No advice-giving uncles in Nihaal Mariwala's office

When you’re in the business of business, advice flows in from every corner. And it takes another set of skills to steer clear from this barrage. But the Mariwala scions (of the Bombay Oil Industries), don’t have such worries.

Take Nihaal Mariwala, the co-founder of Setu and the son of OmniActive MD Sanjaya Mariwala, for instance. He says that his family is usually busy catching up with each other and rarely do they dole out business advice.

“No one in my family says, ‘Come here, I am going to give you some gyaan’ or ‘This is what you should do’. Never!” “Sometimes when I meet people from big Marwari and Gujarati business families, they say things like, ‘Oh my uncle keeps walking into my office and telling me what to do. Don’t you know what that’s like?’ Well, I really have no idea!” he says, with a smile.