First Principles

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Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023.

But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation. 

Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s largest recruitment and human resource providers. It employs over 400,000 people, is listed on the stock exchanges, and is a great barometer of broader employment trends in India. 

But Manish is no longer involved with the day-to-day operations of the company, while still being the largest individual shareholder.

Instead, he leads a “portfolio life”, dividing his time serving on the boards of think tanks, regulatory bodies, universities, non-profits, and even private companies like Phonepe; advising companies and the government on a host of topics like labour markets, regulation, employment, education, economic policy and reforms; being a columnist; and reading books. 

Oh yeah, he says he’s read a book a week for the last - wait for this - 42 years!

Thus, when I sat down with Manish last Thursday, I went in prepared, or as prepared as I could be, with my research and questions. But 10 minutes into the conversation, I decided to drop the conversation narrative I had in mind and instead let the conversation go where it needed to.

Yes, we do cover entrepreneurship, ambition, and finding product-market fit by letting your customers guide your evolution, but we also go much further into topics that we normally don’t. For example, India’s macroeconomic and geopolitical chances, ‘regulatory cholesterol’, higher education and the jobs crisis. All peppered with pithy aphorisms, vivid analogies, and memorable quotes every few minutes, this is something I’ve remembered Manish doing since I first met him as a journalist in the early 2010s.

Welcome to First Principles.

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This episode was produced by Hari Krishna, and the mixing and mastering of the episode was done by Rajiv CN.

Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

If you liked this episode, help us spread the word by sharing and gifting this episode with your friends and family.

Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link.

Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts.

-

Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023.

But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation. 

Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s largest recruitment and human resource providers. It employs over 400,000 people, is listed on the stock exchanges, and is a great barometer of broader employment trends in India. 

But Manish is no longer involved with the day-to-day operations of the company, while still being the largest individual shareholder.

Instead, he leads a “portfolio life”, dividing his time serving on the boards of think tanks, regulatory bodies, universities, non-profits, and even private companies like Phonepe; advising companies and the government on a host of topics like labour markets, regulation, employment, education, economic policy and reforms; being a columnist; and reading books. 

Oh yeah, he says he’s read a book a week for the last - wait for this - 42 years!

Thus, when I sat down with Manish last Thursday, I went in prepared, or as prepared as I could be, with my research and questions. But 10 minutes into the conversation, I decided to drop the conversation narrative I had in mind and instead let the conversation go where it needed to.

Yes, we do cover entrepreneurship, ambition, and finding product-market fit by letting your customers guide your evolution, but we also go much further into topics that we normally don’t. For example, India’s macroeconomic and geopolitical chances, ‘regulatory cholesterol’, higher education and the jobs crisis. All peppered with pithy aphorisms, vivid analogies, and memorable quotes every few minutes, this is something I’ve remembered Manish doing since I first met him as a journalist in the early 2010s.

Welcome to First Principles.

-

This episode was produced by Hari Krishna, and the mixing and mastering of the episode was done by Rajiv CN.

Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

If you liked this episode, help us spread the word by sharing and gifting this episode with your friends and family.

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally.

Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now.

It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover.

By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it.

This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort. 

I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me.

Because he felt completely at ease diving into answers, explanations and reflections without much hesitation. It wasn’t impulsiveness, but an ease with his own thoughts and actions, which did not require polishing or editing before being shared.

It was something that kept coming up time and again in my conversation with him. From joining consulting firm Bain right around the time they had set up shop in India to signing up for a triathlon without much regard for what the challenge holds, to moving Delhivery to, well, Goa.

But at Delhivery, as it has become a giant in the e-commerce and logistics business, he tells one thing to his employees—do not move fast and break things.

Delhivery might not be a sexy business from the outset, but the systems they have built and continue to build, as Sahil explains, position it as a company that is always innovating and iterating in a business which has largely remained the same for decades. And as Sahil repeated in different ways, the biggest effort they have taken is building the most effective network out there.

Sahil tracks Delhivery's journey, how he and his co-founders built a logistics network in the image of a telecom network, and how he has grown to be a better, calmer founder over the years.

I talked to Sahil Barua, co-founder and CEO of Delhivery, about that and a lot more during the course of our conversation.

This is part 2 of my conversation with Sahil Barua.

Welcome to First Principles.

-

If you’re a Premium subscriber to The Ken, you can listen to the full episode, along with all our other podcasts, exclusively on our apps now. Not a premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts, which unlocks access to all our premium audio offerings at a great monthly recurring price.

-

This episode was produced by Hari Krishna, and the mixing and mastering of the episode was done by Rajiv CN.

Write to us [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

If you liked this episode, help us spread the word by sharing and gifting this episode with your friends and family.

Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally.

Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now.

It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover.

By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it.

This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort. 

I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me.

Because he felt completely at ease diving into answers, explanations and reflections without much hesitation. It wasn’t impulsiveness, but an ease with his own thoughts and actions, which did not require polishing or editing before being shared.

It was something that kept coming up time and again in my conversation with him. From joining consulting firm Bain right around the time they had set up shop in India to signing up for a triathlon without much regard for what the challenge holds, to moving Delhivery to, well, Goa.

But at Delhivery, as it has become a giant in the e-commerce and logistics business, he tells one thing to his employees—do not move fast and break things.

Delhivery might not be a sexy business from the outset, but the systems they have built and continue to build, as Sahil explains, position it as a company that is always innovating and iterating in a business which has largely remained the same for decades. And as Sahil repeated in different ways, the biggest effort they have taken is building the most effective network out there.

Sahil tracks Delhivery's journey, how he and his co-founders built a logistics network in the image of a telecom network, and how he has grown to be a better, calmer founder over the years.

I talked to Sahil Barua, co-founder and CEO of Delhivery, about that and a lot more during the course of our conversation.

Welcome to First Principles.

-

If you’re a Premium subscriber to The Ken, you can listen to the full episode, along with all our other podcasts, exclusively on our apps now. Not a premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts, which unlocks access to all our premium audio offerings at a great monthly recurring price.

-

This episode was produced by Hari Krishna, and the mixing and mastering of the episode was done by Rajiv CN.

Write to us [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

If you liked this episode, help us spread the word by sharing and gifting this episode with your friends and family.

Welcome to First Principles. This is the second part of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, which we had released in full for Premium subscribers of The Ken last week and is also available to subscribers of The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts.

Vidit and I discussed a lot of things. From the way his upbringing grounded him, the way he approaches hiring at Meesho and how he approaches life now as a parent. It’s a wonderful 40 minutes where I spent some time talking to Vdit about how he continues to look beyond the horizon to find answers to the more ambiguous questions Meesho faces now.

And at the end of it, he has a wonderful book recommendation for everyone. I picked up a copy myself after our conversation.

I hope you had the chance to listen to the first part of our conversation, where he covered Meesho’s history of growth and pivots and how it has aligned with the changes and demands of its customers.

Here’s the link to part 1 of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey - Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube

Now, let’s get on to part 2 of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey.

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If you're a premium subscriber of The Ken. You can listen to the full conversation with Vidit Aatrey right now using this link.

The full conversation was made available early to Premium subscribers of The Ken on our app and subscribers of The Ken Premium channel via a separate standalone subscription on Apple Podcasts.

Write to us at [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conversation with him for over two hours. That’s enough time for both of us to pick and read cues from each other.

Think about it. Can you spend two hours in a room having a truly open-ended, candid and widespread discussion with another person about their life, their business, their colleagues, their company and its culture, and even their family, without getting to really know them?

I’d been wanting to have Vidit as a guest on First Principles for a while, even during our first two seasons. But as it turns out, things clicked only in 2025. I’m glad though, because I do feel Vidit’s and Meesho’s journey are a wonderful opening to Season 3 of First Principles.

There’s a lot of good stuff we talked about. Why Vidit is so eager for Meesho to build for a long-term view, why he values problems way more than solutions, the humility and willingness to be led to new places by customer insights, the much talked about zero commission model, and building products for users who aren’t the top 5% of India.

Let’s get started with the conversation, shall we?

Welcome to season three of First Principles.

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If you're a premium subscriber of The Ken. You can listen to the full conversation with Vidit Aatrey right now using this link.

Write to us [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

The Ken is hosting its first live subscriber event! Join two long-term and contrarian CEOs, Nithin Kamath of Zerodha and Deepak Shenoy of Capitalmind, as they discuss the mental models, decision making frameworks, and potential outcomes related to a very real possibility: an extended stock market winter that lasts 24 months or more.

Buy your tickets for the event here - https://the-ken.com/event/beyond-the-first-order/#tickets-cta-container

From over here at The Ken's newsroom, we have a very exciting announcement: our first premium podcast – India's first premium business podcast – is now live!

It's called Two by Two – and this podcast will be your personal investigative brain. Each week Two by Two will be where hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will be joined by a few interesting and opinionated guests to discuss some of the biggest questions from the world of Indian business.

But, why's it called Two by Two?

Here it is: each episode of the Two by Two podcast will feature an important story investigated and discussed and visualized as a 2x2. A simple matrix that's the purest form of conflict – that places the players and their motivations on both axes. Along with incredible guests, the hosts will discuss what is going on, why is it happening, who gains and who loses, and where is all of this leading to?

Two by Two is a premium podcast – but for now, the first episode is free for all listeners. On this episode, the hosts speak to Professor R Srinivasan and Srikanth Rajagopalan on the brewing rivalry between Flipkart and PhonePe, once parent and child, but now more like cousins. Flipkart, which is now venturing into FinTech with Super.money and Phonepe, which has launched the grocery delivery app Pincode are both stepping into each others turf.

What happens next?

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

Hello, we're back again with part 2 of our final, final supercut where we’ve spliced together one interesting bit of conversation from the last 21 guests I interviewed on First Principles. 

And like the last episode where we covered founders 1 to 20, you’ll hear super sharp slices of a few minutes each which are reflections on their approach to organization building, risk taking, decision making and life living.

Here are the guests you’ll get listen to in this episode:

Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Chargebee; Varun Dua, founder of Acko; Yashish Dahiya, co-founder and Group CEO of Policybazaar; Archit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Clear; M N Srinivasu, co-founder and Director of Billdesk; Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management; Lalit Keshre, co-founder and CEO of Groww; Niraj Singh, founder and CEO of Spinny; Karthik Jayaraman, Managing Director of Waycool; Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Oyo; Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors; Viren Shetty, Executive Vice Chairman of Narayana Health; Aneesh Reddy, Founder and MD of Capillary Technologies; Vaibhav Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Udaan; Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and Executive Chairman of Freshworks; Harsh Mariwala, Chairman of Marico; Chetan Maini, co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility; Jaydeep Barman, co-founder and CEO of Rebel Foods; Alok Mittal, co-founder and MD of Indifi Technologies; Kapil Chopra, Founder of The Postcard Hotels; and Manav Garg, founder of Eka.

This is not the end of the road for me as a podcast host as you’ll soon find out. Actually, very soon. 

I'm Rohin Dharmakumar, your host. And here's part 2 of the final, final supercut.

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Also, if you haven't already, do subscribe to the First Principles newsletter. You can sign up for free here!

I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t the First Principles podcast draw its curtains? Yes we did.

But then we decided to do a final super-splice of every single episode we did. There were 41 founders. A bit too many for a single supercut episode, don’t you think?

So, here’s the first 20.

We went through all the episodes and picked a few minutes from each that we felt captured the essence of the specific founder and their approach to entrepreneurship, leadership, and well, life.

You’ll listen to Kabeer Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Dunzo; Baskar Subramamian, co-founder and CEO of Amagi; Nithin Kamath, co-founder and CEO of Zerodha; Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO at InMobi; Ananth Narayanan, founder and CEO of Mensa Brands; Harshil Mathur, co-founder and CEO of Razorpay; Vineeta Singh, co-founder and CEO of Sugar Cosmetics; Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs; Amit Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of NoBroker; Tarun Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Ather Energy; Deep Kalra, founder and chairman of MakeMyTrip; Ruchi Kalra, co-founder and CEO of Oxyzo; Kamal Sagar, co-founder and CEO of Total Environment; Srikanth Iyer, co-founder and CEO of Homelane; Shan Kadavil, founder and CEO of Fresh to Home; Kunal Shah, founder and CEO of CRED; Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and CEO of Fractal; Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairperson of UpGrad; Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy; and Smita Deorah, co-founder and co-CEO of LEAD.

Even if you’ve listened to many of these episodes, I think you might enjoy this intense supercut.

Meanwhile, we’re working hard at our next podcast. Which I should be able to introduce to you very shortly. I’m excited!

I’m Rohin Dharmakumar, your host. And here’s part 1 of final, final supercut.

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