When I decided to become a researcher in the field of biological sciences, research was the one and only thing that excited me. After struggling with research for almost five years it has lost the charm and I’d rather be doing anything but science. I have often thought that we work of money and hope to enjoy it too…but in reality we work for money. And then I come across article like this…

I can’t even imagine how much this guy actually loves his work and how strongly he preaches it too.

The headlines for today: Exxonmobil posts the largest profit in corporate history. According to this report on CNN, this translates into a profit of $1300 per SECOND!! I thought of putting this into a different perspective - how does this per second ‘profit’ compare to the per capita income of India? This world bank statistic puts the real per capita income of India in the year 2006 to be $820. WOW!! It means Exxonmobil makes more profit every second than what an average Indian makes in an entire year!! Also do note that we are talking about the ‘profit’, the comparison will be even more shocking if we take into account the ‘revenue’.

Take this a step further. Convert this profit and per capita income to find out how many people of India can Exxonmobil support if it were to donate its profit away. Do the math and then look at this table that shows the population of the states of India. Imagine this, if Exxonmobil were to donate away its profit, it would be enough to support the population of Gujarat!!

When I hear such stories, I find myself torn between two thoughts - Is this fair or such profits are crossing the threshold towards being called criminal? On the other hand, how wonderful is the business model than can generate such profits? Is this capitalism at its worst or at its best? Intrigued I am :-).