Do we like them?

Do we like Azim Premji?

Our score: 8 out of 10. Huge, sustained giving and a clean record on harm, held back only because his personal views on our issues are thin on the ground.

Azim Premji built Wipro, the Bengaluru tech giant, and then did something most billionaires only talk about: he gave a big chunk of it away. In March 2019 he committed shares worth about US$7.5 billion to his foundation, which CNN reported as one of the largest donations of the year. The Hurun philanthropy list had already named him India's most generous person, at Rs 7,904 crore in the year to March 2020.

When COVID hit in April 2020, the Azim Premji Foundation, Wipro and Wipro Enterprises together pledged Rs 1,125 crore for the response, with the foundation's share the biggest slice. That's the pattern with him: the giving is large, steady and mostly aimed at public schooling and health rather than his own name.

His best scandal story is one he didn't start. A litigant, R Subramanian, filed a long run of complaints against Premji, his wife and Wipro between 2016 and 2020. In 2022 Subramanian published an unreserved public apology, admitting the complaints rested on incorrect facts and law, and the Supreme Court closed the series of cases. A Bengaluru special court had earlier ordered two criminal cases registered over alleged breach of trust and corruption in transferring assets to a trust, but those were the cases that ended up closed.

The recent one is the Allahabad High Court ruling in May 2026. Criminal proceedings had been brought over alleged labour-law violations at a Ghaziabad facility, stemming from a complaint by the local labour department. The court set aside the summons, holding that founders and top management can't face prosecution for localised technical breaches without evidence of personal direction or complicity. That's a legal finding about process, not a character reference, but nothing was found against him.

His own words on wealth fit the actions. In a 2010 Big Think interview he spoke about those given far more than normal wealth carrying a responsibility to society. He's been consistent for decades, which is rarer than it should be among the ultra-rich.

So the verdict: he passes the harm test and aces the good-person one. The gap is that we couldn't find him speaking up for LGBTQ+ people the way we'd love, so that stops this short of a 10. Still, a man who gave this much away and forgave his tormentor is easy to back.