Subtext by Zerodha

Zerodha

Finance is full of noise. Everyone reacts to what just happened. We’re more interested in why it’s happening—and what lies beneath. Subtext is a series of conversations with people who have spent years thinking deeply about finance. Not necessarily the loudest voices, but those with real depth: traders who understand market structure, fund managers who have lived through multiple cycles, economists tracking India’s macro story, regulators shaping capital markets, founders building financial infrastructure, and VCs backing these companies.

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  1. 3일 전

    Ameya P on how Indian IT can flip the AI script

    AI agents are reshaping the global IT industry and no one feels it more than Indian IT. In this conversation, Pranav Manie sits down with Ameya Pimpalgaonkar, a 20-year veteran of the IT industry (IBM, Accenture, Infosys) turned investor, to break down what's actually happening beneath the surface. We covered Why the shift from headcount-based to outcome-based pricing is real but slower than the hype suggests How Indian IT's pyramid org structure creates deep inertia in the age of AI agents The emerging opportunity in data labelling, annotation, and domain-specific LLM fine-tuning What deals like Infosys-Anthropic actually signal (and what they don't) Why domain specialisation, not scale, will define the next wave of Indian IT Digital sovereignty, AI governance, and why trust is the new moat in enterprise sales A nuanced, grounded take on one of the most debated topics in tech and investing today.   Checkout Ameya P's handle here: https://x.com/Finstor85   Timestamps - 0:00 Introduction & thesis: AI agents threatening Indian IT's business model 0:38 Guest intro: Ameya Pimpalgaonkar (IBM, Accenture, Infosys, CTO/co-founder) 1:18 What moat do India's Big 4 IT firms have in AI-driven revenue lines? 1:49 Headcount-to-outcome pricing: the shift is real but subtle 6:09 Why the Transition Will Be Slow 9:02 New Revenue Lines: AI Infrastructure (TCS Approach) 9:37 New Revenue Lines: LLM Era & The SLI Parallel 12:58 Data Labelling & Reinforcement Learning as Revenue 19:23 Pyramid vs Diamond Org Structure 22:16 Org Structure Inertia & AI Adoption Challenges 24:21 Do Infosys–Anthropic / HCL–OpenAI Deals Matter? 30:00 How AI Changes Client Relationships & GTM 30:16 Reality of Enterprise Sales & Demo Culture 35:21 Where AI Speeds Up GTM (Proposals, Legal) 39:05 AI & Digital Sovereignty (Question) 39:28 Where AI & Sovereignty Gel vs Collide 42:01 India's Tech Optimism & Startup Ecosystem 43:24 Old Money → New Money: India's Capital Transition 46:50 Domain Specialisation as a Moat 47:24 Why Domain Data Is India's Biggest AI Advantage 49:39 Outro

    50분
  2. What Phillip Capital learned running a fund in GIFT City?

    4월 15일

    What Phillip Capital learned running a fund in GIFT City?

    Nishit and Ankush from Phillip Capital have spent years working with NRI and global investors navigating India's financial ecosystem — and they are two of the clearest voices explaining why Gift City is changing everything. Gift City sits in a 34-kilometre stretch between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar — technically in India, but operating as an offshore jurisdiction. NRI onboarding, which used to take 30 to 45 days, now happens in two. Funds that would cost a fortune to set up in Singapore or Mauritius are being built here at a fraction of the price. And yet, most retail investors still think it's just a tax haven — which it isn't. We sat down with Nishit and Ankush to explain what Gift City actually is and why it matters now. We spoke about why India needed its own offshore financial hub in the first place, how Gift City compares to Mauritius and Singapore as a gateway for global capital, what the onboarding nightmare for NRIs looked like before and why it's now largely gone, how the unified regulator IFSCA differs from SEBI and RBI and why that matters, what feeder funds are and how they give even smaller investors access to global equities, why the tax-free label is a myth and what the actual tax picture looks like, and what to actually watch if you want to track how Gift City grows from here — hint: it's not the headline NRI inflow number.   Phillip Capital - https://m.phillipcapital.in/ Nishit Shah - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishit-shah-a0591315/ Ankush Datar - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankush-datar-b00233126/   Timestamps - 0:00 – Introduction & What is Gift City? 1:02 – About Phillip Capital & Speakers 2:31 – Why Does Gift City Exist? (Origin & Problem It Solves) 4:10 – Gift City vs. Mauritius/Singapore Offshore Jurisdictions 5:57 – Why India Needed an Offshore Financial Hub 8:37 – Hassle of Investing Directly in India (FPIs, NRIs) 10:42 – How Gift City Simplifies NRI Onboarding 12:09 – Gift City's Regulator (IFSCA) vs. SEBI/RBI 15:01 – Cost Advantages of Gift City 16:05 – Summary: India Taking Control of the Capital Gateway 18:47 – Money Going Out: Global Investing Options Before Gift City 21:54 – Feeder Funds via Gift City for Global Exposure 23:37 – How Feeder Funds Differ from Indian MF/FOF Structures 25:00 – Operations: Fund Manager Perspective in Gift City 27:23 – Money Coming In: Key Players in Gift City 30:01 – Tax Structure: The Truth About Gift City & Taxes 32:17 – NRI Direct India Investment vs. Gift City Fund Route (Tax Example) 34:05 – Dollar Reporting Advantage for NRI Investors 35:55 – Should a Retail Investor Care About Gift City? 37:08 – 3 Reasons to Invest Globally via Gift City 39:07 – Common Misconceptions About Gift City 42:09 – Why Gift City is Safer Than Mauritius/Dubai Routes 45:17 – Tax Havens Explained & How They Compare to Gift City 47:37 – Closing Remarks

    38분
  3. 4월 7일

    Understanding China, with Manoj Kewalramani

    Most commentary on China operates at a surface level. Xi Jinping is authoritarian, the economy is state-directed, and the Communist Party controls everything. That's all true, but it doesn't actually help you understand why specific things happen the way they do. Manoj Kewalramani is one of the few Indian analysts who can go deeper than that. He's a China Studies research fellow at the Takshashila Institution, speaks Mandarin, and spent years living in China. In this conversation, we try to understand the country as it actually is, not as the headlines describe it. We get into some genuinely interesting territory. On zero-COVID, Manoj explains why the policy became so brutal, not because Xi Jinping was being irrational, but because local officials were responding entirely rationally to a set of incentives from the centre. On China's economy, he makes the case that the overcapacity everyone criticises isn't a flaw in the system. It's how the system is designed to work. On India's favourite lesson from China, that the state should guide industry, he argues that Indian policymakers have actually got it backwards. We also talk about the recent military purges, why success itself can make you a target in a system built around one person's power, and whether China is genuinely becoming more communist under Xi or whether that's just a label people throw around. The honest answer to that last question, Manoj argues, is yes. China today is more Leninist than it was fifteen years ago. But it's also more adaptable than most people give it credit for. More about Manoj: https://school.takshashila.org.in/faculty/manoj-kewalramani https://www.linkedin.com/in/manojkewalramani/

    1시간 9분

소개

Finance is full of noise. Everyone reacts to what just happened. We’re more interested in why it’s happening—and what lies beneath. Subtext is a series of conversations with people who have spent years thinking deeply about finance. Not necessarily the loudest voices, but those with real depth: traders who understand market structure, fund managers who have lived through multiple cycles, economists tracking India’s macro story, regulators shaping capital markets, founders building financial infrastructure, and VCs backing these companies.

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