My Lessons in Life - Azim Premji

So, this would be a brief summary of what he said:

1)Focus on your strengths 2)What you get from working your ass off is worthwhile,nothing else. 3)You cant be successful always 4)Humility is important 5)Strive for excellence 6)Never give up 7)Dont sacrifice values

What is interesting that you could come up with a set of opposing points for most of his "lessons", and sound plausible:

1)A true hacker has works on multiple languages,platform- Be a "Rockstar" Generalist 2)Laziness,Impatience,Hubris are the hallmark of a hacker. Note Laziness comes first :) 3)You cant be successful always- Nobody denied that! 4)If you get rich, you shouldnt be ashamed of it. 5)Strive for excellence-no debating that. 6)Fail fast, Fail often . 7)Startup and values- Zynga? Facebook? I remember reading a thread of ethics in startups on HN, and one person questioning somebody how he managed to get a good nigh's sleep, after what he had done.

I have been hearing lot about working on one's strengths. It is also mentioned in the 4 Hour Workweek and it does make sense. But let's say I am good at design, does it mean I shouldn't learn programming (something I am doing right now)?

Even if one is not planning to master something that he isn't good at, does it make sense to invest or waste time on it? Our brains are effectively good at certain things and rather mediocre in other things but it does learn things and thus changes if persistent effort is made.

Over to someone who wants to chip in with some better explanation.

Thanks to OP for sharing the article though.

Premji treats his employees like wage slaves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Paul And he refuses to share ownership of Wipro and owns 85% of it.

Does someone know the source?