Dropout To Billionaire - Zerodha's Founder Nikhil Kamath's Journey To SUCCESS - FO5| Raj Shamani

so now the 17 year old nikhil if you. want to build him again the first thing. is you want to start learning how to. sell and how to communicate better right. so. in your experience what's the best way. to learn sales. sell i think hi. i'm raj sumani and this is figuring out. i remember today's guest is india's. youngest self-made billionaire at the. age of 14 he dropped out of school to. start his own business but then joined. call center and started learning about.

trading at the same time after doing. that for a couple of years he realized. why not i start doing the same thing for. other people as well. since then there have been no looking. back along with this brother he's built. india's biggest stock brokerage company. zirodha. all of this happened because he realized. that in order to achieve financial. freedom he need to start somewhere all. he wanted to do was to be able to take. his decisions independently he has done. it all he's built a massive portfolio.

and now he's helping a lot of young. startups this podcast brought to you by. coin switch kuber coin switch kuber is. india's simplest digital exchange and. trading platform for crypto currencies. where you can start trading from only. rupees 100 a simple fast safe and secure. platform which allows you to start your. crypto journey in the most user-friendly. way i've started my cryptocurrency. journey already nikila started his. journey to become financially free when. are you starting your journey let's not. waste much time and start this podcast.

where we have been talking about his. journey to build zirodha his way up from. zero to becoming a billionaire and how. indians can make money and also we've. talked about whether you should listen. to news channels giving you tips about. what stock to buy or know let's get. started this is figuring out. thanks for doing this again man thank. you raj you are one of our favorite. guests. not. in just terms of let me say not just.

because i really really like your. journey and what you have done also. because when you see numbers on the. podcast yours is one of the highest. download one. so for both the reasons i really like. you but i want to start well let's go. back to the time when you started okay. and in last one you told me that you. moved on the house at what age did you. move out i was about 17 when i did and. why. uh. traditional middle class family.

i was working two jobs back then i used. to work at a call center and i would. trade the markets in the 17 yeah. okay and and figured out this way of. fudging a birth certificate and getting. a job at 17 instead of 18. and there's a call center in bangalore. called 24 bar 7 okay. brilliant company when i joined they had. a few hundred employees when i quit they. had. maybe 10 000 employees this is like the. bpo boom era in india right early.

yeah so great fun the office was far. from where i work. also i wanted the freedom of not. uh having to tell someone what you're. doing all the time which happens in a. traditional household in one way or. another. and uh i think those things in. combination uh the time i saved in. travel. and the independence uh both of them. nudged me towards going up so were you. making enough to that like god you got.

out of was this after you decided that. you want to move out and then you were. like okay let's figure out something to. make money. no i had the job so i i got a salary it. doesn't seem like a lot now but back. then it was reasonable i used to. uh the first salary i had at a call. center i think was like. eight thousand five hundred rupees i was. a 17 year old boy. uh if you're sharing a home with three. four people. you're still left with a few thousand. rupees and i'm talking about 17 18 years.

ago today right. money went a lot uh further you could go. to a nice bar and buy a beer for 60. rupees or 70 rupees. unlike today. so. it was not a bad life i made a little. bit of money trading on the side. but uh at the very beginning trading. was very much making money for a bit. consistently for six months and then. losing it all on one day and then. starting all over again. and using the savings of your salary.

to kind of. be your you know next uh pool of capital. to start trading with again. again i used to trade options okay okay. so in trading there is an instrument. called options uh there's a segment of. trading called derivatives uh there are. futures and options. essentially what they do is they give. you leverage. uh if you had 100 rupees with you you. can in one way buying equity by a. hundred. hundred rupees worth of reliance for.

example. but through options you could buy a. thousand rupees worth of reliance with a. hundred bucks oh so 10x of 40 you could. get as much as 30x 40x 50x back in even. today. today it's lower but there is still an. inherent element of leverage. very addictive. it's not the you know smart investing. term kind of stuff this is like. punting on random things intraday. a dozen times every day and trying to.

make money. so fun all around i had fun at my. evening job which was i used to do a uk. shift okay i would sell. personal accidental health insurance for. a company called stone bridge in uk. so it was essentially calling old. british people between 5 pm to like 1 am. in the night reading a script and trying. to sell them insurance both jobs i would. say i had fun in okay so now. all right before.

we actually move to the part where you. talk about trading financial literacy. and all of that. let's start with from a guy who's 17. year old. just like you want to make it big. and is starting out and also wants the. freedom at the same time so we start. from that journey like what next what. next but very important question. that how did you sell. at the time of like when you were. selling the insurance quite good. you're good what did you do like can you. can you show us the little sneak peek of. what you did sure.

so we were trained in. uh mimicking the british accent okay. like we had like one month two months. can you do that now no but the crazy. thing is immaterial of how much training. who had. the minute someone picked up the phone. they would always know it's an indian. calling like so we would just be in this. middle ground where you don't sound. indian you don't sound british but you. sound like this awkward person who's. saying words in different manners. so if i were to play back those. recordings they would sound really.

stupid essentially the script went hi my. name is this we always had a partner. channel through which we would sell okay. we would be like okay you're a client of. barclays uh we're offering you the stone. bridge insurance plan. uh you know do you have any pre-existing. medical condition. there were some things which would make. the insurance void we had to ask that. the biggest metric here was when you. were selling. you had a 60-day free period uh during.

which you could cancel the insurance. plan if you don't want it so we hard. sold that like mad you know we were like. this is free why are you not buying it. in 60 days if you don't like it you. don't have to continue with the product. but i think it was decent at sales. i did. there wasn't much that i could do you. know at the end of the day we are. reading off a script. but the little bit that you could change. and tweak and uh try to build a rapper. with the client. i i was fairly decent it so that's. everybody says this and i've seen this.

with many people. that. you need to learn sales you. and most of the people we talk to who. have made it big and good in their lives. they are. predominantly have been sales people in. their lives at one point of life at one. point of time right and that's what you. also did yeah. so is there. anything you want to tell people who are. just starting out do you think it's a. very important skill to learn. totally totally i think.

outside of uh you know one of the most. important skills which you believe in. probably uh selling and. being able to communicate clearly. is so important. we are in that era where. being able to remember and. regurgitate what you have learned has. lost relevance because everybody has. access to the internet. anything that you want to look up you. can look up instantly and say it out. yeah.

the key here is to be able to interpret. that and communicate it well and for. that i think. communication skill and sales ability is. uh cardinal to being successful either. at a job or as an entrepreneur today so. now the 17 year old nikhil if you want. to build him again the first thing is. you want to start learning how to sell. and how to communicate better right so. in your experience what's the best way. to learn sales.

sell i think. i'm from the school of thought where. most things are learnt well when you do. them okay versus when you read about. them i mean. reading about them will give you. nuances and learnings from people who. have tried attempted and succeeded or. failed before. but uh i'm a fairly pragmatic person and. i like learning from experiences so try. to sell and you will learn from that i.

would say so with. so i have a contrary belief to that i. mean i also believe the same thing that. you need to sell. but there's a structure which i think. if you learn about the structure your. journey will cut down short. and uh. so there's a there's one thing which i. believe in like if you want to sell. sales is very easy when you learn when. you read about it but when you do about. it it's [ __ ] hard right and the easy. part is sales is just. it's divided into three parts.

number one is. preparation like. are you prepared to sell or like do you. have the product which is ready to to be. sold that's number one number two is. emotion and there are only two emotions. either fear or aspiration like you need. to press one and third is urgency. so first is preparation then emotion and. then urgency if you can do that. then i think you can sell pretty much. anything do you agree to that or there's. a lot more to add no i agree with you. on some level but.

yeah there are probably many things you. can add to that you need to be confident. when you're selling you need to. even if you do not believe in the. product that you're selling you need to. appear like you do. you need to have you know some amount of. confidence. uh in terms of knowledge i totally agree. that you need to know everything about. the product that you're selling. uh often you can be a great salesman but. you don't know that one question your. customer will ask you. if you don't then he might no longer buy.

from you the odds of him not buying goes. up significantly. so that's probably important too that's. that's that's true i think confident. turns around things for you now 17 year. old nikhil is want to want to become. confident started selling started. selling insurance what's the next step. what did you do next. after you like you were at the call. center right yeah what did you do next. nothing did it for a while okay uh. company grew got lucky and grew along.

with the company. even though i did nothing special. uh a few people my like manager and. my supervisor and stuff like that i. started managing their money as well. because you were making other trading. yeah yeah. so they promoted me a few times they. made me a team leader and i did i played. many different roles in the company at. one point we needed a lot of new people. so i was taking taking care of. recruitment and i would meet as many as.

500 people in a day and i had to hire. 100 out of those 500 people immaterial. of how bad they were you know so. there have been examples i'll tell you. like once i went to a times job fair i'm. talking about like again like 16 17. years ago. we put out an ad to recruit people a. thousand people showed up. but 85 percent of the crowd could not. you know speak a word of english and. there were people who had applied to be.

a watchman to be a nurse they were all. just sitting in one room. but we started recruitment at that scale. and that was quite intriguing. uh a good learning experience you get to. meet many different people every day so. i had fun with that to the extent that i. could. along the way i used to trade. trading became a bit more consistent. when i was about 19. 19 and a half years old.

got a bit of confidence started managing. money for third party. for friends and family essentially. i have a brother who used to trade as. well so we both. kind of joined hands and started a. company called karma associates okay. uh when was this now about 15 years ago. okay. 14 14 15 years ago where did you learn. trading. 17 around that age no how did you learn. it basically there was no formal. learning i started trading i lost money.

sometimes i make money sometimes. i'm still learning uh to a certain. extent and hopefully at some point. at some point in life i really hope. i will be at that point where i can sit. down and say i have learned trading. hasn't happened yet every day. the markets teach you why nobody can. predict what will happen. the minute. you take things for granted in the stock. markets you know they fight back and. they ruin everything.

uh it's a constantly evolving industry. to the extent that every day is. different from the next. and you just have to learn to change. that in my view is whatever i've learned. in in the time that i've been in the. markets. uh so started karma associates managed. money. we were sub brokers to some brokers out. there way to wealth reliance money and. stuff like that. did that for a couple of years.

uh we were paying too much in commission. as much as quarter percent half a. percent. so we decided to start a broking firm of. our own to save cost okay and when we. started the broking firm. the intention was that. nitin will focus more on acquiring. clientele and building the broking firm. and i will spend more time on trading. and asset management and risk management. and stuff like that.

worked well for us we have continued in. one way or another in similar forms for. many years. since we started. i think the real uh we started with that. flat fee model right like 20 bucks. everybody back then was charging half a. percent one percent. here we were saying give us 20 bucks. buy shares worth one crore ten crew. whatever we'll only charge you 20 bucks. uh. customers who are used to a traditional.

broker back then really appreciated that. they started coming on board. fintech anything fintech money. management at the end of the day is a. business of credibility. and it takes a certain amount of time to. become credible. so the first i think couple of years. until we got a few tens of thousands of. clients. uh selling was harder we had a good team. who did a great job and then things in.

in one way or another once we got. credible have scaled organically so then. your organ like we talked about it in. last podcast as well about how. organically they agree but do you like a. lot of people say. that you should invest not trade. i would agree with them what do you. why why would you say that or what do. you prefer like investing or trading or. both like what do you prefer i prefer. trading okay but. i would assume most people would do. better off with their capital if they.

were investing. so when you're investing and. you have a certain amount of uh. certain corpus of capital with you. you can make 15 a year but even that 15. percent. you know like in four and a half five. years we'll double your net capital. uh. in trading the the problem here lies is. that's great advice you know everybody. says that. invest. don't trade make 15 a year.

your money will compound in 20 years. you'll have you know this huge pile of. equity. uh the problem is for many people who. are not starting off with a nest egg. they can't really afford to do that like. if i have 50 000 rupees that i'm. starting with. and i want to grow it into something big. i can't really invest and make money. yeah. so. circumstances were like that back then. and i had to grow a small pool of. capital. hence trading leverage options.

derivatives. all of that were what i was attracted to. but a broader answer to that question. out of 10 people who trade. maybe eight lose money out of 10 people. who invest maybe three lose money or. four lose money so if you were to ask me. advice on if one should be a trader or. an investor for that reason i would say. investor. so if like chances of you succeeding are.

much higher is a much higher and. okay so. let's say people here who are listening. to this podcast are the risky ones okay. they want the other ones or the bold. ones and they want to. they want to get into trading what are. these two or three mistakes they should. avoid as a young person because. when you're young your biggest problem. is you don't have money to start. investing just like for everyone you. know and. for a lot of reasons a your. income is not high b your aspirations.

are very high c you want to impress a. lot of people do a lot of [ __ ] so you. don't have a lot of money yeah so. so that's actually a tough one. what to the question essentially. which i typically would not answer is. how to trade with leverage and then not. lose too much money to pay right. i think one very important thing it it. sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. is uh stick to the trend.

uh. if you spend a certain amount of time in. the market see a. very. inept beginner will look at the price. of two stocks at 100 bucks okay. if yesterday the price of one stock went. from 100 to 150. and the other stock went from 100 to 100. to 90. he would naturally be inclined to buy. what is at 90 today because he will. think.

the other one has gone to 90. the odds of it going up or higher. that typically does not work out. you have to stick to the trend in the. prevailing momentum in the market. watch a stock for a certain amount of. time if something has gone from 100 to. 110 to 150 to 200. buy it while it's in that trend and try. to exit it before the trend ends. so.

typically a good way to do this would be. enter at 150 keep a stop loss of 10 20. and a target of 50 60. but enter the transaction with a stop. loss and a target which is predefined in. one manner or another. so now okay so now when you talk about. trends stop loss all of these things. right everyday newspaper like even the. purely reputed ones you get these target. prices you get should one fall into that. or no no.

see you have to understand this at the. end of the day if. nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. right yeah absolutely no one. if i knew what is going to happen. tomorrow. i would not be sitting and talking to. newspapers and spending my time on tv. channels i would be buying and selling. generally. a device which is available for free in. any of these mediums. does not really work. i had this experiment where.

i watch a tv channel let me not name. them but i had picked all the calls. they've given in a one month period and. aggregated them and if you did the. opposite of what everybody was telling. you to do you'd have probably made money. and that would be true. for many time periods and many tv. channels both in india domestically and. even abroad. [Music]. make your own calls pick your own stocks. uh don't rely on any tip don't rely on.

any research especially. the crappiest of tips are the sms ones. you know yeah. it's generally someone manipulating a. company or. trying to. you know offload something they have run. up previously. these are things you should just block. you should not even you know waste your. time looking at. so no i'm not a fan of tipsters or. following advice in that way. you have to make up your own mind and. take you on call take your own call take.

you on like own it what you're doing a. lot of people have started entering. right now only in last before like after. the pandemic all of these things happen. did you face any difficulty explaining. people that you should do this because. that's how your company would make more. or like get more to live. or it was all organic just people coming. in and you were the best one out there. that's why people do about it so we've. always been execution only and we have. shied away from telling people what to. do or what not to do. for the back of for the lack of a better.

way to explain it it's because we don't. know what will happen either. like if you were to ask me nikhil what. do i buy and sell in three months i'd be. like. i wish i knew if i knew i would be. buying it not telling you but. the first thought would be i wish i knew. but nobody knows right. look at sectors like you work in the. fmcg industry maybe you understand it. better than i do. look at what is happening on the floor. of your factory. is the.

demand going up find sectors like that. where you have some kind of a connection. with. go down to the floor read what is. happening and try to invest like that. that's probably a better approach than. taking a tip of someone true i like. doing the ground level work okay. now talking about ground level talking. on money talking about young people. india is a country which is still we are. considered as a developing nation poor. people trying to do something right. we've always taxed those which is true.

which is true. but now these days when i meet people. that aspirations have gone up yeah but. still people are not financially. literate like people don't know how to. make money why is that why do you feel. is the reason like why are we still. stuck to this. well see when you look at our country. broadly in terms of gdp per capita. uh. i don't know the exact number but i'm. guessing it would be somewhere around. three thousand dollars per person. say china is five times or four times as.

much at 12 13 000. the western countries are probably about. 30 000. so we've not had very much money. relative to a global scale in our. history up until now so how does. somebody know how to manage money if if. a vast majority of our country has not. had the opportunity to earn a really. decent wage up until now. uh so why financial literacy is lower in.

india it's a no-brainer because people. have historically not had the money like. a vast majority of our country still. does not have the money to invest. all these things that i'm talking about. diversification. uh trade a certain thing even things. like open a dmat account or a bank. account you know we are talking to a. very small subset of people right it's. not. it's not what india truly is yeah. it's a pity it has to change and there.

have to be. more opportunities for people to you. know. get out of whatever they're in and do. uh do jobs that pay more do jobs that. are more fulfilling and. lead a more. leader lifestyle where they have access. to many different things hopefully that. happens we can't do much about it. i could even. assign. some blame in one way or another to our. system of pedagogy our education system.

we end up teaching. a kid how to get a job and we spend. 10 15 years doing that but we don't. spend any time teaching him how to you. know manage the money he gets. once he gets a job and starts earning a. wage. so that definitely has to change too and. uh. it has to start at a much. younger age i feel i think it has to be. thought. in middle school in high school. practically how to you know.

manage money what is a bond. uh how do companies go ipo how is how is. the equity market designed. how does one invest in gold what are the. fundamentals of commodities. these are great subjects for us to teach. our kids and and the future generations. of tomorrow and i think it's something. that should be implemented at a much. younger coach people who are listening. to this how can they learn about all of. this. well online see the advent of internet. has opened up so much right.

every single word that i said just now. you could probably google or youtube and. you would find. a hundred times more information than. you actually need. so seek out uh you know these things. online there are. plenty of people who are providing. access to great quality. education material for free. i remember i used to look up coursera a. lot they keep updating i think they're a. great place. i'm sure there are many others like that.

where you can go and learn your. free courses free stuff free youtube all. of these things okay like this is. everybody's talking about it i think. anyone who has done. significantly good in their lives they. talk about it they talk about this hey. you're making money putting out free. content yeah. why are you complaining. i'm not complaining i'm not complaining. i'm talking about this everywhere where. there's a need and you want to actually.

like you feel like this there's. something needs to be done yeah. even if you. operate in that area and you provide. something for free there's an. opportunity to make a lot of money yeah. and that's what that's what technically. we are doing yeah i mean in my little. experience with. the paid education apps in india. honestly the experience is abysmal like. it's horrible people charge. more money for what is available freely. online in a package which is worse off.

than the freely available stuff online. so. there is a case to be made. that's. that's not completely true yeah come on. i have learned one of my like the the. best things i've learned are because a. few paid courses which i have picked up. rich ones. so there's one from rachna. rashnar nadesh she's a youtuber she has. done exactly i'm not talking about. individualistic people like that i'm.

talking about large large institutions. so i think individuals need to be paid. paid exactly and individual people i. believe when they are paid they give you. the best knowledge because. because they are accountable there's. this one brand right they're accountable. that they know they won't be able to. make more money if they. it's like a business right if they won't. satisfy their existing customers. but last time. just uh. taking to the last segment of the. conversation. is last time we talked about books and.

you you spoke about philosophy yeah you. you love philosophy you you talk about. books which has stood out for years for. decades. what's the specific philosophy in life. which has helped you a lot is there. something which. i think curiosity above all else. [Music]. if you go back to the very first. philosophers of the world they they were. not preaching anything they were people. who were questioning everything. uh questioning because they had a sense.

of curiosity. and no fear about. asking questions about things like. religion about god about. the human anatomy about everything right. i think. that curiosity element is so under. appreciated. like even when you're as an entrepreneur. working with people. that ability for people to ask you. questions without worrying about how. they look. to their peer group and worry about the.

fact that you know you suddenly think. that they don't know something. to inculcate curiosity and that innate. curiosity where you ask about everything. i think is very important humans are. like that we are like that when we are. children. we develop super big egos as we grow up. and it goes away but going back to that. uh beginning i think is is a good thing. it's it's also because. we are too.

like we are not confident about. ourselves. we are only so no matter who you meet. they're confident in front of some. people and they're under confident in. front of others so the person. in front of the people who let's say i. should be asking the really dumb and. stupid questions out of my curiosity i. wouldn't. and i will go ask questions yeah in a. group where yeah i know that i won't i'm. not gonna get the right answers which i. really need so why do you feel is the. reason like why why are we so guarded.

why is this feeling that we need to. show ourselves that we are really good. you know. let's say if i'm talking in a podcast. like right now. i have this constant pressure like in. front of my audience in front of you i. need to be smart or else nobody's gonna. listen to me you're not gonna give your. time next time you know this this. constantly it's there. and because of that we [ __ ] up that's. how we are that's how we've always been. if you go back in time. uh you pick when we were hunters.

uh the strongest the biggest man in the. group. was the most powerful guy in. humans have never been altruistic. we always want to be relatively superior. to our peer group. in whatever in hunting and farming in. uh when society became capitalistic it's. about money right and. when we were communist it was about. proximate proximity to power in one way. or another or you're standing in a. certain army. in the future and today at some level.

uh the new cool is becoming intelligence. and knowledge. uh even though we are still in a. capitalistic environment which i believe. is slowly nudging onto its socialism in. one way or another because of the. problems with things like wealth. disparity and the fact that. dot one percent of the world now has as. much as ninety percent of the world. uh historically whenever that happened. like you know imagine a kingdom in india.

imagine a raja okay he could be. benevolent he could be a nutkies. dictator whatever but. if he had 70 percent of the wealth of. the kingdom that he ruled over was okay. but the minute he had 99.99. of what belonged to the kingdom. the subjects of the kingdom went to his. door slaughtered him and you know they. put someone else in power. so we are getting to that point in our. societies not just in india and across. the world. i don't know if you caught what's.

happening in china and uh what the guy. the premier said a couple of days back. but he wants wealthy people to have. lesser money and more people higher. wealth i think society will move in that. direction hence i say we are moving. from capitalism. to social to socialism in one way or. another and that will happen and. probably it's inevitable. in all fairness we probably go there. then the desire and the drive for. innovation goes down significantly and.

we come back into a capitalistic society. in another 50 100 500 years whatever. right who knows it's like a circle yeah. it's a life is a circle in every domain. so what's going to be the next. superpower. irrelevant i think the thing you need to. worry about is in our lifetime like how. much time do we have left i'm 34 you're. 26 27 25 25 so let's say we have 50. years. you want status quo to be maintained for. 50 years you never want to be stuck in. the transitionary environment where the.

change actually is happening because. those 30 40 50 years are going to. probably probably going to be horrible. yeah yeah so it's gonna be horrible yeah. and by horrible there's a quote by i. think. i read in one of the books where. it was by someone else but i heard. vincent churchill quoting it is the. problem with socialism is socialism yeah. and the problem with capitalism is the. capitalist yeah so do you also believe. that socialism is a problem actually.

seeing that change like i feel. uh. more so in bangalore than in other. cities. the everybody wants to be cool right. like i was telling you hunter wanted. this gardener or whatever farmer wanted. something. so. today's capitalistic their definition of. cool at some level is transitioning. from hoarding wealth to being considered. a philanthropist in society. giving away is becoming cool hoarding is. becoming less cool i see that a lot in.

bangalore. if you were to go to a. dinner party tomorrow. the person who is most respected will. not be the richest person it will be the. person who has done more for society for. community given away more uh like take. you know all these people in bangalore. from azeem premg to kirin and all these. people right. uh they're so well renowned and so. respected because because of that. because society is changing towards that.

that i think is the key to make giving. away wealth cool. uh we all have to understand that this. wealth disparity is horrible for the. world right. outside of the fact that x amount of. people are unhappy it's not sustainable. the government has to actively take. steps to mitigate it you know. [Music]. i'll give you one example we can go into. this subject and talk for hours but. everywhere from america to uk they all.

have inheritance taxes. in uk they call it estate taxes in south. korea they call it something. but each time somebody. uh dies and gives away his wealth to his. kid. he has to pay the state 30. 40. there are high property taxes. if you own a land if you own an. apartment in bombay today which is worth. 100 crores or whatever. i'm sure you're not even paying one. percent of the value of that per that.

house every year as property tax yeah. these are ways in which you bring down. this disparity has it worked in the west. not yet but is it a step in the right. direction probably we need to mimic. those things in india now imagine. tomorrow. uh after you know mukesh ambani gautama. dhani and four five people after their. time. when they give their wealth to their. kids. if they have to pay 40 percent towards. bettering the country.

a i think those people will be happy and. b it will change the country. tremendously because that's a constant. redistribution of wealth. i would always bet on that doing better. relative to income taxes now tomorrow if. i increase raj's. income tax lab from 40 to 55 60. you would be less inclined to work as. much yeah. but. when you're dying if you have to leave. money to your kids then you're paying. tax i don't think it will be such a big.

deterrent as increasing your income. taxes and that might be a better. solution but something has to be done i. think these are the first steps huge. uh inheritance tax by huge i mean you. know 20 25 to start with huge property. tax and you slowly build off that that's. a that's a really good perspective to. think about and that might actually help. our country take towards the better yeah. better tomorrow i mean another big thing. is you know removing the leakages right. that has to happen at some point.

taxation money has to be better utilized. uh with no leakages whatsoever. i was i was reading about it one book i. don't know how much you agree to this. thing. leakages are only going to. stop when people who are at power are. well fed. do you think that that's true. well or do you think like the greed is. never going to stop. i would agree with that if people.

who have. x amount of food feel satiated in one. way or another but human nature is not. like that the more you have the more you. want. so i would not. i would not not agree to agree to this. point like it's completely irrelevant. yeah cool let's go to the last section. of this podcast this is a fun section. and. to say the whole objective of this. section is i want people to know that. you're really normal. okay yeah so it's like we're gonna take. your job interview okay so let's imagine.

you were supposed to get. hired by zerodha and this is your. interview yeah okay i'm gonna ask you. five basic questions which are we. actually went on to google start off. with no graduation school. you know we actually went on google and. searched like the most basic questions. you can ask in a job interview okay. so number one there you go you're ready. for it you have to like answer like. quickly okay. so the first question is. who is nikhil kamath outside his cv or.

outside what people know about him. uh nice guy i pay a huge importance to. being nice i feel like. we we give so many different traits so. much credit you know everything from. integrity to hard working to. uh. whatever beat right technically sound. at the end of the day if you were like. 50 better than him. but you're nicer and i like working with. you i will work with you i think that.

niceness is very under appreciated. and i think. my biggest privilege in life is picking. who i work with and surrounding myself. with nice people so in that wow that's a. it was supposed to be an interview i got. my validation. okay question two why do you wanna work. at zerodha. it's a cool company fun people fun. people cool comedy yeah fun people cool. see i can tell you many things we're. trying to change the world.

but you know it's [ __ ] right. at the end of the day. it's a company which is trying to do a. good transparent job in a certain. industry and turn a profit. but i would want to work in zeruda. because i like the people there. all right one of them happens to be. nikhil are you yeah. him too all right what do you do after. office hours. on a typical weekday. i have calls like which keep going on. and zoom things in the evening.

one thing i try to do is go to the gym. which i pretty much do. three or four days a week at nine or ten. pm. yeah weekends i go catch up with a. friend. i play a sport i have a drink i watch. what sport do you play. batman football. i watch a lot of tv off late which i'm. trying to avoid. so i have two main addictions either a. book or a tv show so at any point i'll.

be on a tv show and on a book and i'll. you know alternate between the two. what's your biggest weakness. insecurities like we were discussing. about yeah so i have. more than normal number of insecurities. okay yeah and the last question is. if you were to become. the assistant for anyone in the world. yeah okay who would it be and how much. would you charge what would be your. hourly rate as an executive assistant. for someone. so it goes in two directions i would.

pick a because of power or b because of. money if it had to be because of. money i would probably want to be. elon musk or jeff bezos or one of these. guys their assistant because i would you. know hopefully their benevolent. capitalistic. they would pay me well. but if it had to be power it would. probably be modi g or um. by dinner yeah baiden somehow does not. project. maybe put putin or something like that.

you know maybe that you know is the best. of both worlds and make money and power. there oh. actually smart pick and how much would. you charge him as an assistant whatever. he gives me. okay because it's the access to putin. right. wow thanks a lot for doing this but. before we end this i really want to have. this question for me yeah it's what are. the tv shows you're watching. which one is a good one i can watch and. take inspiration somebody a friend of. mine recommended bosh on.

amazon prime bosch detective show about. uh lapd. uh it's a bit like sherlock holmes but. like american version shot in today. in the 2020s i like it is it good it's. good but it's long. there are six seasons where 10 episodes. per se oh that's for netflix generation. is not long it's not. yeah. thank you so much for doing this i hope. you enjoyed and i did i hope we got like. yeah i i think we got like a lot of.

stuff like juicy stuff as well. we're gonna cut them and make it so. juicy gonna love it okay. thank you so much thank you thank you. for spreading knowledge and sharing your. journey candidly with us this is. figuring out see you in the next episode.