High Voltage

Excerpt from an Interview with Ratan Tata:

"We can go on and on talking about whether you can beat Reliance in the marketplace or whether you can stand up to them in the corridors of power. But answer the larger question: Do corridors of power matter as much as they did during the licence quota raj? Or they don’t matter at all?

They matter because we are still not devoid of the impact that these places have, but they don’t matter as they much as they used to.

But do they matter more than they should have after so many years of reforms?

They matter more (than they should have). Because the people in these positions of power still expect — as a hangover of the past — people to call them up, change or modify policies based on personal appeals that I call vested interests appeal. And so it is there."

Exceprt from an Article on Carlos Slim:

"He now owns stakes in more than 220 businesses but says he has never forgotten the lessons of his youth. "Buying well is a discipline," he told The Arizona Republic in a rare interview, noting that trading cards was "the first type of business negotiation you do as a child."

The domination of large Mexican conglomerates such as Slim's chokes off growth of smaller companies, says Celso Garrido, an economist at Mexico City's Autonomous Metropolitan University who studies Mexico's business dynasties.

The resulting shortage of good jobs drives many Mexicans to seek better lives in the United States, says Roderic Ai Camp, author of Mexico's Mandarins, a book about the country's power elite.

Even Slim compares his business model with that of another company often accused of monopolistic practices: Wal-Mart."

Excerpt from an Article on Zhang Yin:

"Zhang does not go into detail about how she made her fortune. In a society known for close ties and hidden deals between government officials and business leaders, she says simply, "I'm an honest businesswoman."

There were occasional threats from competitors, but being a woman was not a problem, Zhang said.

"Actually, I didn't find it difficult," she said. "I found men respected me.""