First Principles

The Ken
The Ken
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First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.

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  1. 1 day ago

    Season 3

    Summary I 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 survey https://theken.typeform.com/fp-season-4 · five minutes if you tap, eight if you write I 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. Chapters Not a regular episode: no guest, and a look back Season 3, April 2025 to August 2026: seventeen conversations, Vidit Aatrey to Mukesh Bansal The guests: a lawyer, a banker, a restaurateur, a VC Trucks, fish, kitchens and bikes: what the businesses were made of I had it backwards: the warm-up questions were the real interview The thing I have to own: one woman guest in season 3, and she invited herself Season 1, August 2022 to July 2023: twenty-two episodes, never missed a fortnight Season 2, August 2023 to May 2024: the exceptions that became season 3 The eleven-month gap, and the two-hour format Season 4: what stays, and who else gets invited Why I can't find these people alone: the survey Thank you, and the archive is open The seventeen conversations of season 3 Ep 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 Bansal All seventeen are in the archive.  This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Season 3

  2. 17 Aug

    Part 2: Mukesh Bansal on hiring for loyalty to a mission, "no means not now", writing three books, and compounding sideways

    Where Part 1 followed the companies, Part 2 is about the person behind them. Picking up from Mukesh Bansal's move from one venture to the next, this half gets into how he finds talent ("work with them for six months"), the mental models he runs his life by, and the beliefs underneath them. He explains why rationally no one should start a company, how he processes every rejection as "no means not now", why he writes three books by simply showing up to a blank page, and how he separated the longevity basics he trusts from the biohacking he no longer does. It ends close to home: loyalty as loyalty to a mission, what he wants for his two children, why parents' expectations matter less than they did, and a life he rates an 8 out of 10. Chapters0:00  Where we left off1:46  Finding talent: "work with them for six months"3:23  The one open-ended question he asks5:57  Winning vs looking good8:00  The compounding argument, revisited9:40  Learning vs winning: drawing the 2x211:17  Three books, and the annual look-back16:18  Making time to think in a full life18:45  What a chief of staff is actually for21:27  "No means not now" and other mental models25:57  How he writes a book28:30  How health became a throughline31:24  From ecosystem to the longevity basics34:29  Why strength training matters after 5038:08  Why he runs SparX, and the deep-tech turn44:05  Loyalty to a mission, and the number two50:35  The Apple teaching model52:52  Three adjectives, and being "scary" to juniors55:30  His kids' worldview57:54  Do parents' expectations still matter?1:00:12  Weekends, food, and reading now1:02:17  Rating his life an 8 Quotes[8:44] "I don't know if this rocket thing will work. But if it works, it'll take at least ten years… they said, we are willing to work on it for the rest of our lives."[21:56] "I call this no means not now. That's how I process all the nos in my life."[24:59] "Zomato was started in 2007. They did not pivot into food delivery till 2017."[26:05] "Just show up and stare at a blank page for an hour. Sooner or later you'll start writing."[61:43] "I feel very privileged and very fortunate. So many lucky breaks have worked out for me." Frameworks & mental models No means not now: process every rejection as timing, not a verdict; it protects the ego and the relationship. Long-term patient, short-term aggressive / product is marketing: charge hard daily, give the ten-year game room, and let a product people love do the selling. Horizontal compounding: compound entrepreneurial skill across ventures, not tenure in one sector. Loyalty to a mission: the durable teams are bound to an unfinished job, not to a person; build a number two and give people room. The longevity basics beat biohacking: sleep, eat less, move, strength-train after 50, tend emotional health; the exotic stuff is largely unproven. Credits & sharingThis episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Part 2: Mukesh Bansal on hiring for loyalty to a mission, "no means not now", writing three books, and compounding sideways

  3. 10 Aug

    Part 1: Mukesh Bansal on founder mode in the AI age, the three kinds of professionals in the AI age, and the Haridwar boy who found entrepreneurship in a library

    Mukesh Bansal has founded and left more companies than most people build in a lifetime, and in Part 1 he explains why. He founded Myntra and sold it to Flipkart; he co-founded Cult.fit and turned fitness into a category; and today he runs the AI company Nurix and the Meraki Labs studio. Asked what he is now, he says "a learner", and admits he gets bored the moment a company starts working. Part 1 traces the thesis and the companies: how he allocates his weeks, why he thinks the AI era rewards the hands-on operator over the people-manager, what Nurix and Fermi are, why Myntra's move into fashion was an "adjustment" not a pivot, and the small-town Haridwar upbringing and library habit that set him off. This is Part 1 of 2; Part 2 turns to the person, the mental models, and how he thinks about health, family and success. Chapters0:00  Welcome and who Mukesh Bansal is3:15  How First Principles is already connected to him4:21  "Do you see yourself as an operator, a founder, an investor?"5:27  Zero-to-one, and where learning stops9:11  Allocating time across companies10:34  Why an hour of his time isn't what it was12:59  The three kinds of professionals in the AI age14:52  His stack: Claude, Warp, agents overnight17:58  Founder mode, reversed by AI20:19  No more waiting for a tech co-founder23:02  How big Nurix is; and what Fermi is25:38  The Socratic tutor that won't answer27:18  Back to Myntra: the fashion category today31:30  Koyu, Lyskraft and the CRED hypothesis33:41  Why a venture studio, one company a year38:18  Rejecting the compounding path42:57  The near-death at Myntra, and raising with a short runway45:03  Haridwar, BHEL, and the books that lit the fire48:15  Pivots as chess "adjustments"50:48  Conviction vs discovery: betting the megatrend53:08  The Bay Area years and the return to India Quotes[4:33] "I see myself as a learner… doing one company over a period of time, I get bored."[7:08] "Crisis always comes wrapped with a massive gift, if you are only willing to unpeel the onion."[17:12] "I'm making an even stronger point. If you're only a people manager, watch out."[18:58] "For the first time you can hire something equivalent to human cognition for cents an hour."[48:50] "I use the word adjustment rather than pivot. You come to work every day, you're playing chess." Frameworks & mental models Learner over operator: hand off once a company stops teaching you. Crisis and momentum: cut the bad, double down on the good. The three professionals in the AI age: the hands-on veteran is the one AI turns into a superpower. Adjustment, not pivot: the best move on the board each day; a true "wipe the slate" is just a new company. Bet the megatrend, stay loose on the path.Credits & sharingThis episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Part 1: Mukesh Bansal on founder mode in the AI age, the three kinds of professionals in the AI age, and the Haridwar boy who found entrepreneurship in a library

  4. 27 Jul

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on the decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him consumer, raising half the fund he could have, and keeping a coach in his sixties

    1 · Summary Part 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh built to make it work. This half is the person. The near-decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him his love of consumer, the Intel years, and the Paper Boat conviction that taught him to back the founder over the idea. Then the man himself: parents who came to India as refugees from Pakistan, a father who kept collecting degrees while feeding the family, the coach he started seeing in his sixties and what separates coaching from therapy, and how he reads a founder by meeting their family. He turned down twice the money he could have raised. He rates his life a 10. 2 · Chapters 0:00 Part 2 intro 1:22 The Hindustan Lever decade that started it all 2:25 Intel Inside, and bringing the inside out 4:22 The Paper Boat conviction: backing the founder 6:38 What he adds as Fireside's "CEO," and value of good 17:53 Capping the fund: turning down 2x the money 20:24 Hiring: read the person, meet the family 27:01 Refugees, and a father who never stopped studying 30:39 Three words, and a 100%-locked calendar 33:30 Motivating through the down days 34:51 The coach, and coaching vs therapy 43:40 How he learns, and consumer vs tech founders 51:27 Rating his life a 10, and success redefined 52:47 Cotswolds, golf, and the empty nest refilled3 · Pull-quotes [17:56] "I could have raised 2x of this. Genuinely, we could have raised 2x of this." [23:55] "You cannot build to sell. You build for sustenance, you build for good." [27:04] "Both my parents were refugees from Pakistan." [51:34] "A 10." (asked how happy he is with his life) 4 · Frameworks & mental models Founder assessment through the family: read a founder by their story and support system, often over a meal with their spouse, on the belief that no one survives a decade-long build without one. Build for sustenance, not to sell: the best businesses are bought, not sold; you build for the long run and treat a sale as a business decision along the way. Value of good ("do good to do well"): founder first, planet first, one Fireside, with goodness as the foundation of doing well. Coaching vs therapy: therapy addresses a medical issue; coaching is vulnerability and honesty in a business context, and only works once you have the self-awareness to accept there's a problem. This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on the decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him consumer, raising half the fund he could have, and keeping a coach in his sixties

  5. 20 Jul

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game

    1 · Summary Part 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, when almost nobody believed India had a consumer story worth venture capital. His first backers weren't institutions, they were the consumer families who had built India's brands. This half covers the whole bet: what investors actually said when he pitched a consumer-only fund, why he raised in India rather than abroad, the ownership and follow-on design he corrected fund after fund, his claim that most of his companies succeed rather than one outlier, and his working map of India 1, 2 and 3. Part 2 turns to the person behind it. 2 · Chapters 0:00 Cold open and Part 1 intro 3:27 What Fireside is, and why it exists 10:04 How the fund makes money 11:23 The stats: 9 years, 4 funds, 68 investments 12:50 Raising fund one: consumer families, not global institutions 17:14 Two years as a solo angel 25:51 Ownership by design, and the follow-on model 34:05 What "success" means, and the anti-power-law 36:56 The centre of excellence 45:40 The three breaks from the VC default, and India 1/2/3 53:47 Quick commerce is brand-first 57:54 Brand vs performance: Underneat, Truvi3 · Pull-quotes [0:20] "For a 5x, nobody will call you legendary." [34:24] "We can build successful funds, fund after fund... not necessarily depending on those one or two outliers. Good news is we also have the outliers." [40:26] "The answer lies in the question. It is hard." [54:12] "The power of the brand is truly manifest in quick commerce." 4 · Frameworks & mental models Anti-power-law investing: a portfolio where most companies clear "capital plus," not one built to live or die on a single outlier. The three breaks from the VC default: consumer over tech, Indian consumer-family LPs over global institutions, one shared-credit team over lone-hero dealmakers. India 1, 2, 3: his working map of where consumption grows, with India 2 needing products designed for it and India 3 reached through doorstep models. Quick commerce is brand-first: scarce shelf space and a buy-not-browse shopper mean only brands with genuine pull survive. This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game

  6. 19 Jul • The Ken Premium Only

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on backing Indian consumer brands before anyone believed and turning down half the money he could have raised

    For fifty-odd episodes, First Principles kept venture capitalists off the show, because the conversation tends to drift to the portfolio rather than the person. Kanwal Singh is the exception. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, an idea investors could not place. His first cheques came not from institutions but from the families who had built India's consumer businesses. Nearly a decade on, Fireside is close to sixty brands and around 650 million dollars across four funds. What makes the conversation worth two hours is that Kanwal built the fund to reject the two instincts that define his industry: the power law, and the pull to get big. He would rather a portfolio where most companies win than one 100x outlier, and he turned down twice the money he could have raised to protect it. The episode covers all of it, and then the man himself. Chapters 0:00 Cold open and intro 4:13 What Fireside is, and why it exists 10:48 How the fund actually makes money 12:07 The stats: 9 years, 4 funds, 68 investments 13:34 Raising fund one: consumer families, not global institutions 17:58 Two years as a solo angel: Licious, Mamaearth, Paper Boat 26:35 Ownership by design: 10% to 20%, and the follow-on model 34:49 What "success" means, and the anti-power-law 37:40 The centre of excellence: why hands-on is hard to copy 42:31 A single-founder fund with no prima donnas 46:24 The three breaks from the VC default, and India 1/2/3 51:28 India 3: selling to villages with no address 54:31 Quick commerce is brand-first 1:01:40 The Hindustan Lever decade that started it all 1:07:07 What he adds as Fireside's "CEO," and value of good 1:17:37 Capping the fund: turning down 2x the money 1:20:55 Hiring: read the person, meet the family 1:27:30 Refugees, and a father who never stopped studying 1:35:19 The coach, and coaching vs therapy 1:51:56 Rating his life a 10 Quotes [0:03] "I could have raised 2x of this. Genuinely, we could have raised 2x of this." [35:08] "We can build successful funds, fund after fund, by creating portfolios which are successful as a very high percentage, and not necessarily depending on those one or two outliers. Good news is we also have the outliers." [37:09] "For a 5x, nobody will call you legendary." [41:10] "The answer lies in the question. It is hard." [1:52:03] "A 10." (asked how happy he is with his life) Frameworks & mental models Anti-power-law investing: build a portfolio where a high percentage of companies clear "capital plus," rather than staking the fund on one or two outliers. The three breaks from the VC default: consumer not tech; Indian consumer-family LPs not global institutions; one team with shared credit, not lone-hero dealmakers. India 1, 2, 3: the market mapped across cohort, sector, channel and geography, where India 2 needs products designed for it and India 3 is reached through doorstep models with no marketing spend. Quick commerce is brand-first: scarce dark-store shelf space plus a shopper who arrives to buy, not browse, means only brands with real consumer pull survive. Founder assessment through the family: read a founder by their story and support system, often over a meal with their spouse. Value of good ("do good to do well"): founder first, planet first, one Fireside, on the belief that goodness is the foundation of doing well, not a trade-off against it. This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on backing Indian consumer brands before anyone believed and turning down half the money he could have raised

  7. 13 Jul

    Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender

    Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what, given hindsight, he'd do differently, then the first principles he runs Shiprocket on (distribution beats product), the two or three metrics he genuinely obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he believes you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at the company, the guitar he still plays, his dog, and the question Rohin closes every episode with, which Saahil answers with a single number. Chapters 1:02  With hindsight, what he'd do differently 2:10  “A paisa of every transaction in India” 5:23  First principles: distribution beats product 11:32  The metrics he obsesses over 17:22  Betting on applied AI 29:33  “You can't manage people” 31:45  Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket 42:05  The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO 58:28  The book he forgets — and how he reflects 1:00:50  Rating his life an 8 This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender

  8. 12 Jul • The Ken Premium Only

    Shiprocket's Saahil Goel on rebuilding the same company three times and wanting one paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces

    Everyone thinks Shiprocket began in 2017. But the company Saahil Goel and his co-founder Gautam Kapoor started was born in 2011, and it was rebuilt three times before it worked: a “Shopify for India” called KartRocket, a marketplace called Craftly, and finally the shipping-and-enablement layer now behind a quarter of a million Indian sellers, on its way to a public listing. In this ~2-hour conversation, Saahil takes Rohin through the whole arc: bootstrapping on Rs 15 lakh, why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and how he came to believe you sell outcomes, not software. Then it turns reflective: the first principles he runs the company on, the single metric he obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he thinks you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at Shiprocket, the guitar he still plays, and a closing self-assessment delivered in a single number. Chapters 0:00 The company that started in 2011, not 2017 4:53 KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market 7:02 Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh 9:55 Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software 18:51 “Take $4 million or nothing” 23:31 How Shiprocket was born 27:59 What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money 38:50 The IPO, and the state of the business 45:12 Quick commerce without owning a truck 49:33 From Delhi to a US career — and back 56:52 Lessons from failed fundraises 1:05:16 How much they've raised 1:05:27 With hindsight, what he'd do differently 1:06:34 “A paisa of every transaction in India” 1:09:47 First principles: distribution beats product 1:15:56 The metrics he obsesses over 1:21:46 Betting on applied AI 1:33:57 “You can't manage people” 1:36:10 Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket 1:46:29 The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO 2:02:52 The book he forgets — and how he reflects 2:05:15 Rating his life an 8 This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com 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.

    Shiprocket's Saahil Goel on rebuilding the same company three times and wanting one paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces
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First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.

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