Indian Guru Blames Staff Disloyalty for Dotcom Bust

Reuters/December 27, 2000

New Delhi - Many dotcoms are going bust because they got into business to make a quick buck and did not focus on old economy values like employee loyalty, says New Age guru Deepak Chopra.

"In the old paradigm, the basis of business was only to make profits. That's not working any more as seen in the dotcom revolution which is having a dismal downfall," Chopra told a group of businesswomen on Wednesday.

"If you translate the purpose of business into spiritual terms, the purpose is not to make money but the service of society," said the guru, who runs the Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California.

Chopra -- seen by some as a quack, by others as a messenger of hope -- has written over a dozen books and sold over 10 million copies with esoteric titles like Creating Affluence, Quantum Healing, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind and The Way of the Wizard.

He told his audience that the success of a business in a capitalistic society was based on loyalty from three groups: customers, employees and investors. Employee loyalty was the key to a company's success because if employees were loyal, customers too were loyal.

"You can prognosticate where a company is going from its employee turnover, when it will fail, particularly in dotcom companies where people just come to make money," said Chopra.