycoon Pallonji Mistry.
Net Worth 2016: $11.1B
Nadar is probably the only Indian founder whose story resembles that of American tech billionaires. Like Bill Gates, he co-founded his HCL technologies with five partners in a garage in 1976. Back then, he intended to make calculators and microprocessors with an investment of ₹187,000.
And his bet on the chips that make computers was also ahead of its time, in the eighties. He was one of the world’s first few to introduce PCs in1978, alongside Steve Jobs’ Apple.
Within four years, the company had started operating internationally in as Singapore. HCL reported revenue of ₹1 million in 2016.
Net Worth 2017: $12.3B
Nadar’s father was a judge and his mother came from the same family as the founder of popular Tamlil tabloid Dina Thanti. He studied electrical and electronic engineering from PSG College of Technology and Coimbatore and later joined Walchand group in 1967, heading to Delhi.
Net Worth 2018: $14.6B
Between 2010 and 2019, his net worth swelled by a massive 247% from $4.2 billion to $14.6 billion. His company HCL’s revenue too increased parallelly from $172 million in 2010 to $309 million in 2019.
Interestingly, his net worth dropped from $14.8 billion in 2015 to $11.1 billion in 2016. It was the very same year when he was named India's top philanthropist. He donated as much as $662 million to Shiv Nadar Foundation.
He is also generous with his time, as he spends 60-65% with time with his foundation since 2007. He continues as the chairman of the company he founded, and his daughter Roshni Nadar who graduated with an MBA from Kelloggs college is the CEO.
Net Worth 2019: $14.6B
During his first job, a lot of Nadar’s colleagues had high profile degrees from reputed colleges. Later on in his life, he turned education as his choice of charity. He had never learnt English until he turned 22. Nadar who hails from Moolaipozhi village in Tamil Nadu also started a chain of schools in rural areas.
"Education is, and will be the most powerful tool for individual and social change, and we must do all that it takes to facilitate it," he said.
He founded SSN College of Engineering in Chennai in 1996 and gifted shares worth ₹1 million to the college. In his lifetime, he intends to donate as much as $1 billion for promoting education.
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