‘Biggest risk of my life’: Mukesh Ambani says it would have been ‘worth it’ even if Jio had failed

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has said that the company’s telecom foray through the launch of Jio was by far the 'biggest risk' taken in pursuit of scale and would have been ‘worth it’ even if it had failed.

Ambani disclosed at McKinsey's Leading Asia series on June 25 that he had considered the worst-case scenario of the venture not having worked out financially.

 Mukesh Ambani explains why Jio was worth the risk

Businesses of the future will have to aptly harness technologies, Ambani said. “So, our North Star always has been that our vision and purpose of doing business have to be impact-led,” Ambani said in an interview with Gautam Kumra, chairman of McKinsey Asia (ex-China).

“We have realised that technology changes lives. We want to create impact at scale that improves the lives of all Indians,” Ambani said, adding that the Reliance group redesigns its business every three, four, or five years.

Ambani said that his company has always taken big risks because scale is important to him.

“In the worst case, we will not earn much return,” he shared. “That’s okay because it’s our own money. But then, as Reliance, this will be the best philanthropy that we will have ever done in India because we will have digitised India, and thereby completely transformed India.”

Recalling his late father and visionary leader Dhirubhai Ambani's words, Mukesh Ambani said, "Reliance is a process. It’s an institution that should last. You have to make sure that Reliance lasts beyond you and me.”

As the company approaches its golden jubilee next year, Ambani told Gautam Kumra that he wants the company to continue serving India and humanity even after 100 years, sharing his belief in the 'businesses of the future'.

"The fact that the technology landscape is changing at an exponential speed is self-evident. I think that the big challenge will be in the confidence of the next generation to succeed in this new landscape," he added.

Compared to the Reliance of the 1960s and '70s, or the 2000s and 2020s, today it is a completely different organisation, he said, pointing at the changing nature of the world every 5-10 years.

"It goes against everything that we learned in business school, such as not integrating across the value chain. We have challenged all of those things. What has also happened is that, as we chase the opportunities of technology into the future, some of these opportunities become bigger than our existing opportunities. And we cannot leave them alone," Mukesh Ambani said.

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