When times are good, everyone, even poorly run businesses, benefit. When things are bad, well-run companies survive better and poor-run companies may not even exist. As Warren Buffett famously said: It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.

Did you see the slowdown coming?

The equations changed mid-September 2008. We had a fantastic Q2. We grew almost 7 percent sequentially. And then we began to see how this slowdown was going to be different. Of course, at the beginning of the year we had assumed that this was going to be a challenging year, but I don't think anyone expected it to be as bad as this.

Do you wish Infosys had reacted sooner?

Under the circumstances, we have reacted fast. We are doing reasonably well. We are still growing, still profitable and we're still holding on to our employees. We are committed to all the people we made offers to; they will join in June-July. Neither have we reduced our commitment to our employees in terms of education and training. Infosys is handling the slowdown reasonably well and going forward we are in a good position to handle this.