I question everything. This is also my greatest intellectual habit.

I’ll get half way through a book and then jump to another.

Ironically, though, this is also the purchase in which I made my biggest mistake - of a kind, however, never recognized on financial statements. We paid $600 million in 1989 for Gillette preferred shares that were convertible into 48 million (split-adjusted) common shares. Taking an alternative route with the $600 million, I probably could have purchased 60 million shares of common from the company. The market on the common was then about $10.50, and given that this would have been a huge private placement carrying important restrictions, I probably could have bought the stock at a discount of at least 5%. I can't be sure about this, but it's likely that Gillette's management would have been just as happy to have Berkshire opt for common. But I was far too clever to do that.

I’ve a deplorable tendency to become entrenched in my own prejudices: If I dislike an artist, an art form, or an idea (jazz, ballet, certain kinds of fiction) it is extremely difficult to get me to change my mind, and all evidence presented to the contrary will be discarded and very likely mocked. Of course, nobody suffers but me.

And actually they are right, because I have a real fear of blood.

As a businesswoman, I admire Indra Nooyi, because of the way she is transforming Pepsi into a 'healthy' fast food organisation

My big idea is to marry affordability and access to ensure that we leverage innovation to develop affordable, cutting-edge therapies for chronic diseases.

Don’t be a “me too” entrepreneur. Leaders and organizations that only follow cannot be successful over the long term.

I faced a number of credibility hurdles linked to gender, youth and the nature of my business venture.

Apart from my business I engage in civic issues. I do a lot of work with the Government of Karnataka, both for the biotech sector as well as for the city of Bangalore.