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90,000 Hours

The Ken
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You’ll spend 90,000 hours at work in your lifetime. How do you make that time count? 90,000 Hours is a weekly podcast from the newsroom of The Ken that helps you navigate today’s changing world of work, where the traditional 40-year career is gone, entry-level jobs are being replaced by artificial intelligence, and staying relevant means constantly reinventing yourself. Hosted by Rahel Philipose and Vidhatri Rao, the show features conversations with the people creating, breaking, and rewriting the way we work.

  1. 26 JAN • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    Meet the fitness warrior: why ordinary professionals are training like elite athletes

    Over the last few years, something has shifted. Run clubs. Triathlons. Marathons. Hybrid races. Ordinary professionals are training like athletes, travelling across the country to compete, and building entire social lives around endurance sport. Somewhere along the way, being an athlete became a badge of honour. Founders started rewarding it. Networks are forged around it. In this episode, we unpack the rise of what we are calling the “fitness warrior”. This is a new professional archetype where work follows the same logic as sport: optimise, train, perform. You will hear from: * Adnan Adeeb, who built Devil's Circuit, India’s first obstacle race and later launched the Yodha race * Deepak Raj, who brought Ironman 70.3 and Hyrox to India * Arjun Vaidya, founder and investor * Diksha Dwivedi, who runs Mumbai’s Founder’s Run Club * And employees and operators who are living this shift in real time We look at what’s driving this obsession with endurance and what it says about how India’s startup workplaces now hire, network, and define success, in a world where careers feel increasingly uncertain. Tune in. - *Zerodha’s perennial fund Rainmatter Capital is an investor in The Ken. Thank you for listening to 90,000 Hours. This is the final episode of this podcast. Please feel free to reach out to the hosts Rahel Philipose (rahel@the-ken.com) and Vidhatri Rao (vidhatri@the-ken.com) with your thoughts and feedback.

    25 min

  2. 20 JAN

    Bangalore is unsustainable. Here is how founders are building in smaller tech cities

    Being an employee in corporate urban India is living in a perpetual state of frustration. Long hours, followed by longer commutes. Add infrastructural issues to the mix.  It is a nightmare. But people stay on for opportunities and growth.  That script is now flipping. Smaller cities in India are attracting talent, GCCs, and investments.  In this episode, we tell you the stories of three cities: Mangalore, Vizag and Nagpur.  In Mangalore, we talk to a founder looking to make the region the “silicon beach of India”. An incubation centre head from Vizag tells us about the “speed of doing business” in Vizag.  A former IT services veteran tells us what it takes to start from scratch in your hometown and what it means to take a long-term bet in a city full of promise.  Have thoughts about the episode? Write to me at vidhatri@the-ken.com or reach out to me on Linkedin at Vidhatri Rao.  Credits:  Written and produced by Vidhatri Rao Edited by Rajiv CN

    22 min
  3. 'What did you do over the weekend?': the interview questions founders care about right now

    12 JAN • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    'What did you do over the weekend?': the interview questions founders care about right now

    “What would make you quit this job a year from now?” “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” “How do you spend your weekends?” Every founder and hiring manager has a set of off-script interview questions like these, the ones you don’t really prepare for. Today, these questions matter more than ever. In a hiring process where CVs can be polished and prep can be automated, they are one of the few ways left to see how someone actually thinks, learns, and deals with uncertainty. So what do founders really ask when they are trying to understand the person behind the CV? What does Vineeta Singh at SUGAR Cosmetics look for? Or Arjun Vaidya at Dr Vaidya’s? In this episode of 90,000 Hours, we go inside the interview room to break down the questions founders actually care about right now and what they are listening for when you answer.

    28 min

  4. 6 JAN • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    Why AI startups are rushing to hire Forward Deployed Engineers

    There is a new kind of race within AI startups and companies for an old role that lends itself perfectly to selling products powered by technology that is changing as we speak. We are talking of the Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE). The techie, consultant and product person all rolled into one. Open AI created its FDE team early last year and Anthropic is rapidly growing its applied AI team, which includes FDEs and product engineers. VC firm A16z calls its the “hottest” job in tech right now, while Salesforce says the role can make or break your AI agent launch. The hiring spree shows in the numbers. Job search platform indeed estimates that monthly job listings for FDEs increased more than 800 per cent between January and September last year. In India too, the race is on. Startups have started hiring FDEs and are doubling down. In this episode, we explore the history of the FDE role, the function it solves for AI startups as they compete to sell their products, and answer how you become one. We feature: * Prakash Balasubramanian, Executive VP of Engineering, Ascendion * Maitreya Wagh, Founder of Bolna, a voice AI company part of the 2025 Fall YC batch * Manvi Jaju, an FDE at Bolna * Naman Jain, an FDE at Sarvam A quick question before you head off: Are you a founder or hiring manager? We want to hear your best curveball interview questions. Take our survey. ( https://theken.typeform.com/to/mFpCoYJn ) Credits: Written and produced by Rahel Philipose, Vidhatri Rao Edited by Rajiv CN

    28 min

  5. 23/12/2025

    Career forecast 2026: Pyramid collapse, hiring woes, and being human in an AI world

    We started 90,000 Hours because we believe careers are at an inflection point. Nothing seems to be certain anymore as old rules are actively being thrown out of the window. As we wrap up five months of this podcast, our reporting and stories reflected just that.    We have covered everything from how the American dream has shifted to how traditional networking has upended.  Across all these episodes, some themes showed up time and again. And before heading into 2026, we ask:  — What will replace the pyramid structure in organisations?  — What will the assessment of AI-led productivity look like?  — How to get hired when hiring is broken? Have thoughts on the episode? You can take this short survey or write to us at rahel@the-ken.com and vidhatri@the-ken.com.  Credits:  Written and produced by Rahel Philipose, Vidhatri RaoEdited by Rajiv CN

    29 min

  6. 08/12/2025

    In a sea of sameness, one skill stands out

    Generative AI has made it easy to churn out decent design, copy, code in seconds. But in this flood of outputs, who decides what’s actually good? This episode looks at taste. Not the elite kind shaped in galleries or runway shows, but the kind that helps you make better calls at work. The kind that separates polished from passable, thoughtful from just fine. You will hear from: Professor Bernd Schmitt, who teaches marketing at Columbia and has spent years studying brand experience and aesthetics.Sunit Singh, co-founder of Design Capital, on how designers build creative judgment and why tools haven’t really changed the fundamentals.Prateek Jogani, CTO at Qoala, on what taste looks like in code, and how engineers can sharpen theirs.If you have ever looked at something AI-generated and thought, “It’s... okay, I guess,” this one’s for you. As promised, check out the Museum of Bad Art

    39 min

  7. 25/11/2025

    Young, skilled and floundering: Overcoming the hope gap in careers today

    Every generation has a way of thinking their problems are unique and that they have somehow been handed the wrong end of the stick. Most times, it is a cliche. But sometimes, it captures a rare moment that we are only beginning to understand. Ask a young software engineer at an IT services firm today, this reality hits deep. The thing is there is a general sense of dread in the air. Only compounded by the constant noise about automation and AI taking away entry-level jobs. Add tariff uncertainties and clients tightening budgets... You get an industry under pressure from every direction. Today, you enter an organisation with expectations and land up in a reality you didn’t sign up for. No incentives. No challenges. You don’t know if you stand out, or if your work matters. Forget a plan for life. You don't know what’s going to happen in the next six months.We are giving this feeling a name: The ‘Hope Gap’. When this gap arises, people complain about not feeling ambitious or motivated. And the worst part is that nobody is telling them what to do to regain that hope again. What’s the solution? An IT services veteran and two open source contributors tell us. Their approaches are different but have takeaways for all. Tune in! Have thoughts about this episode? We would love to hear from you! Write to Rahel (rahel@the-ken.com) or Vidhatri (vidhatri@the-ken.com). Credits: Written and produced by Rahel Philipose, Vidhatri RaoEdited by Rajiv CN P.s Tell us about your best AI prompts

    35 min

  8. 11/11/2025 • THE KEN PREMIUM ONLY

    'I automated 20 hours of my work': What AI really does to your job

    We ran a survey last month asking professionals whether AI tools had saved them time at work. About 200 of you wrote in. We heard from consultants, lawyers, product managers, software developers — even a yoga instructor. There were early-career professionals, mid-level managers, and senior leaders. Almost all of them said AI had saved them time — meaning it had managed to reduce the amount of time they would otherwise spend doing certain tasks at work. Most also saw an increase in productivity. They were getting more work done. In this episode, we tell you the story of AI adoption from the bottom up. This is the quiet change underway at work right now. Of individual tinkerers in their quest for productivity while enterprises try and figure out their AI strategies. Have thoughts about this episode? Write to Rahel (rahel@the-ken.com) or Vidhatri (vidhatri@the-ken.com). Credits:Written and produced by Rahel Philipose, Vidhatri RaoEdited by Rajiv CN

    22 min
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You’ll spend 90,000 hours at work in your lifetime. How do you make that time count? 90,000 Hours is a weekly podcast from the newsroom of The Ken that helps you navigate today’s changing world of work, where the traditional 40-year career is gone, entry-level jobs are being replaced by artificial intelligence, and staying relevant means constantly reinventing yourself. Hosted by Rahel Philipose and Vidhatri Rao, the show features conversations with the people creating, breaking, and rewriting the way we work.

Information

  • Channel
    The Ken
  • Creator
    The Ken
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Ken
  • Provider

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