Class of8217; 88

Last fall, Vibhas Chandorkar, 45, joined an intimate group of Nobel Prize winners for dinner. Over coffee and dessert, Chandorkar found himself drawn into an interesting discussion about the future of genetics with Dr Lee Hartwell, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Misra and Chandorkar are members of a remarkable group of young, hard-working Indians who didn8217;t set out to make a fortune. But having joined and worked at Microsoft in its heyday, they hit the stock option jackpot by being in the right place at the right time.

Between 1986 and 1996, Microsoft kept hitting business headlines as its stock soared a hundredfold on the strength of its Windows operating system and office applications. With no suits or rigid structures, the tech firm lured the brightest from all over the world.

In the summer of 1988, they hired about 30 people from India8212;the first large crop of software engineers from this part of the world8212;to work in their Seattle headquarters. Back then, Microsoft had some 2,000 employees8212;now there are about 60,000 worldwide and, as one columnist recently noted, 8216;8216;these days Microsoft looks like downtown New Delhi with women in colourful saris moving around on the sidewalks.8217;8217;

The sudden riches gave rise to hundreds of Indian Baby Bills, with the rare financial freedom that every professional aspires for: Enough money stashed in the bank, a fully paid-up house, savings for kids8217; tuitions and time to chase their true dreams. 8216;8216;Money was an enabling factor that gave you the freedom to look around,8217;8217; says Shishir Pardikar, 49, who spent 14 years at the company leading a team that worked on Pen Windows and the Internet Explorer.

In 2004, he finally left the company he felt was his second home to pursue other interests. 8216;8216;I was looking for a new way of life. For work that could catch my fancy, not earn my living,8217;8217; says Pardikar. For the last three years he has been learning French, a childhood passion, and travelling to places like Nice and Gibraltar.

Many Indians spent their new found wealth immediately. As stocks flew, BMWs and Mercs replaced Hondas and Toyotas. The young recruits snapped up real estate in tony areas around Seattle and purchased boats to cruise the lakes around their waterfront homes. Eclectic hobbies became common after-dinner topics of conversation. A part of the money flowed back home as a number of Microsofters bought properties to capture a slice of India.

Some Indians left Microsoft to form new ventures, bringing with them the drive and creativity that had fuelled their careers8212;and bank accounts8212;at the software giant.

Now, a majority of them, mostly in their mid-40s, are turning up from Seattle to Bangalore in the world of start-ups and venture capital. Among them some of the more famous names include Pradeep Singh of Aditi Technologies, Sanjay Kumar of vCustomer, Deepak Amin of vJungle and Navin Jain of InfoSpace.

8216;8216;When we left Microsoft, we were looking at doing something bigger and bolder,8217;8217; says Misra of his decision to quit after more than 16 years at the company. 8216;8216;It was about stepping out from Microsoft8217;s shadow.8217;8217; Misra is currently working on launching his own company in the next six months, the details of which he would rather not reveal.

Many left because they felt so exhausted and burnt out by the 70-hour work week that even their precious stock options didn8217;t matter anymore. They couldn8217;t imagine starting another 8216;shipping death march8217; before the launch of the next new product and wanted to try something atypical instead.

One of the Microsofters came back home to his native place in Kerala to run a banana plantation. Another set up a yoga institute in Hyderabad and became a yoga instructor. After 12 years in the company, Dilip Naik, 45, left to write two books, one on the Internet and the other on Windows. That apart, he became an expert witness in a class-action lawsuit between UK media conglomerate NTL plc and Andersen Consulting over a Microsoft-written code. 8216;8216;What I miss most about Microsoft is the intellectual challenge and the technical expertise one was exposed to there,8217;8217; he says of his decision to not join any other company after quitting Microsoft.

When Chandorkar left the company in the summer of 2001, he spent a few months doing nothing. His old gruelling schedule, which included an unforgettable stint of 120 days without a break8212;in 1993 while awaiting the first release of Windows NT8212;had put all other pursuits on hold.

When he quit his demanding job in 2001, he savoured the new found leisure time by pursuing his first love: Building a model railroad. 8216;8216;Thanks to the financial freedom offered by Microsoft, I could devote a lot of time to my family,8217;8217; he says. Chandorkar spent the better part of six months constructing a mammoth replica of the Kalka-Shimla railway line in his three-car garage, complete with every tiny detail from the marshalling yards to the level crossings.

Others are also giving in to exotic whims. Misra spent the last few months tending to his latest acquisition, a 27-ft Cobalt 272 motorboat, which he keeps anchored outside his waterfront home on Lake Washington. Naik spent last summer in Manchester, UK, faithfully following his favourite football team8217;s escapades on the field. His glorious moment: Meeting Sir Alex Ferguson and being invited to the locker room just prior to the team8217;s game against Liverpool.

Despite all the trappings their hard-earned wealth has won them, the Indian Baby Bills have learnt to use their money wisely. Many of them are involved with community projects and philanthropy in the same vein as Bill Gates, the man who started it for them.

Chandorkar, a patron of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Children8217;s Hospital of Seattle, makes sure that a large part of his contribution goes towards supporting research in the fields of hepatology and organ transplants. He also spends a number of hours every week talking to transplant patients.

With the stock this group earned at the Redmond software giant, they are again working towards making a difference to the world, this time from the inside out: Most of these Indians are using their money and technology skills to transform the non-profit world in the same way Microsoft changed the business world. After all, each of them believes they carried a part of the Gates legacy away with them.