Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO of People Group, sparked a wave of introspection across India’s startup ecosystem with a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn, where he redefined greed — not as a vice, but as a misunderstood motivator that needs to be timed right.

Quoting the infamous line from the film Wall Street, “Greed is good,” Mittal reflected on how that ethos shaped a generation of venture capitalists, founders, and fund managers, eventually contributing to some of the most notorious corporate collapses — Enron, Satyam, Theranos, and WeWork. Closer home, he named Byju’s, GoMechanic, and BharatPe as examples where, in his words, “ambition outpaced ethics.”

But Mittal didn’t stop there. “Greed IS good. But not the impatient kind,” he wrote, citing Charlie Munger’s observation that “incentives run the world.” He argued that greed, when viewed as self-interest, has driven human progress — from railroads and rockets to platforms like Shaadi.com. The problem, he said, isn’t greed itself, but short-term greed.

“Be long-term greedy,” Mittal urged. “The kind that stretches self-interest across decades, forcing choices that compound — skip the shortcut, take the boring meeting, say no to shiny distractions, build when no one’s clapping, and show up every day.”

He cited iconic builders like Warren Buffett, Ratan Tata, Jeff Bezos, and Mukesh Ambani as examples of leaders, who played the long game to create “disproportionate value not just for themselves, but for employees, investors, and society.”

The post resonated widely, with hundreds of professionals weighing in.

“True success requires patience and integrity,” one user wrote. “Long-term vision, coupled with ethical ambition, will certainly drive innovation and meaningful impact.”

Another added, “It’s not greed that breaks systems — it’s impatience. Loved the framing: ‘Keep the greed, just set the clock to decades.’ That’s the mindset we need more of.”