Silicon Valley's 'Godfather of Indian Mafia' shares hard-won lessons

Kanwal Rekhi arrived in America with $8 in his pocket. It was 1967, and the Indian government had restricted the amount of money departing citizens could take to prevent capital flight, but the 22-year-old electrical engineering graduate left anyway and landed in Michigan.

Six decades later, Fortune magazine's "Godfather of Silicon Valley Indian Mafia" returned to Ottawa to launch his memoir, The Ground Breaker, at Irish Hills Golf & Country Club in Carp. The event brought together founders, investors and business leaders through TiE Ottawa, the global network of entrepreneurs Rekhi co-founded in Silicon Valley in 1992.

Rekhi's path to tech success was far from guaranteed. He was laid off from three consecutive engineering positions after earning his master's degree in 1969. "Don't get comfortable," he told the gathered crowd. "Ever. There's going to be something that throws you off your job. Always try to stay a step ahead."

He described entrepreneurship like surfing: "You paddle out, you catch a wave, and every wave brings you back to the beach. And then you've got to paddle out again. Learn to paddle out, don't be afraid of the waves. Learn to ride them."

For founders who reach early success, his advice was blunt: "When you climb the mountain, you reach the mountaintop. That's the time to move on, because if you stay at the mountaintop, you're going to start sliding down. The next stop is always down. So you better find a higher mountain to climb."

He tested that philosophy at Excelan Inc., a networking hardware company he co-founded in 1982. When internal crisis hit, Rekhi stepped in as interim CEO, restructured pricing, bundled products with guarantees, and bypassed slow distributors to sell directly to corporate buyers. He offered prices around $14,995, compared to competitors charging over $30,000 for comparable products.

Ottawa's TiE chapter has sustained itself for 25 years — rare for a global entrepreneurial network. "Many chapters form and they fade," Rekhi said, "but there's a community here, a bunch of people who are committed to making it happen." The city ranks among North America's top technology concentrations, particularly in cybersecurity, telecommunications and defence-tech.

For a city that loves to question its identity, it's worth remembering that real innovation hubs aren't built on geography — they're built on the people willing to keep paddling.