First Principles

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3.  The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veteran operator and former product head...

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 1 of the conversation. The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veter...

Hello and welcome back to First Principles . This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principle...

Kapil Chopra, the founder and CEO of Postcard Hotels told me the following statistics. Of the 10 million foreign tourists who visit India each year, roughly 10% - one million - are classified as luxury.  “So we've kind of made entire Rajasthan and Kerala as two big sectors for one million tourists,” he said. In comparison domestic trips made by Indians was around 2.3 billion a year, a few years ag...

Hello and welcome back to First Principles . This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3. In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the p...

In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution. Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges...

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their...

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their...

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their...

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel in...

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel in...

My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For years, driving by the Inner Koramangala Inner Ring Road from where I stay to Indiranagar, the Ultraviolette showroom would always catch my eye on the left. I used to constantly wonder about those really cool bikes hanging from cables in the double-ceiling office, intrigued by what kind of bikes...

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel in...

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel in...

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel in...

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys f...

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys f...

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys f...

Welcome to First Principles. This is the second part of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, which we had released in full for Premium subscribers of The Ken last week and is also available to subscribers of The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Vidit and I discussed a lot of things. From the way his upbringing grounded him, the way he approaches hiring at Meesho a...

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little b...

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little b...

From over here at The Ken's newsroom, we have a very exciting announcement: our first premium podcast – India's first premium business podcast – is now live! It's called Two by Two – and this podcast will be your personal investigative brain. Each week Two by Two will be where hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will be joined by a few interesting and opinionated guests to discuss s...

Hello, we're back again with part 2 of our final, final supercut where we’ve spliced together one interesting bit of conversation from the last 21 guests I interviewed on First Principles.  And like the last episode where we covered founders 1 to 20, you’ll hear super sharp slices of a few minutes each which are reflections on their approach to organization building, risk taking, decision making a...

I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t the First Principles podcast draw its curtains? Yes we did. But then we decided to do a final super-splice of every single episode we did. There were 41 founders. A bit too many for a single supercut episode, don’t you think? So, here’s the first 20. We went through all the episodes and picked a few minutes from each that we felt captured the essence of the spec...

First Principles is coming to an end. But it's not the end of the road for you as listeners. We still want to hear from you and know what you expect from the podcasts from The Ken. Let us know with your suggestions and critique. We'd love to know your thoughts and you can let us know here . Also, you can always write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your thoughts.