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Updated 11 May
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Updated 26 Jan
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3 days ago

India's IT sector bet its future on AI access it doesn't actually control

On June 11th, TCS announced an exclusive partnership with Anthropic — 50,000 employees trained on Claude, early access to new models, a dedicated business unit. The next day, a US export control order cut off access to Anthropic's most advanced models for users worldwide, including the very partner that had just signed up for early access. India's IT sector has spent years building its AI pivot on the assumption that access to frontier models would stay open. That assumption just cracked. And while India accelerates its own sovereign AI mission, analysts say that alone won't be enough to fix what just happened. So what would? 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.

3 days ago

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13 min
5 days ago

Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in

Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10. CHAPTERS 00:00 Recap and what's ahead: aggregators, the platform, the missing 0.101:48 "Digital landlords": Zomato & Swiggy, then and now02:47 From resistance to cohabitation; how aggregators trained demand05:24 Owning the customer; the cross-sector aggregator tension07:04 The Booking.com / Hotels.com parallel and how hotels fought back09:41 Build your own loyalty — don't blame the aggregator10:09 Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses13:09 Restaurants beat the movies; lessons from raising VC/PE16:34 Growth math: IRR, 20-25% stable growth, the late-stage problem17:45 What motivates him: reading a city and its community18:56 Curiosity over the "5 people"; planning for serendipity24:29 Hiring: "doers and divas" and the largesse of hospitality30:24 Social as social infrastructure: coworking from day one34:25 First principles: people + process, soul, belongingness37:08 Harvesting feedback: NPS, ORM, AI, the guest-experience officer39:18 His kids and the Gen Alpha worldview43:39 Weekends, FIFA, meditation, and protecting solitude48:10 Comfort food and deferring to the chef50:11 The 25-year view; the 10,000 cr platform and the invisible 85%59:03 Anti-loyalty vs frequency: cafes are loyalty, restaurants are experience1:01:44 Final question: 9.9 out of 10, and the missing 0.1KEY COMPANIES & BRANDS Impresario Handmade Restaurants; Social; Zomato; Swiggy; ONDC; Booking.com; Hotels.com; Rebel Foods; Haldiram's; Rameshwaram Cafe; Starbucks; NRAI; PlayStation/FIFA/Minecraft (referenced). KEY CONCEPTS Aggregators as "digital landlords"; deep discounting & perceived value; the uneasy truce; owning the customer relationship; the Booking.com hotel-inventory parallel; loyalty programs & direct outreach; delivery vs dine-in as separate businesses; patient capital, IRR & late-stage growth math; "doers and divas"; largesse of hospitality; full-service-restaurant platform; store-level vs corporate EBITDA; the invisible 85% "iceberg" of running a restaurant; anti-loyalty vs frequency; cafes (loyalty/convenience) vs restaurants (experience/variety); NPS/ORM/AI feedback; Gen Alpha.

5 days ago

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1hr 4min
2 days ago

Why Instagram wants to be on your TV now

This week, Instagram expanded its TV app to Samsung Smart TVs, joining Amazon Fire and Google TV, and announced it is testing episodic series and live creator experiences for the big screen. The announcement is the latest move in an eight-year pattern — a platform that keeps giving creators more time, more formats, and now a larger screen. Instagram tried long-form video once before. It called it IGTV, and shut it down three years later. So if short-form video was supposed to be the future, why does Instagram keep making it longer? 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.

2 days ago

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11 min
4 days ago

Google and Perplexity paid Jio and Airtel a fortune to reach Indian users. OpenAI paid nobody

India's telcos looked like the obvious gateway for AI companies chasing scale. With nearly 900 million subscribers between them, Jio and Airtel could put an AI product in front of more users faster than almost any other distribution channel in the world. So Google paid Jio and Perplexity paid Airtel. Both spent tens of thousands of rupees per user to make it work. One partnership is still standing but the other collapsed before its time was up. And OpenAI — the company with the largest AI user base in India — skipped the telco route entirely. What does OpenAI know about this model that the others are still learning? 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.

4 days ago

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9 min
18 Jun

India built UPI for the economy. Gamblers built an economy on UPI

2026 was the first IPL season after India banned online real money gaming last year. The platforms were gone and the payment gateways were blocked. The government had made its position clear. The betting, however, did not stop. The Ken's Mrunmayee Kulkarni went looking for where it went and found it hiding inside something the government itself built. On platforms like 99 Exchange, gamblers deposit and withdraw money directly through UPI, gambler to gambler, with no mule network and no victim to file a complaint. But the ED's tools were designed for a system that leaves a trail. This one doesn't. In this episode, Mrunmayee joins host Snigdha Sharma to walk through how the money actually moves, and why the enforcement machinery has no good answer for it yet. 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.

18 Jun

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20 min
5 days ago

Why Mamaearth's 2022 bet on a little-known drone startup is paying off in unexpected places and for unexpected players

In 2022, Mamaearth's founder made two unusual logistics bets: one on a shipping aggregator and one on a small Delhi drone startup nobody had heard of. Now, four years later, those bets have converged into one of India's fastest-growing logistics categories. Drones are now flying blood samples to hospital labs in 10 minutes instead of four hours. They're cutting delivery costs for D2C brands trying to escape marketplace commissions. They're even moving parcels between dark stores for Zepto. But the economics only work in certain places. And India's regulations weren't built with any of this in mind. 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.

5 days ago

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18 min
15 Jun

Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be

Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six, and the real engine underneath it all: people. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro: 95% fail by year two — and the man who didn't01:46 Why Mocha in 2001: a city missing "places to be"03:23 Bombay the "coolest cousin"; South Bombay snobbery moves to Bandra05:05 The MTV / Gen X generation and a West-facing India07:47 UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to live culture11:29 What "Handmade" and "Impresario" mean14:13 The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people15:29 Why restaurants die; learning from the community18:02 People vs processes — and why he keeps returning to people19:32 Social: the millennial third space and the shisha ban25:41 The Gen Z puzzle; Saltwater to Bandra Bourn; evolution vs revolution30:46 Real estate: location vs locality and India's "80 pockets"32:32 The metric that matters: AOV x covers x table turnaround35:33 COVID and surviving "mass-extinction events"39:17 The town hall: the team takes 40% pay to save the company40:51 What losing a restaurant feels like; the discipline to quit42:44 Mental model: 4-5 engines to ride economic cycles46:42 The marble business and hustling from age 1251:20 Bowling alleys & Phoenix Mills: people buy time together53:44 Self-rating: 7.5 as a parent, 5 as a CEO55:15 Building a restaurant vs building an organization56:15 The HR crisis: severe attrition, talent going abroad58:44 The one thing he can't delegate: layouts and property selection1:00:49 Becoming a "boardroom warrior" against his will KEY COMPANIES & BRANDS Impresario Handmade Restaurants; Mocha; Social; Saltwater Cafe/Grill; Bandra Born; Cafe Coffee Day; Phoenix Mills "Bowling Company"; Amoeba; UCLA. KEY CONCEPTS Third spaces; "handmade" at scale; West-aspirational MTV-generation culture; people vs processes; AOV x covers x table turnaround; frequency as a metric; location vs locality / "80 pockets"; evolution vs revolution; mass-extinction events & resilience; working-capital-negative business; building a restaurant vs building an organization; restaurant-industry attrition; the layouts/property selection he won't delegate.

15 Jun

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1hr 4min
17 Jun

When the monsoon fails, India's AI dreams fail with it

India's southwest monsoon is running 35% below normal. Mumbai's reservoirs are at 12% of capacity. And the rain that should have arrived by June 11th still hasn't. The same water and power systems that keep this economy running are now being asked to power India's AI future too — a $180 billion data centre bet that nobody is stress-testing against a failing monsoon and climate change. The groundwater is already over-extracted. The grid hit an all-time demand record in May. And the choice about who gets water first when there isn't enough has already been written into law in some states. But almost nobody wants to say it out loud. 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.

17 Jun

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13 min
14 Jun

Why Amazon seems so calm about being awfully late to quick commerce

Amazon Now launched in September 2025. It was already two years behind Flipkart, and well behind Blinkit and Zepto. Nine months later, it's doing 450,000 to 500,000 orders a day, expanding to 100 cities, and a Blinkit executive is walking through Colaba market, stopping in front of an Amazon dark store in a location Blinkit's expansion head could only dream of. Amazon has something its rivals don't: 150 million Prime members who already shop five times more frequently. And since bundling quick commerce with Prime, their order frequency has tripled. 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.

14 Jun

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12 min
12 Jun

Can Adani do with apples what Mahindra did with grapes?

Adani started buying apples in Himachal Pradesh two decades ago. Not because it wanted to be in the fruit business — but because it wanted to own the cold chain that nobody else was building. Now the India-New Zealand free trade agreement is about to test Indian apple growers like never before. New Zealand yields 50 to 70 tonnes per hectare. Himachal Pradesh averages 7 to 8. Adani just expanded into cherries, plums, and peaches — fruits even more perishable than apples. The bet is the same as it always was: whoever controls refrigeration, controls the market. 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.

12 Jun

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14 min

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