The Corridor

AI has made it easier than ever to apply for jobs - and harder than ever for companies to find the right people.

In this episode of The Corridor, Shikhar, founder of Binary and an early product leader at Meesho, joins me to unpack how AI is reshaping hiring, from automated applications and resume screening to the future of recruiting software.

We get into why traditional ATS are becoming outdated, how founders can spot genuine talent in a sea of AI-generated applications, and why the best companies compete on more than compensation.

In this episode:

• The AI hiring arms race: candidates versus recruiters

• Why keyword-optimized resumes are losing their value

• What Meesho got right about hiring entrepreneurial talent

• Why candidate experience is a competitive advantage

• The future of AI-native recruiting software

• Luck, privilege, and what it really takes to build a startup

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Yukta to learn something I know embarrassingly little about: policy.

We start from first principles: what policy actually is, why governments regulate technology, and why AI is particularly difficult to govern. We then compare how the US, EU, China, and India are approaching AI, and what those differences reveal about innovation, individual rights, sovereignty, and control.

We also get into the harder questions: Who is responsible when an autonomous system causes harm? Should powerful AI models remain open source? Does the world need an IAEA-like institution for AI? And is India doing enough to remain relevant in the AI race?

Finally, we discuss the physical side of AI: energy, grids, water, and who ultimately pays for the infrastructure behind intelligence.

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Nischith and Vinod, former founding engineers at Sarvam AI and now co-founders of Alma, to ask: what happens when software becomes abundant? What if you stopped learning how to use software, and software started learning how you work?

We talk about why they left Sarvam at its peak, their vision for Alma as an AI-native computer, the technical challenges of building agents that can reliably work across your apps, and why they believe the next moat is the relationship between humans and AI

We also dive into sovereign AI in India, why India isn’t building enough AI-first companies, and why they’re determined to build a global consumer product from India

What comes after today’s AI?

I sat down with Deep Karkhanis, a researcher at Google DeepMind, to debate where intelligence goes next - from memory and reasoning to world models, AI for science, recursive self-improvement (RSI), and brain-computer interfaces (BCI).

Deep takes us from his journey at IIT Bombay and CMU to training early LLMs at Abacus and now building the next models at DeepMind.

Charmie Kapoor has spent a decade inside design - Microsoft, Dunzo, Unacademy, Razorpay, a design + business degree from Harvard and IIT - watching the field go from an afterthought to the thing everyone suddenly wants a seat at the table for.

In this episode, we talk about what changes when AI can prototype, code, and generate taste almost as fast as you can think - and what doesn't. Why the designers who thrive aren't the ones with the best degrees but the ones who tinker, ship, and stay easy to work with. Why craft and taste might be the last real moat. And whether we're still designing for people, or starting to design for agents.

A conversation about staying good at something the tools keep changing under you.

Some links we discussed about in the podcast:

1. Should I do a Masters in Design - https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=x63rO6Q-0mByvhQp&v=JU06Zy9gsW0&feature=youtu.be

2. Design notes from the Bay Area - https://x.com/charmiekapoor/status/1984594801606439205?s=46&t=Cdtto6COyJpj93J_X1gE6A

3. Charmie's personal website - www.charmiekapoor.com

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Ashvin Nagarajan (Ash), co-founder of TableIQ and my partner in leading the AI Club at HBS, to kick off a new series: The Future of Roles.

Ash shares his journey from building early Microsoft Copilot features to scaling autonomous vehicle infrastructure at Applied Intuition and now building AI agents for physical commerce with TableIQ.

We also explore a question many ambitious people wonder about: Is an MBA still worth it if you want to build a startup in the age of AI? Ash reflects on his decision to attend HBS and what business school helped him learn.

India built a global reputation through process excellence - from IT services to pharmaceuticals. But can it become an innovation-first economy in the age of AI?

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Manav Garg, Founder of Eka Software and Co-Founder of Together Fund, to discuss why he believes India’s next chapter will be defined by product builders, not labor arbitrage.

India’s AI ecosystem is entering a defining decade. In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Pratik Agarwal, Partner at Accel, to discuss why he believes India’s biggest technology and VC opportunity is still ahead of us.

Pratik reflects on his journey from IIT Delhi and Harvard Business School to Airbnb’s early growth years and over a decade investing in startups across India. We explore India building for the world, an agent-led consumer world, and the kinds of companies that could define the next decade.

We also discuss whether AI will fragment markets or create larger technology monopolies, where India can capture value in the AI stack, the missing middle in startup capital, and the rise of polymaths.

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Adit Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Leena AI, to unpack one of the biggest questions facing India’s economy: will AI disrupt the IT services industry that helped power the country’s rise?

Adit traces his journey from IIT Delhi to YC and building Leena AI into a fast-growing agentic IT enterprise. We talk about why India’s traditional IT arbitrage model is under pressure, how AI agents are changing the economics of back-office work, and what this means for IT services firms, GCCs, and millions of knowledge workers.

We also explore the deeper questions beneath the disruption: Why doesn’t India retain more top engineering talent in research? What role should government play? What happens to workers whose jobs are automated? And if the old model is breaking, what could replace it?

In this episode of The Corridor, I sit down with Deedy Das, Partner at Menlo Ventures, to unpack what it really takes to build global AI companies across India and the US.

We cover his journey from Google and Glean to venture, and his candid views on where founders should build, what India gets right (and wrong), and why talent, ambition, and culture matter more than capital.

We also get into his hot takes on Sarvam, the future of work, and rising inequality.