Religion & Entrepreneurship
Every startup is an act of faith. Is there a place for religion as well?
Ram Sudireddy is not your typical entrepreneur.
The skills are certainly there. He’s pretty universally regarded as one of Boston’s best engineers and entrepreneurs in the world of microprocessors. Starting as a UMass computer and electrical engineer, Ram realized his dream early to work at the legendary Bell Labs where he was the chief architect and lead designer for a number of highly complex ASICs. He left Bell Labs to found Siltek Corporation, which provided ATM and SONET design services for companies including Lucent, SGS Thomson, and Sun Microsystems. He went on to found Cimaron Communication in 1998 which sold to AMCC where he served as SVP, GM, and CTO managing a worldwide group of more than a thousand engineers. He later founded Chil Semiconductor, acquired by International Rectifier in 2011.
The human element.
An active investor and angel, Ram also serves on the Dean’s Council of the Harvard Divinity School. That’s right… Divinity, where he spends time thinking about the intersection of business and religion.
In Part II of this week’s How Hard Can It Be podcast, Mike spent some time with Ram talking about Religion and Entrepreneurship, including Ram’s thoughts on the role and importance of religious thinking and ethical responsibility for entrepreneurs.
He describes how, during the sale of Cimaron, he fell back on the foundation of his own upbringing and religious background when considering a major business decision, prioritizing the interests of his people in choosing between two competing suitors. In the end that decision paid off big, not only for the team that benefited, but for the board that initially resisted. Ram’s strongly held view is that this is no coincidence, that incorporating the “human element” into the thought processes and decisions we take as entrepreneurs and investors inevitably leads to better outcomes for all.
The business school blind spot.
Ram contends that business schools under-emphasize the human element of building a business. Understanding the context of peoples’ upbringing, culture, beliefs and values can help entrepreneurs make better, more informed, decisions. Sensitivity to those issues can also help leaders manage and motivate people more effectively, by recognizing and speaking to the uniqueness of individuals within their organizations. He believes business leaders should recognize the value of learning from religion and conversely, that religious leaders should also understand that making money is not evil.
Ram’s work in this area is not specific to any particular religion, and he and Mike touched on the “universal ethics of humanity.” I liked Mike’s closing thoughts focusing on the role of religion as a “means of giving entrepreneurs the conviction to do what [they] know is right.”
Hard to argue with that. And I’d suggest worthy of a little reflection by us all.
Get the whole conversation below, and be sure and subscribe to the podcast.
