Ashok Soota, a 79-year-old software pioneer, is aiming for his third startup IPO

Four decades in the Indian technology sector have seen Ashok Soota lead three illustrious IT firms and take two of them public. The 79-year-old is currently starting his newest business with the intention of taking it public in five years.

Happiest Health will be a rare Indian technology business with an 80-year-old founder when Soota turns 80 in November. He is basing the firm on his all-encompassing philosophy of health and wellbeing and taking cues from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, two executives at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. who are still going strong at the age of 90.

As he sat in the midst of blooming orchids and a sizable aquarium filled with fish, Soota noted in an interview last week that "they reflect the canon that work is exercise for the mind."

The property, which is situated in the vibrant Koramangala neighbourhood, is not far from the area where India's first IT outsourcing companies were founded decades ago. Soota was instrumental in creating the $227 billion industry it is today.

He was appointed to lead Wipro Ltd. in 1984 and went on to succeed in its outsourcing division while primarily operating in billionaire chairman Azim Premji's shadow. After leaving in 1999 to co-found a competing IT services business, Mindtree Ltd., Soota brought it to an IPO in 2007.

In 2011, he repeated the process by establishing the outsourcer Happiest Minds Technologies Ltd., which specialises in digital services. As executive chairman, he guided it to a public debut in 2020 amidst the pandemic, and when its market value exceeded $2.5 billion last year, he became a billionaire.

Soota-founded businesses have recently experienced challenges, just as the broader tech industry. With a market valuation of $1.8 billion right now, Happiest Minds, of which Soota owns approximately 53 percent, has lost a quarter of its value this year. A third has been lost by Mindtree.

Soota doesn't appear to be disturbed. His most recent business, Happiest Health, aims to be a venture that combines Google with WebMD with the Mayo Clinic to assist people in managing their mental and physical health. Customers can now obtain health information that has previously been difficult to find, especially information on medicines and treatments that combine Western and Eastern medical approaches.

Through educational videos, emails, webinars, and sponsored events, Happiest Health hopes to someday blend contemporary medicine and research with kinder therapies like Ayurveda, naturopathy, yoga, and meditation.

The 90-person company was bootstrapped by Soota and includes physicians, scientists, and authors. Soota is growing the company based on his experience managing hundreds of thousands of employees, as well as his observations of their well-being, work-life balance, and interpersonal problems.

Thomas George, president of the research firm CyberMedia Research, said of Ashok Soota: "For decades, he identified trends in IT services and worked out how to stay ahead." He is currently seeking a new challenge.

Every morning, Soota walks for roughly five miles before swimming for 30 minutes. He does yoga a few times a week as well.

The serial entrepreneur made a suggestion that he might still have one or two startup concepts in mind. According to Soota, the average age of Indian tech workers is 26 or 27 years old. I stay young and have plans because of them.