The Ken

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26 ian.
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27 iun.
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26 mai

Microsoft called Copilot "entertainment only." Then killed it on Xbox

In 1998, a Metal Gear Solid villain named Psycho Mantis read your memory card out loud and made your controller vibrate on its own. Players were stunned. It felt like a genuine invasion. And they loved it. In 2026, Microsoft built an Xbox assistant that could do roughly the same thing. Plus some more. Track your history, read your screen, coach you through the game. Players were stunned. It felt like a genuine invasion. And they hated it. The viral hate train began in March 2026. Two months later, the new Xbox CEO killed it. The backlash wasn't really about the technology. It was about what the technology misunderstood. Game design requires a careful balance between challenge and ease that makes it worth playing. And an AI assistant wasn't really reducing friction, it just introduced a different, kind of insulting type. So where does AI actually belong in gaming? 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.

26 mai

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19 min
17.06.2025 • Doar 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
30.06.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

India’s financial inclusion project is titanic. KYC could be the iceberg that sinks it

Long queues formed outside bank branches across India in 2014 and 2015, with a range of people opening their bank account for the first time. These were farmers, day labourers, homemakers—Indians who had largely been neglected by the formal banking system until then. This moment was part of the Indian government’s Jan Dhan Yojana Scheme, which enabled people to open zero-balance bank accounts at no cost. By the end of 2015, when the initiative ended, 250 million accounts had been opened. Jan Dhan Yojana was a success, so much so that the State Bank of India reported in 2021 that the country had surpassed China in financial inclusion metrics. Now, many of the bank accounts opened under the scheme are up for re-verification KYC (know-your-customer) procedures. Even though the process is straightforward—a check of listed documents such as one’s Aadhaar or PAN—many account owners can’t complete it. Besides, banks have little incentive to keep the accounts active. The situation on the ground is at odds with the intention of bringing more of India’s population into the formal banking system. Sarthak Gupta unpacks the contradiction in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.

30.06.2025

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11 min
25.05.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

The elusive women powering India’s economy

A cursory look at the way India’s workforce has changed in recent years suggests that “women are striding into economic activity”, as Mint ( https://www.livemint.com/news/economic-activity-women-overtake-men-income-tax-pan-women-labour-force-jobs-benefits-niti-aayog-financial-inclusion-11747392168265.html ) reported in mid-May. In fact, by FY24, three in four working women were self-employed. Women generally have a growing share in India’s workforce—a development that public officials persistently tout. But look closely and you’ll find that the details paint a different picture. The ministry of labour said last year that India added 80 million jobs in the four years leading up to FY22. The truth is self-employment and agriculture, much of which is unpaid family work, account for a large part of that increase. That hardly translates to formal jobs with real wages. Take inflation into account and things look even worse. Sure, there are more workers in India’s fields and factories. But simply looking at the number of bodies at work is misleading. The data’s champions ignore the nuance that ends up telling a different story about India’s workforce, but there are professionals who find ways to work with data that is suspect. Seetharaman G made sense of the situation in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.

25.05.2025

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7 min
13.01.2023

How fried chicken helped McDonald’s become an investor’s favourite

In May 2020, McDonald's decided to launch the McSpicy Fried Chicken in the southern states of India where majority of the population consumes meat. Two year later, the shares of McDonald’s India franchisee, Westlife Foodworld, shot up by 40%. Tune in to find out how fried chicken was one of the key drivers behind the fast-food chain becoming a the top-choice among public-market investors.

13.01.2023

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12 min
01.06.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

India’s wi-fi rebellion comes for Airtel-Reliance Jio’s turf

Wi-fi is a miracle. Not because it lets you go online wherever it’s offered, but because there’s no bureaucratic headache whenever users connect to a network. This is only possible because of what’s called “unlicensed spectrum” that governments leave open. In India, more is about to be added to it. Call it the first real systemic reform for wi-fi in the country. The plan is hardly new. It’s rooted in a roadmap developed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2023. And it’s an outcome that tech companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have been lobbying hard for. After all, if the goal is to give hundreds of millions of people in India a fast internet connection wherever they are—at home or at bus stops, in schools or in shops—then licensed mobile networks just can’t do the whole job on their own. But India’s telcos are not thrilled about this development. They want that space for future 5G expansions. Sumit Chakraborty explains the conflict in this week’s Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng. Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-wi-fi-rebellion-comes-for-airtel-reliance-jios-turf/ ( https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-wi-fi-rebellion-comes-for-airtel-reliance-jios-turf/ ) Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ ( https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ )

01.06.2025

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15 min
25.05.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

The elusive women powering India’s economy

A cursory look at the way India’s workforce has changed in recent years suggests that “women are striding into economic activity”, as Mint reported in mid-May. In fact, by FY24, three in four working women were self-employed. Women generally have a growing share in India’s workforce—a development that public officials persistently tout. But look closely and you’ll find that the details paint a different picture. The ministry of labour said last year that India added 80 million jobs in the four years leading up to FY22. The truth is self-employment and agriculture, much of which is unpaid family work, account for a large part of that increase. That hardly translates to formal jobs with real wages. Take inflation into account and things look even worse. Sure, there are more workers in India’s fields and factories. But simply looking at the number of bodies at work is misleading. The data’s champions ignore the nuance that ends up telling a different story about India’s workforce, but there are professionals who find ways to work with data that is suspect. Seetharaman G made sense of the situation in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.

25.05.2025

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7 min
27.10.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

Ex-founders get a bad rap, but they’re exactly who enterprises need

We have all heard the founder's story. The kind they make movies about. The kind of founders who see unimaginable success and build massive brands that the whole world knows about. Or the other kind of founder story. The founder whose startup fails. Who loses the company, the money, and sometimes even themselves along the way. But there’s another version of the founder story. What happens when the startup ends… but the founder doesn’t start again? What if instead, they take their entrepreneurial skills and instincts to another organisation as an employee? In this episode, we talk to Printo’s co-founder Lalana Zaveri and Leap.Club’s co-founder Anand Sinha to unpack what it means to think like a founder even when you are not one anymore. It’s got lessons for everyone on ownership and finding the rhythm amidst ambiguity and chaos. Have thoughts about this episode? Write to Rahel (rahel@the-ken.com ( rahel@the-ken.com )) or Vidhatri (vidhatri@the-ken.com ( vidhatri@the-ken.com )). Here is the link to our survey on AI and productivity: https://theken.typeform.com/to/yQTIGKih ( https://theken.typeform.com/to/yQTIGKih ) Credits: Written and produced by Rahel Philipose, Vidhatri Rao Edited by Rajiv CN

27.10.2025

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28 min
25.05.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

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

There are plenty of reasons for India’s semiconductor companies to win. The US is seeking to dial back its reliance on China’s tech providers, shaking up global supply chains. Since one-fifth of global semiconductor-design talent is located in India, the country should be coming out on top. But that isn’t how the shakeup is unfolding. Some projects like those of Murugappa Group, Micromax, and Tata Electronics are chugging along, but there are hardly any internationally noteworthy players. Here’s one absent piece of the puzzle: there isn’t enough capital being directed into India’s semiconductor space. The government’s design-linked incentives, or DLI, are meant to kick-start the sector, but the funds simply aren’t enough to yield the results that would put India squarely on the map. There are other problems too, from US President Donald Trump’s shenanigans to the fact that Indian firms still need to put in immense effort to convince customers that their chips can be just as good as anyone else’s. It’s tough running a semiconductor company in India. Shristi Achar explains in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng. Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-world-chip-design-league-is-heating-up-india-isnt-even-on-the-points-table ( https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-world-chip-design-league-is-heating-up-india-isnt-even-on-the-points-table ) Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ ( https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ )

25.05.2025

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8 min
06.07.2025 • Doar The Ken Premium

Cut the burn, not corners—why old-school logistics is still winning quietly

India’s logistics sector is hotter than ever. There are mergers and acquisitions, market debuts, startup energy, and investor attention. In the last five years, startups in this space have attracted more than $4 billion in investor money. D2C e-commerce and quick commerce have catapulted firms such as Delhivery, Ecom Express, Blackbuck, Xpressbees, Shiprocket, and Shadowfax into the limelight. All of them promise tech-first logistics, national networks, and lightning-fast shipments. Delhivery was the first of the pack to go public in 2022. Others are following suit. Shadowfax filed confidential IPO papers with Sebi in June, and Shiprocket has also filed a confidential draft red herring prospectus. Meanwhile, Xpressbees is said to have begun its IPO preparations by appointing investment banks like JP Morgan and Barclays. The optimism is palpable, but what’s missing are signs of sustainable profitability. The Ken reporter Suprita Anupam has the story, as read by Brady Ng. Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/cut-the-burn-not-corners-why-old-school-logistics-is-still-winning-quietly/ ( https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/cut-the-burn-not-corners-why-old-school-logistics-is-still-winning-quietly/ ) Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ ( 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 ( https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 )

06.07.2025

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9 min

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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Știri de afaceri
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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Antreprenoriat
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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Tehnologie
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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Cariere
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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