India : Nikhil Kamath, the co-founder of Zerodha and a well-known voice on India’s startup and investing scene, spoke at a recently on how India can build its next economy. A school dropout who went on to build one of India’s biggest brokerages with his brother Nithin Kamath, he now backs a new generation of entrepreneurs through his foundry and hosts a popular podcast with some of the biggest names in business and tech.
Nikhil Kamath opens up on if Zerodha disappeared tomorrow and he was left with only Rs 10 lakh and his own mind, but none of his contacts , “I hope that doesn’t happen,life would be hard. What would I do with 10 lakh rupees? Making content is one of the few things where anybody can do it. There is no cost attached to doing it in the beginning, and if you get any kind of distribution, you can slap a business on top. It could be consumer, it could be a whole bunch of different kind of businesses. So maybe I would do something like that.”
He also spoke on how AI and manufacturing are becoming more automated with time, and what that means for young people choosing content over the hard work of upskilling. Kamath said, “I feel like taste and nuance and having distribution becomes the differentiation. So I don’t know if you’re looking at FMCG companies, I used to track HUL and ITC and companies like this for a long time, they had really expensive multiples. There has been multiple compression through the last decade and all these new brands which are sitting on the back of content or a distribution of some kind are really blowing up. And as manufacturing and tech becomes more democratic and commoditised, I feel like this will become more relevant, like you need to find a differentiation.”
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