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Victoria Barret, Forbes.comOften in business and in life, an important conversation, a made or missed connection or even an intrusion of pure fate redirects our thinking and actions for years afterward. Forbes is asking leaders in business and other fields for their "Ten Minutes That Mattered."Paul Maritz runs virtualization giant VMware. Prior to that, he built and sold a company to EMC and spent 14 years as a leader and visionary at Microsoft. Here, in conversation with Forbes Associate Editor Victoria Barret, he recounts a moment that changed his view of the world, and his role in it.In Pictures: 10 Ways To Fix Your CellphoneHong Kong's 40 RichestIn Pictures: Highest-Paid BossesIn Pictures: America's Best Prep SchoolsIn Pictures: iPad Debut's Fan FenzyPaul Maritz: In 2005 I spent some time in the suburbs of Bangalore, India. I had gotten involved with the Grameen Technology Center, which is a group that was started in Seattle, largely by ex-Microsoft people, inspired by the work of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.TheStreet: Videogame Sales See Record DeclineI was wondering how we could use technology to help in development, and in microfinance in particular. But it was all pretty abstract. I was thinking about it very much from a technologist's point of view.Then I went out and visited an organization in India called Grameen Koota. It is an organization that had been started by a wealthy lady in India who was inspired by Muhammad Yunus. She wanted to create an entity that would duplicate a lot of the good work that had been done amongst very poor people in India. It's a successful organization that today serves close to half a million poor women in the state of Karnataka in India.They lend small sums of money, say $50 to $250, to women. The money isn't just handed over to them. They have to create a business plan, and then they meet once a week to discuss how they're doing against the goals that they've set. There's typically a small repayment made every week against the loan.I attended one of these village meetings. They're held very early in the morning, around 6 a.m., because these are working women. They don't have time to waste. I had expected a traditional gathering of women--you know, lots of chatter and reconnecting.Instead, I found this incredibly serious atmosphere. It was very well run, and really was one of the most profound business meetings I'd ever been to.This was tremendously humbling to me. I suddenly realized that here were people who were debating sums of a few dollars, but treating them much more seriously than I treated million-dollar or 10-million-dollar or billion-dollar deals in my life. Because literally, the decisions that they were making there would determine whether their children would eat next week.All of a sudden, this experience put into perspective everything that we do in this industry, and in many ways, the very unreal world that we live in. The decisions that we make aren't, in the same way, life and death decisions. That really changed my outlook on life. I really think differently about what I do, and how I relate to other people as a result of that.I no longer become nearly as self-righteous or want to feel that I know everything in this world. It just made me realize that we are but one of the actors in this planet, and it behooves us all to be a little more thoughtful, a little more humble, a little more considerate of others.It also really convinced me that we need to get out of our cocoon, our bubble. We are privileged to live in a very isolated society, where we only see a small slice of reality.--As told to and edited by Victoria BarretFollow Victoria Barret on Twitter: @VictoriaBarret.See Also: Microsoft's Pivotal Moment VMware Arms for Microsoft Battle Mohammed Yunus On Microfinance
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