This episode of Two by Two was first published on 22 May 2025.

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.

-

Reliance Retail is a behemoth that sells everything—from the recently revived Campa Cola to luxury jackets. And the more than 19,300 stores across its verticals makes it the largest retailer in the country. But Reliance Retail seems to have run the race a bit too fast, and is now plagued by its very efforts to dominate every market it enters. 

In episode 43 of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan discuss how Reliance Retail’s size may be turning out to be its biggest challenge with deputy editor Seetharaman G, who leads The Ken’s coverage on retail.

–

Additional reading:

Why Reliance Retail will be stock-market pundit’s most perplexing company? – https://the-ken.com/story/no-ipo-talk-at-agm-yet-reliance-retail-will-be-stock-pundits-biggest-puzzle/

Reliance Retail comes back to earth – https://the-ken.com/tradetricks/reliance-retail-comes-back-to-earth/

The curious entry of Jio Financial Services into the Nifty 50 – https://the-ken.com/long_and_short/the-curious-entry-of-jio-financial-services-into-the-nifty-50/

Additional listening:

Dmart versus the challengers at the gate – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/dmart-versus-the-challengers-at-the-gate/

–

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 of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 15 May 2025.

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.

-

The original big AI bus that came was Large Language Model, or LLMs, the foundational model bus. India missed it.

Then the conversation became let others develop the foundational models, we’ll just do a better job of building applications on top of it. We’ll become the use case capital of the world. There are some startups from India in the space, but none of them are in the same league as their global counterparts.

So in some ways, we’ve missed that bus, too.

Today, the focus has shifted to the need to have compute, the need to set up large data centres, and the need to have our own sovereign data sets.

The government of India is now providing subsidies to startups and large companies.

It’s taking equity. For example, Sarvam AI got a 220 crore grant from the government.

But can we build massive and really expensive data centres at a scale like the United States and China?

What does the future look like for India from an AI point of view?

Host Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan discuss how India has missed many technological waves, including the latest one—AI. Joining them for the episode are Srinath Mallikarjunan, CEO and chief scientist at Unmanned Dynamics, and Nitin Pai, co-founder and director of Takshashila Institution.

Welcome to episode 42 of Two by Two.

–

Additional reading:

What China’s cheap AI model tells us about India’s future – https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/what-chinas-cheap-ai-model-tells-us-about-indias-future/

India’s AI mission needs many heroes. But it’s settled for one—Sarvam – https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-ai-mission-needs-many-heroes-its-settled-for-one-sarvam/

Inside the legal drama that may exile Ultrahuman from the US – https://the-ken.com/story/a-private-investigator-a-fabricated-logo-and-ouras-death-blow-to-ultrahuman/

Is AI enhancing education or replacing it? – https://www.chronicle.com/article/is-ai-enhancing-education-or-replacing-it

Additional listening:

Are Trump’s tariffs a crisis or an opportunity for India?  – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/no-easy-moves-is-india-facing-a-crisis-or-an-opportunity/

Ultrahuman and Kukufm have broken out – ​​https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/ultrahuman-and-kuku-fm-have-broken-out/

Sam Altman’s initial comments on India building foundational models – https://youtube.com/shorts/xHVsk7d1L-0?feature=shared

–

If you are an existing Premium subscriber, you already 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. 

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.

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 08 May 2025.

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.

-

The coffee culture in India has come far today. But has it reached the point where daily commuters grab their cup of joe from their favourite cafe on their way to work? Or do they get it delivered in minutes? Or is the cafe only a destination for meetings?

The cafe ideally serves all three use cases. But the bigger reason has more to do with what we as Indians associate with cafes when we walk into a cafe. Some answer lies in the split between food and beverages in India. Food is as big a component as coffee and coffee beverages in a cafe in India. While globally, most numbers suggest the split for food is ~10%.

But there are more fundamental reasons why the cafe business is hard to crack at scale. From volume of transactions happening to catching up on the ‘grab and go’ coffee culture.

But even with all the troubles, more players seem keen to enter the market. Why?

Hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan have a fun and insightful conversation about India’s coffee culture and its coffee drinkers’ tastes in the latest episode of Two by Two. And joining them for the discussion are Abhijeet Anand, founder and CEO, Abcoffee, and Deepak Shahdadpuri, managing director and founder of DSG Consumer Partners.

Welcome to episode 41 of Two by Two.

–

Additional listening:

Google Pay: Big. Successful. Vulnerable – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/google-pay-big-successful-vulnerable/

Airtel fights spammers. And Truecaller’s business model – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/airtel-fights-spammers-and-truecallers-business-model/

Ather Energy was a pioneer. Can it also be a leader? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/ather-energy-was-a-pioneer-can-it-also-be-a-leader/

Additional reading:

Angel One got what it wished for. That’s the problem. – https://the-ken.com/story/angel-one-got-what-it-wished-for-thats-the-problem/

–

If you are an existing Premium subscriber, you already 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. 

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.

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 01 May 2025.

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.

-

That’s the question hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar discuss with Vikas Bardia, co-founder and CEO of Shoffr, and Arpit Agarwal, investment partner at Blume Ventures.

Blusmart used to represent success, scale, and customer love—a reputation secured as an insurgent against incumbents like Uber and Ola. At its height, Blusmart had around 8,000 cabs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru—hardly a small number. But now, things are tumbling down.

In episode 40 of Two by Two, they discuss the reasons why most of the online ride-hailing space looks the way it does because of VC money, why debt financing is preferred by players who own their own fleet, the different models at play presently and a whole lot more.

But the most important question we try to answer is what happens next, and who—if anyone—can become the next Blusmart? Or fill the space they have left?

Welcome to episode 40 of Two by Two.

–

If you are an existing Premium subscriber, you already 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. 

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.

–

Additional reading:

Blusmart and the dogs that didn’t bark – https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/blusmart-and-the-dogs-that-didnt-bark/

Blusmart’s relationship with co-founder’s listed company could prove costly – https://the-ken.com/story/blusmarts-relationship-with-co-founders-listed-company-could-prove-costly/

Additional listening:

How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 24th April 2025.

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.

-

Stage is an interesting, counter-intuitive, and extraordinary company.

It’s a company you’ve probably heard little about and know almost nothing about.

Vinay Sighal, co-founder and CEO of Stage, describes it as a Netflix for Indian cultures. It is a company that’s on the verge of something big. Stage is an OTT company that, in Singhal’s words, offers premium, sensible content in three cultures. Yes, cultures, not languages—Haryanvi, Bhojpuri, and Rajasthani.

At a time when OTT platforms and consumer content companies are figuring out how to make their business work, Stage is an outlier.

It has 4.2 million subscribers and nearly 150 crores in revenue. Stage has also figured out a way to do this sustainably by reducing its burn by nearly 70% from last year to this year.

In today’s episode, Vinay tells the story of how Stage was created, how he built a company and lost it overnight, and how he then re-emerged from it by doing the exact opposite of all the things that brought him success earlier.

He switched from advertising to subscriptions, from going for international markets to local markets and from depending on platforms like Facebook to direct distribution.

To do this, he did not just have to build a company; he had to build entire movie industries. Stage is a story you must listen to if you want to understand how entrepreneurs and founders are building companies for Bharat in ways most of us cannot understand or even imagine.

In this episode of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan are in discussion with Vinay Singhal, CEO and co-founder of Stage.

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 17th April 2025.

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.

-

Today’s episode is about something you wouldn’t have heard of – search funds. Initially, we thought this would be something arcane and boring, but the more we read about it, the more it started to sound like an arrangement that sounds too good to be true.

Search funds invert and twist all our conventional ideas of how people start, build, scale and fund businesses in India. It’s an old model that has been somewhat popular in more developed markets and is just starting to get some traction in India. For the tens of thousands of small and medium businesses in India that have achieved a level of success and want to go to the next level, the answer may just be…search funds. 

This episode is about a model that’s full of contradictions. It’s about entrepreneurs who aren’t founders. It’s about VCs who spend the first few years raising money and then spend the next few years actually running the business they raise money for. It’s also about operators who decide first that they want to become CEOs and then search for the companies they are going to lead.

And plot twist…all of these are the same person.

And in today’s episode, we have two wonderful guests who are here to tell us how they’re doing this.

Anurag Sinha is the Managing Partner at Milestone Search Capital, one of the pioneers of the Search Fund model, and his bio says, “Looking to buy a great business”.

Anurag’s journey as a business leader began with entrepreneurship at the age of 17, where he spent his formative years building ventures across Healthcare, Consumer Tech, and Retail.

In his latest role, Anurag was the CEO of Raam Group, an automotive retail conglomerate in India. Anurag oversaw businesses generating a topline of $100 million and managing a workforce of over 800 people. With over 12 years of experience spanning entrepreneurship, rapid-scale startups, and leadership roles in traditional business models, Anurag is now embarking on a new chapter: acquiring and scaling a promising business.

Anurag holds an MBA from INSEAD, where he studied across both the France and Singapore campuses. Prior to that, he earned a B.Com (Hons) from Delhi University.

Rehan Netarwala is the founder and managing partner at Okintek Capital, where he’s looking for an SME business to grow and scale. His bio says, “Looking for a great SME business to acquire and grow”.

Prior to starting Okintek Capital, Rehan was the co-founder of Savage and Palmer, where he helped SME entrepreneurs run and scale their businesses with our wide range of solutions right from Digital Marketing to Accounting & Taxation. 

Rehan is a graduate of the Indian School of Business and has a B.E. from Mumbai University.

In this week’s episode of Two by Two, co-hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sit down with Anurag Sinha and Rehan Netarwala to break down why and how search funds do what they do.

Welcome to episode 38 of Two by Two.

–

Get you tickets here – https://the-ken.com/event/building-unique-career-lattices/

–

First Principles is back with a new season.

Listen to the first episode with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/first-principles/vidit-aatrey-on-building-a-problem-first-mindset-into-meeshos-culture/

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

This episode of Two by Two was first published on 10th April 2025.

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.

You can also subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. 

-

US President Donald Trump’s mission to make America great again has seen him do things that most politicians, with their tall claims and promises, confidently assure but compromise on once in power. Trump, in his second term, has gone all in with his convictions.

The latest announcement from the US President is that he’s pausing the tariff increase he had imposed on most of America’s trading partners who did not retaliate in response with their own tariff increase for the next 90 days. Most trading partners, apart from China, on whom Trump has imposed a tariff increase of another 21%, now.

This pause might mean momentary relief, but it doesn’t change the bigger picture much for India, whose position to negotiate isn’t as advantageous as that of some of the other US trading partners.

In a slightly different episode of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan discuss what the picture now looks like for India and the world with Mohit Satyanand, entrepreneur, investor, and economy-watcher. 

Tune in for a discussion on what’s been going on underneath all the noise and alarm over the past week.

–

Additional reading:

Get your hands bloody – https://substack.com/home/post/p-160712298 (Latest edition of Mohit’s newsletter)

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

You’ve surely heard of the term of the term enshittification? In case you haven’t, it was coined by blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow. He defined it as the pattern in which online products and services decline in quality over time.

This decline or decay has started to show in Indian Consumer tech products as well, resulting in an experience for customers that is much worse than what was promised. From seemingly unharmful dark patterns to unnecessary cross-selling, the spectrum lies wide sour digital experiences for a customer today.

And why they’re doing this is quite simple.

These products first got your trust and managed to delight you by delivering on their promise. Then, they made that promise available for a price. Fair enough, if it’s good, then surely the promise has a price you should be willing to pay. Now, we seem to have arrived at a point where they’re asking more to deliver that same promise. They want to extract more money from a customer’s wallet. What forces them to do so becomes the next question.

This enshittening and many more ways in which many of the platforms we use have aged badly was the core of the discussion in this week’s episode of Two by Two. Joining hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan are Aditya Suresh, head of India equity research at Macquarie, and Abhishek Madan, ex-VP of Product at Paytm*

Aditya brought the market’s perspective to the discussion with his sharp insights, how the experience could be different based on whether a company is public or private, and what gets talked about in both contexts. Abhishek, in his third time on the podcast, added the flavour by explaining why and how the platform decay came about.

Welcome to episode 36 of Two by Two.

–

Help us find interesting women guests by filling out this survey – https://theken.typeform.com/to/KH0EOLGo

–

Listen to the episode trailer available on all podcast streaming platorms:  Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube

–

Additional reading:

Enshittification is coming for absolutely everything – https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5

Phonepe spent millions to rival Policybazaar. Its users couldn’t care less – https://the-ken.com/story/phonepe-spent-millions-to-rival-policybazaar-its-users-couldnt-care-less/

Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory – https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/swiggy-needs-to-reclaim-its-past-glory/

How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? – https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

First, Cult.fit’s group classes got everyone’s attention. Now “Cult injuries” do – https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

Additional listening:

Should you invest the first two years of your career in strategy consulting? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/should-you-invest-the-first-two-years-of-your-career-doing-strategy-consulting/

How will Ola and Uber avoid ‘death by a thousand cuts’? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/how-will-ola-and-uber-avoid-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

Swiggy needs to reclaim its past glory – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/swiggy-needs-to-reclaim-its-past-glory/

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more examples of enshittification, do tell us about them. You can write to us at [email protected].

“The future of consultants is intricately linked to the future of consulting”

That’s what one of the guests had to say about the future of consultants and the promise of consulting careers.

Being a consultant at any of the big three consulting firms—McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group(BCG)—meant one thing: The opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects with big, innovative companies. It allowed the people who worked at these companies to have career opportunities, which would allow them to be prepared for even more challenging and rewarding roles in the world of startups.

The accelerated learning, prestige, community and great pay packages that these companies offered ensured the best talent lined up to work for them.

The first two years of a career in consulting are gruelling, demanding and difficult and often involve “low-value work”, like making presentations, data analysis and sending requests for proposals to really annoying clients.

However, people still rush and fight to do it with the expectation that the payoffs compound later. It gives them a broader view of how companies work and operate.

It acts as a training ground for building startups and laterally jumping into senior executive roles at fast-growing companies or even going higher up the consulting ladder.

Today, that trade-off equation looks a bit distorted for students because it’s never been easier to start a company.

It’s also been very easy to find post-MBA roles in companies that are more strategic in nature, and ESOPs look much more real and valuable because companies are going public.

So the question becomes: Will students continue to chase consulting firms as a lucrative and promising career option? And does a career in consulting hold the same promises as it used to?

Joining hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar for the episode are Rahul Chaudhary, co-founder of Treebo, ex-McKinsey & Company and Pragya Batra, co-founder of Quirksmith, ex-Bain & Company.

Welcome to episode 35 of Two by Two.

–

Help us find interesting women guests by filling out this survey – https://theken.typeform.com/to/KH0EOLGo

–

Additional listening:

If B-schools were invented today, would students run placements? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/if-b-schools-were-invented-today-would-students-run-placements/

AI comes to annihilate India’s SaaS companies – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/ai-comes-to-annihilate-indias-saas-companies/

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].

You could, in many ways, picture India’s tech businesses venturing into the global stage in waves. First, there were the services companies. Your Wipros and Infosys and the like. Then, startups such as Zomato, Oyo, and Ola took their shot. The third wave was headlined by SaaS companies like Zoho and Freshworks. 

What does the fourth wave look like? 

What does the future hold for companies making the jump? 

This week’s episode of Two by Two was our attempt to answer some of those questions. Our guests for the podcast ended up adding quite a bit more. 

Mohit Kumar is founder and CEO of Ultrahuman, best known for its smart rings which compete with the likes of Oura and Samsung, but also offering a wide range of other devices and products for health-conscious buyers.

Lal Chand Bisu is the co-founder and CEO of Kuku FM, a mobile-first premium audio platform hosting content in multiple Indian languages.

Two very different companies, with one bold bet in common: they chose to take their products global. 

Welcome to episode 34 of Two by Two.

–

Book your tickets for The Ken’s first subscriber event – https://the-ken.com/event/beyond-the-first-order/

–

Additional reading:

Kuku FM chooses not to be the hero in its own story

Pocket FM had 10 million listeners in India. Yet it hit pay dirt elsewhere

–

This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, 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 [email protected].