WTF is with Nikhil Kamath

Nikhil Kamath
  • 4.4 (21)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Monthly

"WTF is" is a podcast series where Nikhil Kamath hosts friends and industry experts and holds casual yet intellectually stimulating conversations. The podcast covers a broad range of topics of particular current relevance, including technology, social media, renewable energy, electric vehicles, philosophy, gaming, psychology and more.

  1. 18h ago

    If UPI Is Free, Who Pays for It? | PhonePe, Razorpay & NPCI | WTF is Payments?

    Access the full data and references used in this episode below. Open the Canva Research Document Please open this alongside the episode while watching. We scan a QR code, enter a PIN, and move on. I wanted to understand everything that happens in between. If a payment feels instant and costs us nothing, who is doing the work, who is taking the risk, and who is paying for it? I sat down with Sameer Nigam of PhonePe, Harshil Mathur of Razorpay, and Sohini Rajola of NPCI to follow a payment through the system. We draw out the journey between an app, the banks and NPCI, get into why the confirmation on our phone and the settlement between banks are different things, and compare that with what happens when we use a credit card. From rewards and merchant fees to fraud, failed transactions and the cost of handling cash, there is a business behind every way we choose to pay. The conversation also gets into MDR, how the ecosystem funds itself, and what it takes to keep investing in wider access. Then we look ahead: cross-border payments, business payments, wearable rings, digital tipping, and AI agents that might eventually shop and pay for us. The guests disagree on how quickly that future arrives, especially in India. If you were starting a payments business today, which problem would you try to solve? Watch the full conversation and tell me below. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Introduction 02:23 Sohini Rajola: Her journey and NPCI's role 09:40 Banks, fintechs and digital banking 14:11 Harshil Mathur: The problem that led to Razorpay 20:36 Sameer Nigam: His journey before PhonePe 24:08 Why young Indians want to leave 30:28 UPI's early builders and the cost of overregulation 43:16 Flipkart's payment failures and the birth of PhonePe 52:02 How a UPI payment actually works 59:06 If UPI is free, who pays for it? 1:05:26 Instant payments vs bank settlement 1:08:24 Stablecoins, CBDCs and the future of money 1:14:52 Wealth inequality, inheritance and capital gains 1:17:11 The zero-MDR debate: Funding the payments ecosystem 1:21:31 Should UPI apps have market-share caps? 1:33:08 Can new banks and startups compete in India? 1:41:18 How card and merchant payments work 1:49:39 Credit-card rewards and RuPay on UPI 1:54:12 How Razorpay improved online payments 2:02:08 The B2B payments opportunity 2:05:36 Building payments for medical tourism 2:09:54 Why digital tipping is still unsolved 2:16:01 What payment data reveals about India's consumers 2:21:22 Trust and India's next wave of online shoppers 2:26:07 GST, consumption and property taxes 2:31:38 Affordable food, quality and accountability 2:37:55 Cash vs digital: Measuring India's spending 2:42:20 B2B payments, merchant data and access to credit 2:44:31 Stablecoins, cross-border transfers and capital controls 2:51:59 Will AI agents change how we shop and pay? 2:57:57 Is AI in a bubble? 3:03:01 AI costs, productivity and human work 3:08:59 What should young founders build for AI commerce? 3:16:01 Who benefits from AI? Business and investment opportunities 3:24:31 Meet the builders: Seven, Dodo Payments and PayGlocal 3:26:46 How cross-border payments and merchant-of-record models work 3:34:55 Stablecoins and CBDCs: Speed, trust and regulation 3:39:20 The founders' view on competition and market share 3:41:31 Seven's payment rings: Cashback, revenue and adoption 3:47:20 Medical tourism and other cross-border opportunities 3:51:07 Tap-to-pay, tipping and the future of wearables 3:53:48 Cheaper AI and the pace of agentic commerce 3:56:47 Fraud, trust and safeguards for AI payments 3:59:18 Final advice for young fintech founders GUESTS Sohini Rajola – Executive Director, Growth at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohinirajola/ Sameer Nigam – Founder and CEO of PhonePe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanigam/ Harshil Mathur – Co-founder and CEO of Razorpay LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshilmathur/ ALSO FEATURING PERSPECTIVES FROM Vijay Khubchandani – Founder & CEO, Seven LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijaykhubchandani/ Prachi Dharani – Co-Founder & CEO, PayGlocal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prachi-dharani-94530a9/ Yogesh Lokhande – Co-Founder, PayGlocal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yogesh-lokhande-b760522/ Ayush Agarwal – Co-Founder & CPTO, Dodo Payments LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagarwal1012/ HOST Nikhil Kamath – Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas; Host of 'WTF Is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast. Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ LISTEN TO THE PODCAST Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFiswithNikhilKamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

  2. Oct 24

    Is AI a Bubble? I Asked the People Building It | WTF is AI?

    Access the full data and references used in this episode below. Please open this alongside the episode while watching. https://canva.link/jzw1hvv14z38mew Footage Credits & Sources 1. Elon Musk Footage Source: The Economist (YouTube) Link: https://youtu.be/1X-rr1DKSbY?si=wLJd3G82bo389CsH 2. Sam Altman Interview Source: Fortune Magazine (YouTube) Link: https://youtu.be/2my-NU6LuCM?si=MDhrcvqcu_vlod53&t=336 3. Donald Trump Footage Source: New York Post (YouTube) Link: https://youtu.be/RsT2NYu8Y_Y?si=fuOhm3kKY-nWEw63&t=15 4. Australian Government Website hack Clip Source: Firstpost (YouTube) Link: https://youtu.be/gmf8sdQGwm4?si=9UT_LCgkldxXH4YV Is AI a bubble, or are we underestimating how much it can change? That’s the question I kept coming back to in San Francisco. Young companies are attracting extraordinary valuations, while I’m still trying to see how the promised productivity gains are reaching the wider economy. I put that scepticism to Akshay Kothari of Notion, Vijay Krishnan of Turing, and Ricursive Intelligence’s Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie. We discuss where the money is coming from, how much of it is moving between AI companies, and what businesses and individuals will actually pay for. They make the case for capabilities that are already useful, smaller teams doing more, and benefits that take time to spread. We also get into chips, human work, AI risks and what India should build. The technology can be powerful and the prices can still be wrong. I wanted to understand how to tell the difference. Timestamp: 00:00 Introduction 02:46 Meet Akshay Kothari and Azalia Mirhoseini 05:21 AlphaChip: AI That Designs Computer Chips 12:11 Cheaper Models, More Compute and Custom Chips 17:28 What Notion Does and How AI Changes Work 20:12 Vijay Krishnan and the People Teaching AI 29:18 Understanding the AI Industry From Scratch 32:43 Why Inference Companies Get High Valuations 37:09 The Gap Between AI Capability and Adoption 41:48 Is the AI Investment Boom a Bubble? 46:04 What Happens When AI Can Improve Itself? 53:00 The Changing Work of Training AI 56:35 Why Silicon Valley and China Lead the Race 1:00:38 Where Would You Build an AI Business? 1:07:23 AI Agents and the Productivity Debate 1:17:40 Are We Losing Our Own Thinking Skills? 1:24:23 Meet Anna Goldie 1:30:21 The $100 Million Business Question 1:34:48 What Google Got Right—and What It Missed 1:37:18 AI Chips and NVIDIA’s Advantage 1:39:59 AI Shares, Secondaries and the Wealth Boom 1:42:54 Can Countries and Companies Own Their AI? 1:45:07 Open Models, Scaling Laws and Local AI 1:52:07 AI Risks, Security and Human Control 2:01:05 What Should India Build in AI? 2:07:10 Are AI Safety Warnings Sincere? 2:09:04 How Would You Spend Your Last Month? 2:14:41 What Comes After the Smartphone? 2:17:48 The Future of Social Media and Entertainment 2:21:45 Will AI Replace the Apps We Use? 2:25:51 Final Ideas: Product Design and Better Learning Akshay Kothari-Co founder and COO, Notion Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari/ Vijay Krishnan-Founder and CTO, Turing-https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay0/ Anna Goldie-Co founder and CEO, Ricursive Intelligence Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adgoldie/ Azalia Mirhoseini Co founder and CTO, Ricursive Intelligence Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azalia-mirhoseini-a5308522/ Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

  3. Oct 22

    AI: The Future, or the Fad of the Season? | WTF is AI? | Trailer

    I went to San Francisco with a basic question: if AI can do more of the work, where does that leave the person doing it today? I asked Akshay Kothari of Notion, Vijay Krishnan of Turing, and Ricursive Intelligence’s Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie to help me understand what is changing. We got into people teaching AI to do their own kinds of work, small teams using it to do more, why the money going into this industry makes me nervous, and what someone starting out in India should make of it. I kept asking them to explain it more simply, because I wanted to understand the opportunity as well as the risk. Here’s a first look at WTF is AI. Full conversation coming soon. Akshay Kothari — Co-founder and COO, Notion LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari/ Vijay Krishnan — Founder and CTO, Turing LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay0/ Anna Goldie — Co-founder and CEO, Ricursive Intelligence LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adgoldie/ Azalia Mirhoseini — Co-founder and CTO, Ricursive Intelligence LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azalia-mirhoseini-a5308522/ Nikhil Kamath — Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of WTF is and People By WTF podcasts Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Listen to the podcasts on Spotify WTF is People by WTF WTF Online #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

  4. Oct 14

    Who Gets To Decide How India Pays? | WTF is Payments? | Trailer

    I wanted to start by drawing a diagram of the different kinds of payments and how we got here. We use UPI for everything from everyday purchases to applying for an IPO, but using it and understanding it are different things. What makes us choose one way to pay over another? What does it take to build trust? And why does a conversation about competition turn into a disagreement about who should be allowed to decide? This one moves from consumer incentives and bank regulation to the scale of UPI, caps on market share, and the possibility of AI agents transacting for us. There is disagreement over the costs, the timing, and whether changing commerce means payments must change too. Twenty pages of questions at the table, and one more subject waiting at the end: MDR. Sohini Rajola- Executive Director Growth at the National Payments Corporation of India. Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohinirajola/ Sameer Nigam- Founder and CEO of PhonePE Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanigam/ Harshil Mathur: Co-founder and CEO of Razorpay Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshilmathur/ Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

  5. Sep 11

    Will ChatGPT Book Your Next Holiday? | MakeMyTrip x Taj Hotels | WTF is Travel?

    Access the full data and references used in this episode below. Please open this alongside the episode while watching. Open Reference Document I put Rajesh Magow, the chartered accountant who co-founded MakeMyTrip on a team where almost nobody knew travel, and Puneet Chhatwal, the Delhi boy who spent twenty-eight years running hotels in Europe before coming home to pull IHCL out of a decade of losses, into one room to explain the business of Indian travel from scratch, and what came out was far bigger than a lesson, from why boutique hotels are better built by outsiders and how a fifty crore partnership between their companies became twelve hundred, to what a hotel actually pays to sit on MakeMyTrip and why booking direct still isn't cheaper, why ChatGPT can't scrape its way into the travel funnel and where voice bookings are taking tier-three India, why Puneet thinks the answer for a 25-year-old isn't another app but a small, clean hotel, why only ten million foreigners visit a country with more than forty UNESCO sites, what went wrong in Goa and where the next thirty Goas should be, why tourism being a state subject is the real bottleneck, and the full playbook both of them would run to take India from ten million tourists to a hundred million. Timestamp: 00:00 Introduction 07:03 Getting to Know the Guests 14:30 How MakeMyTrip’s Hotel Partnerships Work 21:45 Booking Direct vs Travel Apps 28:26 Puneet Chhatwal’s Journey from Delhi to Europe 35:01 Building Villa Stays & Solo Travel Businesses 41:43 Will AI Change How We Book Travel? 48:40 Customer Data vs Personal Hospitality 55:43 Can Robots Replace Hotel Staff? 1:03:05 Bringing Small-Town India into Online Travel 1:09:52 Should Hotels Cut Out the Middleman? 1:16:37 India’s Mid-Range Hotel Opportunity 1:23:51 Marketing India & Fixing Tourism Taxes 1:30:46 Mass Tourism vs Luxury Tourism in Goa 1:38:26 Can Luxury Trains Attract Premium Tourists? 1:44:44 Civic Sense & the Tourist Experience 1:51:24 Making India’s Attractions Discoverable & Bookable 1:58:44 Alibaug’s Potential & the Homestay Business 2:05:56 Why Celebrations Are Driving Villa Bookings 2:13:42 What Travel Business Should a 25-Year-Old Start? 2:19:43 Handling Bad Experiences & Building Trust 2:27:16 Nandan Nilekani & the Shift to Hotel Branding 2:34:40 What It Takes to Run an Asset-Light Hotel Brand 2:41:13 The Wellness Hotel Opportunity 2:48:44 Building Travel Businesses for Gen Z 2:56:16 Travel Education & New Business Ideas 3:02:19 Unlocking Unexplored India 3:08:42 Building New Destinations & Event Tourism 3:15:38 Private Jet Economics & Closing Thoughts Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip Limited LinkedIn: Rajesh Magow Puneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) LinkedIn: Puneet Chhatwal Nikhil Kamath — Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast Twitter: TwitterInstagram: InstagramLinkedIn: LinkedInFacebook: Facebook Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify Spotify #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

  6. Sep 3

    India Is A Great Country To Travel From, Not To | WTF is Travel? | Trailer

    I put the two companies most Indian holidays run through into one room, Rajesh Magow who co-founded MakeMyTrip and Puneet Chhatwal who runs IHCL, the company behind Taj, and what began as friendly needling over whose business is bigger and more profitable turned into the one question I couldn't let go of, why a country with this much coastline, culture and history gets barely ten million foreign visitors a year and what it would actually take to make that a hundred million, which pulled us through OYO's pivot, whether India's problem is marketing or the product itself, why tourism gets half a percent of GDP when every rupee spent on it comes back three times over, where the next Goa is, and the line that stayed with me, that India has become a great country to travel from and not the best country to travel to. Full episode drops soon. Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

  7. Aug 10

    The Battery Everyone Uses Is The One They'd Never Build | EnerVenue x HiNa | WTF are Batteries?

    I went to Dalian with a selfish question. I run a fund that invests in energy transition, and I've come to think energy isn't the problem moving it and storing it is. So I sat down with Henning Rath, who runs EnerVenue out of Silicon Valley and is building his first gigafactory in Changzhou, and Tang Kun, who runs HiNa Battery, a sodium-ion company spun out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that's now ten years old with 600 people and a gigawatt line. I told them I don't know anything about batteries and asked them to teach me. We started at what a cell even is, went through why the entire industry standardised on LFP and what a thermal runaway actually does, and then Henning told me something I hadn't heard: the world had over 14,000 LFP fires last year alone. I asked whether I should start an electric car company or a battery company when I get home. Both said battery and Henning was blunt about it: don't build anything that needs rare earth. Fifty million dollars to start. We got into nickel-hydrogen at 30,000 cycles, sodium carbonate at a tenth of what lithium carbonate costs, why solid state is still at level four out of nine, and the idea I keep coming back to that your car sits idle 98% of the time with a battery and a stack of chips doing nothing, and there's a version of this where every parked car is a micro data center. 00:00 Introduction 06:45 China's bet on chemistries beyond lithium 12:14 Cell chemistry and the trade-offs it forces 17:15 Thermal runaway and the limits of LFP 22:44 Production quality and how long a battery lasts 27:07 Why China won the electric car 33:54 Decoupling a battery business from lithium and rare earths 38:50 Sodium's cost advantage and its energy density ceiling 43:51 Recycling nickel and renting the metal 48:17 Where generation, storage and demand should sit 54:05 Decentralization and the car as a grid battery 1:00:19 Three super cycles and AI's power demand 1:05:30 Automation, jobs and China's social contract Footage Courtesy: World Economic Forum (WEF) CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Source: https://www.weforum.org/videos/amnc26_summer_davos_highlights/ Henning Rath, Chief Executive Officer at EnerVenue LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henning-rath/ Kun Tang, Executive Chairman of HiNa BatteryLinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kun-tang-52a52327/ Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFareBatteries #EnerVenue #HiNaBattery #SummerDavos

  8. Aug 9

    Why The Next Battery Won't Need Lithium Or Rare Earth | Nikhil Kamath | WTF Is A Battery

    I went into this wanting one answer, if I were starting something today, should it be an electric car company or a battery company and what I got back was narrower and more useful than I expected: don't build the thing that needs rare earth. We got into why sodium carbonate sits at roughly a tenth of what the equivalent lithium inputs cost, what $50 million actually buys you if you're starting this from scratch, why the world saw over 14,000 LFP fires last year alone and what that says about the chemistry everyone standardised on, and the part I keep coming back to that your car is parked 98% of the time in front of your house, and there's a version of this where that's not a dead asset but a micro data center. Every car a token factory. I didn't see that coming. Henning Rath, Chief Executive Officer at EnerVenue LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henning-rath/Kun Tang, Executive Chairman of HiNa BatteryLinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kun-tang-52a52327/ Footage Source: BYD footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0oMa2jWXaM Tesla footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50PU-cQx7j0 Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFareBatteries #EnerVenue #HiNaBattery #SummerDavos

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4.4
out of 5
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About

"WTF is" is a podcast series where Nikhil Kamath hosts friends and industry experts and holds casual yet intellectually stimulating conversations. The podcast covers a broad range of topics of particular current relevance, including technology, social media, renewable energy, electric vehicles, philosophy, gaming, psychology and more.

Information

  • Creator
    Nikhil Kamath
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    59
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Nikhil Kamath
  • Show Website
    WTF is with Nikhil Kamath

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