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3월 22일
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1월 26일
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4일 전

A European royal family walked into India’s startup boom with a billion dollars…

Lightrock arrived in India with nearly a billion dollars and royal backing — the Liechtenstein dynasty's centuries-old fortune funding bets on around 40 growth-stage startups. The firm moved fast, doubled down on existing investments more aggressively than most peers, and scaled hard during the zero-interest-rate boom. Then the cycle turned. Its portfolio — Waycool, Pharmeasy, Dunzo — ran into trouble. New cheques dried up. Lightrock shifted from investor to caretaker, managing what it had rather than building what came next. A royal wager on Indian tech, still waiting for a payoff. 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.

4일 전

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10분
5일 전

The future of telecalling in India is automated. And complicated

You pick up an unknown number. A bubbly voice starts selling you a credit card. You hang up in seconds. Except now, that voice may not be human. AI voice agents are already live across banks, e-commerce and healthcare platforms in India, with startups in the space raising over Rs 280 crore. But behind that perfectly polite pitch is a more complex rollout — from pilots and script tuning to adapting across languages and dialects. So, what’s driving this sudden funding spree, and how are companies actually deploying these AI callers in India? 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.

5일 전

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23분
3월 26일

Rapido broke the Uber-Ola duopoly. Can it now break the Swiggy-Zomato one?

Last week, Rapido launched Ownly, its zero commission food delivery app and went straight for Swiggy and Zomato's throat. This is the same company that dismantled the Uber-Ola duopoly with just a simpler model, cheaper rides, and a very different idea of what India actually needs. Their weapon this time is zero commission. They're betting on restaurants that are fed up, customers who want cheaper food, and a rider fleet that's already in place. So we got Kunal Khattar, the investor who backed Rapido from day one and made 88x on that bet to break down whether lightning can strike twice. We also have Gautam Balijepalli, who runs one of the largest cloud kitchen operations in India and tells us what it looks like from the restaurant side. Along with our guests, Rahel Philipose and Praveen Gopal Krishnan discuss, can Rapido steal a bite from Swiggy and Zomato? Or is food delivery a completely different beast?_________ This episode of Two by Two was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mix and mastered by Rajiv CN. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends and family 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.

3월 26일

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57분
6일 전

China built AI differently than the US. Can India do the same?

"People in Silicon Valley and in China often have assumptions about each other. And their assumptions about each other are extremely self-centered." Our guest today is Afra Wang, a fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI and the writer behind Concurrent, a Substack that translates the tech culture of Silicon Valley and China from angels you wouldn’t typically expect. Afra understands both these tech ecosystems and is specific about what that self-centeredness looks like on both sides. Chinese entrepreneurs assume the American government has a heavy hand in pushing AI infrastructure, for example, the way Beijing does. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs assume China has a thriving civic discourse. This is just the tip of the iceberg of assumptions that both sides keep building on. Instead, in reality, there are specific ways in which AI development occurs in both places. Consider a leather factory in China using AI to scan cowhide in real time — it maps flaws, computes optimal cutting patterns, and eliminates waste. Silicon Valley has no equivalent because America doesn't have this sector. Afra sums it up: "You cannot map everything from Silicon Valley to China. You cannot map a lot of things from China to Silicon Valley." So, what’s similar and what’s different? What’s moving between these two competing systems? And what lessons does that have for India? Tune in. ____ This episode was produced by Vidhatri Rao and edited by Rajiv CN. ____ Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken. Write to us at Zeroshot@the-ken.com. We are all ears! ____ Additional Resources China OS vs. America OS (2026 version) https://afraw.substack.com/p/china-os-vs-america-os-2026-version Chinese Open Source: A Definitive History https://interconnected.blog/chinese-open-source-a-definitive-history/ Chinese Tech Workers Are Starting to Train Their AI Doubles–and Pushing Back https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/04/20/1136149/chinese-tech-workers-ai-colleagues/ Jack Dorsey’s Block to Cut Nearly Half Its Workforce in AI Overhaul, Shares Surge https://www.reuters.com/business/blocks-fourth-quarter-profit-rises-announces-over-4000-job-cuts-2026-02-26/ The Dark Forest Theory, Explained https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/dark-forest-theory-alien-life The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Forest US bans sale of Huawei, ZTE tech amid security fears (2022) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63764450

6일 전

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52분
4월 14일

Zero Shot Live: Who will survive Agentic AI in India?

Today is not regular programming for Zero Shot. We present to you a glimpse of our first live event, which we dramatically titled “The Great Unbundling”. It had a simple premise: agentic AI is coming. Soon. Hard. Fast. For India's consumer internet companies. Who will survive it? We posed this question to Muralikrishnan B, former President of Xiaomi India; Amod Malviya, co-founder of Udaan and former CTO of Flipkart; Anant Choubey, co-founder of Capillary; and Thomas Fenn, co-founder of Mahabelly and joint secretary of the National Restaurant Association of India. This was The Ken's fifth live event, and it was sold out. A big thank you to all of you who were there. We are doing a lot more events this year and if you want to be there next time, keep an eye on our website. Tune in. ____ This episode was produced by Vidhatri Rao and edited by Rajiv CN. ____ Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken. Write to us at Zeroshot@the-ken.com. We are all ears! ___ Recommended Reading: The Great Unbundling

4월 14일

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32분
4월 15일

Anthropic built an AI that can supposedly break into anything. Then it forgot to lock its own door

Anthropic has spent years building a reputation as the AI company that actually cares about safety. Then, in the span of two weeks, it leaked an unannounced model, exposed its own source code, and accidentally handed hackers a blueprint of its most widely-used product. The fix came in 24 hours. The blueprint can't be unlearned. And the companies that trusted Claude Code with their deepest systems are still running on publicly documented defences. If the most careful AI company couldn't prevent this, what does that mean for everyone else? 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.

4월 15일

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17분
3월 19일

The Middle East war will cost India. How much and for how long? Ft. Mohit Satyanand

Last year, when Trump's tariffs blindsided the world, we called Mohit Satyanand. He made sense of the chaos before most people had even figured out what to panic about. This time, we didn't wait. A war broke out in the Middle East, the Strait of Hormuz closed, and within days India was rationing cooking gas, cancelling flights and watching the rupee slip. Everyone has an opinion, but Mohit has something rarer. He has his skin in the game. As an investor who has spent decades watching India's economy up close, his question isn't what happened. It is what it reveals about India's deepest, oldest vulnerabilities. He explains the oil dependency we've ignored for 50 years. How we have seven days of strategic reserves nobody talks about. The remittances that hold up millions of households. And the uncomfortable truth that none of this should have caught us off guard. In this episode of Two by Two, Mohit sits down with Rahel Philipose and Praveen Gopal Krishnan to answer not what is happening, but what it means for India and for how long.--------- This episode of Two by Two was produced by Uddantika Kashyap. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends and family 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.

3월 19일

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1시간 6분
1일 전

Part 1: Kuku's Lal Chand Bisu on killing three products, ditching the free tier and charging Bharat ₹399 a year

Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. This is the conversation Bisu, who is just not the kind of founder who walks around telling you these numbers, finally agreed to do. In Part 1, we get into the company history, the pivots, the contrarian decision to cut the free tier, and what 40 million Hindi listens to Rich Dad Poor Dad really mean. Chapter list 00:00 — How old is Kuku FM, and what Bisu was doing before (Easy Prep, two and a half years at Toppr)00:02 — June birthdays, coincidence, and Bisu's definition of luck — "most things are out of control"00:04 — The three pivots: podcast aggregator → UGC → PUGC. What killed each one and what was kept constant00:09 — Why vernacular audio IP didn't exist, and why Kuku had to become a studio rather than an aggregator00:14 — January 2021: cutting the free tier and charging ₹399 a year. The investor pushback. Why no ads, ever00:23 — Rich Dad Poor Dad in Hindi: 40 million listens. What that number tells you about the listener that English-first publishers have been missing00:27 — How Kuku's content mix has shifted from entertainment to educational and inspirational00:30 — Audio first, then video. Why audio is roughly 50x cheaper to produce and 50x cheaper to stream00:33 — AI in the marketing pipeline: 500 ads/month → 5,000 ads/month, same cost00:42 — The competitor we don't name. What being the also-ran in the press for years cost — in hires, partnerships, and inside Bisu's own head00:45 — The fundraising history: ~$156M raised, the Granite Asia round, and how much of the last cheque is actually still untouched00:50 — Biggest learnings from unsuccessful fundraising. Why nos are usually the harder, better answer00:55 — Kuku TV: from launch to #1 on India's App Store in four months. Microdrama, the ReelShort wave, MS Dhoni01:01 — Cliffhanger: the Indian Institute of Zombies theatrical bet — and why an audio platform wrote, produced and AI-assisted its own film instead of licensing one. Bisu's answer to this is in Part 2.Things mentioned in Part 1 People: Vinod Kumar Meena and Vikas Goyal (co-founders, IIT Jodhpur batchmates); Hansa Bisu (Bisu's wife); MS Dhoni (Kuku FM brand ambassador); Nandan Nilekani / FundamentumCompanies & investors: Mebigo Labs, Toppr, Easy Prep, Pocket FM (the unnamed competitor), Granite Asia, Vertex Ventures, Krafton, Bitkraft, IFC, 3one4 Capital, Shunwei, India QuotientContent & references: Rich Dad Poor Dad (Hindi); Ankur Warikoo's Hindi book; ReelShort; Kuku TV To listen to all of First Principles If you'd like to listen to all 54 First Principles episodes — that's close to 110 hours of conversations with founders and leaders building India's most interesting companies — please subscribe to The Ken directly, or to our premium channel on Apple Podcasts.

1일 전

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1시간 4분
3월 12일

Healthify swallowed its disruptors. But can it digest them?

Most businesses die quietly. They miss a wave, lose relevance and fade out. Healthify nearly got hit by two in quick succession. First, AI that could do what took the company years to build. Then, a drug which meant you didn't need the discipline anymore. So Rahel Philipose and Praveen Gopal Krishnan asked Tushar Vashisht, Healthify's co-founder and CEO, the uncomfortable question directly: if anyone can build an AI coach and a drug can kill your appetite, what exactly are you selling? This episode is really about three things most people don't know. One, why people who take Ozempic without a lifestyle program gain almost all the weight back within a year. Two, what actually happens to a platform business when AI replaces one entire side of it. And three, why Tushar believes his most dangerous competitor hasn't been founded yet. We were also joined by Professor R Srinivasan from IIM Bangalore, who had a very different read on whether Healthify's bet is genius or cope.______ This episode was produced by Uddantika Kashyap and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer. If you liked this episode, share it with your friends, family and colleagues. And if you have thoughts on the discussion, write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com.

3월 12일

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1시간 3분
4월 1일

The click is dead. Long live the answer

For a decade, digital advertising ran on one idea: get to the top of Google. Buy the keywords and earn the clicks. That was the game. But AI just changed the rules. ChatGPT and Gemini now have over a billion and a half users between them, growing at nearly 200% year on year. People have stopped searching for links. Instead,nthey're asking questions and expecting answers. And those answers mention three brands, maybe four. For the rest who don't make it to these answers, it's like they don't even exist. What will those brands do? 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.

4월 1일

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11분

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.

5.0(1개의 평가)

과학 기술
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.

4.8(4개의 평가)

비즈니스
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.

4.7(12개의 평가)

기업 운영
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.

0.0(0개의 평가)

직업
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.

0.0(0개의 평가)

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