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02/10/2025

Phonepe is taking the IPO leap. But can it avoid Paytm’s fate?

Phonepe is stepping into the public markets with a $15 billion IPO. For Walmart, which has pumped billions into the payments firm, this is both a chance to cash in and a test of its India strategy. Unlike Paytm’s disastrous, hype-heavy listing in 2021, Phonepe is going in with steadier financials, fewer regulatory scrapes, and the scale to back its story. Yet, the timing isn’t without risk: subsidies are shrinking, UPI share caps are on the horizon, and investor appetite has cooled since 2021. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

02/10/2025

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10 min
17/06/2025 • SOLO THE KEN PREMIUM

What they don’t teach you about M&As in B-school

2024 was a record-breaking year for mergers and acquisitions in India, and the government seems to want to speed up the frenzy. One of the proposals put forward by the finance minister was an overhaul of M&A regulations. She wants to introduce fast-track mergers for a range of companies, including unlisted firms and fellow subsidiaries. But lethargy isn’t really the biggest problem afflicting Indian M&As. In fact, forcing these deals to move faster may worsen other fundamental problems. There are recent examples that show us how this can play out, such as Jet Airways’ failed revival under the Jalan Kalrock consortium. Meanwhile, there are other incentive structures that can ensure M&As deliver great results. Raghav Maggo explains what India’s M&A landscape needs in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng. Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to access our latest releases: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Or subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts to access our latest releases: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381

17/06/2025

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11 min
04/01/2024

Part 1: Viren Shetty of Narayana Health on becoming ‘worse’ to become better and other ways to fix healthcare in India

Welcome to the first 2024 episode of First Principles! Though we’re only 15 months old, we’re also technically into our third calendar year, after our first episode in August 2022. A happy new year to you. Here’s to many more years of wonderful conversations, learning and growing. Our guest today is Viren Shetty, the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health—the publicly listed healthcare group that operates over two dozen hospitals across India. Refreshingly, Viren thinks about healthcare…as an assembly line. And there are many, many steps in this line. Many of these are very small...they seem unimportant. Even forgettable. Like scheduling an annual healthcare checkup. Or filling out a feedback form at your clinic. Or just waiting in line for your doctor's appointment. When I asked Viren how healthcare can be fixed in India, he pointed to this assembly line. Basically, what if you tweak every small step of this line a little bit? Small, unnoticeable changes at every step? He’s confident that the result will be a smooth, well-oiled machine that takes care of your health end-to-end. This is what, Viren says, Narayana Health is trying to do. It reminded me of Apple. Take existing technologies and make improvements while putting the user at the centre of the experience. Narayana Health is a name you might have heard, especially if you’re from Bangalore. It was founded in 2000 by Dr. Devi Shetty. It went public in 2016 and is valued at over US$1 billion. But what we know as Narayana Health today began as Narayana Hrudayalaya, a super speciality hospital with a laser-sharp focus on cardiac health. Twenty years on, however, it's changed a lot. In addition to its numerous hospitals across India, it's also venturing into health insurance policies, partnering with clinics and pharmacies, and building an ambitious bundled subscription plan for its customers. This episode is a first in more ways than one. It’s not just our first episode of 2024. It’s also the first episode with a guest from the healthcare sector. And it’s the first episode which may sound a little different to you. In this episode, I ask Viren: Why are health checkups such a hassle?Is the answer to better healthcare in hardware or software?What are the health tech startups doing right?And then there is the unshakable mistrust that the Indian population holds against hospitals and doctors. Can this even be solved? Patiently and confidently, Viren answers every one of my questions. He talks about building sticky habits in customers, changing the messaging in healthcare, and becoming “worse” as an insurance company to be better as a healthcare one. In this episode, we truly get down to the first principles of healthcare in India. Check out the First Principles Newsletter, a weekly Sunday read on entrepreneurship, mental models, leadership and reflection here. Send in submissions for book recommendations, interesting reads, Silent Sunday pictures or songs for the First Principles newsletter here. This is Episode 34 of First Principles, Viren Shetty—The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast. The Ken is India’s first subscriber-only business journalism platform. Check out our deeply reported long-form stories, insightful newsletters, original podcasts and much more here.

04/01/2024

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1 h 9 min
13/03/2025

Will Starlink in India pull off what giants Airtel and Jio couldn't?

In this episode we fill you in on some of the biggest business and tech stories from The Ken newsroom. We will talk about Reliance and Airtel’s latest deal with Space X’s Starlink Internet; how Dhan, the stock broking underdog, is defying all odds; and finally, we discuss the market for treating farmed animals humanely. Stay tuned Check out the stories and podcasts we mentioned in this episode: Dhan is the stock-broking underdog that Chryscapital and Hornbill are after. But why?How big is the market for treating farmed animals humanely?

13/03/2025

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17 min
12/02/2025 • SOLO THE KEN PREMIUM

29. Going out of India is easier than going out in India (Premium Subscribers Only)

Have you made a trip abroad to attend a live event in 2023 or 2024? Did you have the option of attending the same (or equivalent) event in India? Why did you choose not to attend the same event in India? These were the three main questions we posed to listeners of Two by Two in a recent survey to understand the biggest problems with hosting events—big or small—in India. Then we took all the people who said yes and looked at the events that they said they went outside India to attend even though options for it existed inside India. It had a lot of concerts comprising a long list of musicians. Dua Lipa in Singapore, Ed Sheeran in Malaysia and a sea of Coldplay because it's Coldplay season, Coldplay's concert in Singapore, Coldplay in Dubai, Coldplay in Barcelona, Coldplay in Thailand, Coldplay in Bangkok, Ben Böhmer who had performed in India in late December last year but people chose to attend his shows outside India instead. Then we had Indian performers whom people refused to attend in India and went abroad, Diljit in Bombay. There was a list of cricket matches in that list as well. Stand-up acts from Vir Das, which people chose to attend in the U.S. instead of attending in India. The most interesting entry we saw was half marathons. People are choosing to attend half marathons outside India instead of attending them in India. In this week’s episode, we get to the reasons why this is the ultimate form of Indians paying for convenience over availability. Hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Shreyas Srinivasan, former Chief Product Officer at Paytm* and founder of Paytm Insider, which has now been acquired by Zomato and rebranded as District, and Sudhir Syal, former CEO of Bookmyshow Indonesia and Bookmyshow Middle East, to understand where India falls short in hosting events at scale. Welcome to episode 29 of Two by Two. *Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken. – Additional reading: The Nutgraf: Going out of India is easier than going out in India – This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode. If you liked this episode of Two by Two, do share it with like-minded individuals who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com

12/02/2025

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1 h 9 min
24/11/2023

Personal loans helped Paytm make a comeback. But it can't rely on them anymore

In November 2021, *Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications went public with a $2.4 billion IPO. What followed was a bloodbath for the fintech giant. In a span of a year after the IPO, Paytm’s stock lost 75% of its market value. No other large IPO in the last decade had seen such a bad fall in stock value within the first year of listing. But last year, in a dramatic turnaround, Paytm saw its stock value go up by 90%. What could've Paytm possibly done to bring about this crazy turnaround? It was personal loans. They’re the reason Paytm saw a more than 60% jump in revenue in the year ended March 2023. But now, Paytm can't rely on it anymore. Tune in to find out why. *Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

24/11/2023

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12 min
30/10/2025

ChatGPT is everywhere. Not everyone is impressed

Last week, ChatGPT launched its own AI browser — a tool that promises to surf the web for you. It can summarise articles, add chocolates to your cart, or even tell you which email to reply to first (though… not always correctly). OpenAI’s vision is clear: make ChatGPT the centre of your digital life. But are users buying in? From buggy app integrations with Canva and Spotify to real concerns around privacy and data access, this episode explores why AI-powered tools aren’t quite the game-changers they claim to be — yet. And why OpenAI keeps rolling them out anyway. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

30/10/2025

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10 min
25/11/2024

Why Mamaearth is stuck with dead stock and mounting losses

In the June quarter of 2024, Honasa Consumer, the maker of Mamaearth, decided to launch this new project called Project Neev. The idea was to bring about a foundational change in the way the company operates, especially distribution. For context, Mamaearth hit the bourses in October last year when everyone else who had IPO plans had decided to hold them off for a bit. But Varun Alagh, the CEO and co-founder of Mamaearth, was of the firm opinion that the timing was perfectly ripe. Things seemed to be going alright until this month when Honasa Consumer reported its first loss ever since it went public. Everything points to the massive change in the company’s distribution strategy. It decided to dump all its super-stockists or distributors for an in-house sales team that would take care of it. Basically, all the middlemen were kicked out. The company estimated a one-time hit of Rs 50 crore in inventory losses because of this shift. But Alagh himself admitted in an interview with The Economic Times that the real damage was closer to Rs 70 crore. And former distributors allege that the real picture is much worse. They estimate that there are stocks worth Rs 300 crores lying unsold and unclaimed. In today’s episode, we’ll delve deeper into what this change in distribution strategy has led to for Mamaearth and its former stockists. Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode! Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

25/11/2024

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13 min
16/12/2024

XLRI introduced India to management studies. But now it's done being just another B-school

Back in 1949, XLRI introduced India to management studies. Since then, it has managed to become one of the most sought after B-schools in the country. For decades, it was like the dependable elder statesman of Indian management education. But now, XLRI wants to be anything but just another business school. In the last two decades, there has been an explosion of MBA seats across the country. Now, XLRI doesn’t want to simply add more management seats mindlessly. It wants to introduce programmes it thinks are relevant. Some of which, have nothing to do with management studies at all. What's going on? Tune in. P.S The Ken’s podcast team is hiring! Here’s what we’re looking for. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two here

16/12/2024

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11 min
02/10/2024

How Birkenstocks went from being a clunky, orthopaedic sandal to the new it-shoe

Not so long ago, Birkenstocks were considered the antithesis of high fashion. For the longest time, the 250-year-old German brand’s characteristic chunky sandal was seen as nothing more than an orthopedic shoe meant for hippies and old people. And then, everything changed. In the last decade or so, Birkenstock had a major glow up. It all started with the brand deciding not to settle for being just another comfortable but cringey sandal anymore. So to make Birks cool the brand began collaborating with high-end fashion designers like Rick Owens, Valentino and Dior. Very quickly celebrities and influencers caught on. They were suddenly being spotted walking out of the gym, or a cafe with a pair of birks on. And just like that, a trend was born. The orthopedic sandal, built more for comfort than for style, was the new it-shoe. Now, the Birk craze has found its way to India. Tune in. This episode was originally published on July 16 Why do women freeze their eggs? Take the survey here. Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

02/10/2024

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11 min

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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IMPRENDITORIALITÀ
The audio edition of The Ken’s Make India Competitive Again newsletter, spearheaded by Seetharaman G. Every Wednesday, our editors and reporters read the latest edition and chronicle what India is doing, will do, and should do—to not just survive but thrive in the chaos unleashed by Donald Trump.

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NEWS - AFFARI
Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

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TECNOLOGIA
The Two by Two podcast is a premium business podcast from The Ken that investigates, discusses and breaks down the most important business stories around you. Hosted from The Ken's newsroom by business journalists Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, Two by Two will feature guests and experts from across the industry and academia to talk about issues no one else is talking about.

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ECONOMIA
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.

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The Ken

Listen to full episodes 1-4 weeks before others

Top podcast

Phonepe is taking the IPO leap. But can it avoid Paytm’s fate?

What they don’t teach you about M&As in B-school

Part 1: Viren Shetty of Narayana Health on becoming ‘worse’ to become better and other ways to fix healthcare in India

Will Starlink in India pull off what giants Airtel and Jio couldn't?

29. Going out of India is easier than going out in India (Premium Subscribers Only)

Personal loans helped Paytm make a comeback. But it can't rely on them anymore

ChatGPT is everywhere. Not everyone is impressed

Why Mamaearth is stuck with dead stock and mounting losses

XLRI introduced India to management studies. But now it's done being just another B-school

How Birkenstocks went from being a clunky, orthopaedic sandal to the new it-shoe

Listen to full episodes 1-4 weeks before others

What they don’t teach you about M&As in B-school

29. Going out of India is easier than going out in India (Premium Subscribers Only)

Full episode: Ritesh Agarwal of OYO on building a business on differentiation, communication and resilience

What happens when diamonds are neither rare nor expensive?

Tejas Networks’ diving share price is a Mayday signal. Is DoT’s antenna working?

The hidden costs of superstar family businesses

Perplexity kills student incentives, moving past peak Nvidia, the Google Empire strikes back

PM Internship Scheme—another shaky start to another shaky skilling programme

The World Chip Design League is heating up. India isn’t even on the points table

The elusive women powering India’s economy

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