First Principles

SummaryI have hosted First Principles for four years and 58 episodes, and I have never once stopped to look at it. This episode is me doing that. There is no guest. It runs about fourteen minutes, and it ends with something I need from you.Season 3 started with Vidit Aatrey of Meesho in April 2025 and ended with Mukesh Bansal in August 2026. A lawyer, a banker, a restaurateur and a venture capitalist were guests on a show I had built for founders. The businesses were trucks, fish, kitchens and bikes. And my questions moved away from fundraising and towards where a person came from and how they decide. Then I go back to seasons 1 and 2, from Kabeer Biswas in August 2022 to Manav Garg in May 2024, and show how the exceptions of season 2 became the categories of season 3.Season 4 widens the guest list on purpose: musicians, athletes, actors, writers and scientists, alongside the founders you come for. The founders were easy for me to find because they live in my world. The people I want next mostly don't. So I am asking you for help to find them. The survey below is how.The surveyhttps://theken.typeform.com/fp-season-4 · five minutes if you tap, eight if you writeI ask nine things, in this order. Describe First Principles to me in your own words. Pick the season 3 conversations you found most interesting (all seventeen are listed, so you don't have to remember). Tell me what you think the bar is for getting invited onto this show today, before I change it. Name who you want as a guest in season 4, and what you would want me to ask them. Tell me whether you would join a small closed group of listeners I can ask for feedback more often. How and where you listen. How much of the archive you have heard, and whether you go back. A question I should start asking every guest. And anything else that would make the show better.I read every answer. The season 4 guest list is being built from what you send, and I will share the names you mention most in a newsletter edition before the season starts.ChaptersNot a regular episode: no guest, and a look backSeason 3, April 2025 to August 2026: seventeen conversations, Vidit Aatrey to Mukesh BansalThe guests: a lawyer, a banker, a restaurateur, a VCTrucks, fish, kitchens and bikes: what the businesses were made ofI had it backwards: the warm-up questions were the real interviewThe thing I have to own: one woman guest in season 3, and she invited herselfSeason 1, August 2022 to July 2023: twenty-two episodes, never missed a fortnightSeason 2, August 2023 to May 2024: the exceptions that became season 3The eleven-month gap, and the two-hour formatSeason 4: what stays, and who else gets invitedWhy I can't find these people alone: the surveyThank you, and the archive is openThe seventeen conversations of season 3Ep 42 Vidit Aatrey, Meesho · Ep 43 Sahil Barua, Delhivery · Ep 44 Manish Sabharwal, Teamlease · Ep 45 Narayan Subramaniam, Ultraviolette · Ep 46 Anand Jain, CleverTap · Ep 47 Rahul Matthan, Trilegal · Ep 48 Deepak Abbot, Indiagold · Ep 49 Aloke Bajpai, Ixigo · Ep 50 Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox · Ep 51 Kalpana Morparia · Ep 52 Utham Gowda, Captain Fresh · Ep 53 Ankit Nagori, Curefoods · Ep 54 Lal Chand Bisu, Kuku FM · Ep 55 Riyaaz Amlani, Impresario · Ep 56 Saahil Goel, Shiprocket · Ep 57 Kanwal Singh, Fireside Ventures · Ep 58 Mukesh BansalAll seventeen are in the archive. This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.

Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 2 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA.Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007 that couldn't raise funding for over a year. We explore how the insight that 96% of Indians don't fly, led them to build a train-first platform, spending four years creating utility features without any monetization. He breaks down the technical innovation behind solving India-specific problems. Right from predicting waitlist confirmations using machine learning to creating a crowdsourced running status system using cell tower IDs when GPS and internet failed along railway tracks.A central theme is resilience through empathy. Aloke shares how near-death experiences during the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19 shaped Ixigo's culture. We discuss the founder's decision to go to zero salary, the whiteboard moment where the entire team transparently decided on salary cuts, and the contrarian choice to proactively refund customers during COVID even when the company was running out of money. Finally, Aloke argues that peace of mind, not tickets, is what travel companies should really be selling.

Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 2 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 veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts.That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from corporate life in 2019. He was clear: he didn't want to just manage; he had years left to actively "build products, you know, with my own hands". What he built was Indiagold, targeting the massive opportunity of gold in a market VCs often dismissed as an 'old economy product'.In this episode, Rohin sat down with Deepak Abbot, co-founder of Indiagold, to discuss how they are transforming India's massive $1.5 trillion gold reserve—an asset often locked away and doing nothing—into a productive force. Deepak calls this gold a "dead asset" and explains that Indiagold’s mission is to change the mindset around it. They are not just giving gold loans; they are monetising a secured asset for the 250 million Indians who are excluded from formal credit due to thin or non-existent credit scores. By enabling customers to safely leverage their gold reserve, the company helps jumpstart a formal credit history and provides essential working capital.Listen in as Deepak charts his operator-to-founder journey, shares how he navigated initial VC skepticism, and details the strategy behind turning a seemingly archaic commodity into a modern fintech solution for one of India’s most fundamental credit problems. Plus, a fascinating look inside a unique company culture, including why Indiagold operates without a CEO.*****This episode was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.*****

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, principled art of building a lasting institution.Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radical “all-equity partnership” and the “lockstep” compensation model, designed to de-risk the firm from becoming dependent on individual “rainmakers” and to align everyone’s incentives towards collective success.A key theme is the power of compounding principles. Rahul explains how foundational decisions made 25 years ago, such as not naming the firm after its founders and instilling a “firm before self” ethos, were critical for long-term, sustainable growth. He also shares the story behind Trilegal’s exponential 3X growth during the COVID period, attributing it not just to market demand but to a crucial, planned transition from a founder-led management to a new leadership team built for scale.Finally, Rahul offers a nuanced and critical perspective on the impact of AI on the legal profession. He argues that the real disruption won’t be in replacing senior experts, but in hollowing out the training ground for junior associates, posing a fundamental challenge to the apprenticeship model that professions rely on.*****This is the 2nd part of my conversation with him.*****This episode was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.