In the 50th episode of Two by Two, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan examine the contrasting open-source trajectories of China, the US, and India in the context of AI, and where India fell short.

While China, despite being authoritarian, has surged ahead in open-source AI leadership with models like DeepSeek R1, India has fallen behind. The 2010s are framed as a “lost decade” for Indian open source, characterised by a vibrant tech ecosystem that failed to foster a meaningful contribution culture.

China’s rise can be attributed to its unique mix of strategic intent, creative insecurity (following the Huawei ban in 2019), and human capital. It views open source as a geopolitical tool, not a philosophy. India, by contrast, is stuck in a “third way”—neither as open and capitalistic as the US nor as strategically pragmatic as China.

What would it take for Indian to do the same?

Bring academia to the forefront, fund open source efforts without restrictions, and build a developer culture driven by curiosity, not just career advancement. Open source needs to be viewed more broadly than just code—it’s an innovation infrastructure and a form of digital autonomy. Without this shift, India risks missing the AI bus entirely.

And joining them for the discussion are two wonderful guests.

Pranay Kotasthane is deputy director at the Takshashila Institution and chairs its High Tech Geopolitics Programme. He co-writes Anticipating the Unintended, a newsletter on public policy ideas and frameworks, and co-hosts Puliyabaazi, a popular Hindi-Urdu podcast on politics, policy, and technology.

Kailash Nadh is the CTO of Zerodha*. Kailash calls himself a developer, tinkerer and absurdist. Kailash is a hobbyist developer who has been working on open source projects for the last 25 years.

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Additional reading:

Why China is giving away its tech for free - https://www.economist.com/business/2025/06/17/why-china-is-giving-away-its-tech-for-free

Anticipating the Unintended (newsletter) - https://publicpolicy.substack.com/

Deepseek, AI sovereignty, and India - https://nadh.in/blog/deepseek-ai-sovereignty-india/

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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].
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*Zerodha’s perennial fund Rainmatter Capital is an investor in The Ken.

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, GS, JP Morgan Chase, Deloitte, Walmart, Bosch, Adobe, Target, Salesforce, AstraZeneca.

What’s common to these dozen organisations? Other than the fact that they are, well, large, well-respected and innovative?

They all operate their own development and innovation centres in India. Often sprawling campuses and offices across multiple cities, filled with Indian engineers, project managers, product experts, designers, HR, finance and, well, virtually every function that’s required to run a business.

They’re called GCCs. Global Capability Centres.

There are over 1,000 global organisations that collectively operate over 1,700 GCCs across India. They employ over 2 million professionals. They generate over $40 billion in annual value, set to surpass $100 billion in another five years.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, most GCCs are technically doing work that could have been outsourced to Indian outsourcers like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, etc. In fact, GCCs are so successful a strategy that they’re growing much faster than Indian outsourcers.

And as if taking away potential revenue from Indian outsourcers weren’t enough, GCCs are now also taking away talent. That’s right. They’re hiring experienced and talented professionals using higher salaries, better brands and the promise of better work.

It appears to be a zero-sum game. A pie that isn’t growing.

Both our guests for today’s episode are experts on GCCs, and they had a lot to say about the same. Our first guest is Narayana Ramamurthy, whom you’ll hear us address as ‘Naru’ throughout the discussion. Naru is the founder and CEO of Workfutr, a company which enables US and European organisations to harness India's offshore capability in technology, operations, and transformation. And our second guest is Karthik Padmanabhan, who is the managing partner for GCCs at Zinnow, a global management and consulting firm founded in 2002 that partners and advises global enterprises, outsourcers, PE firms around AI, automation, outsourcing and well, GCCs.

Welcome to episode 49 of Two by Two.

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Additional reading:

ANSR’s Ahuja duo on why “everybody, from Victoria’s Secret to Google, will do pretty much the same thing in India” - https://the-ken.com/story/ansrs-ahuja-duo-on-why-everybody-from-victorias-secret-to-google-will-do-pretty-much-the-same-thing-in-india/

GCCs could pose a potential threat to Indian IT - https://analyticsindiamag.com/gcc/gccs-could-pose-a-potential-threat-to-indian-it/

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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].

Meesho, Rapido, and Zepto have managed to challenge what seemed like firmly established duopolies, such as Amazon and Flipkart, Uber and Ola, and Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart, respectively.

The third-place player trying to break the duopoly with its ‘challenger DNA’ came in and caught up with the incumbents by targeting the unserved or underserved markets they overlooked, innovation, be it through providing a zero commission platform for sellers, delivering groceries in minutes or connecting drivers to riders based on a subscription model.

But what other factors cause this disruption in these duopolies?

A critical factor enabling these new entrants is often incumbent complacency combined with venture capital pressures in India, which push established players towards short-term profits over broader market expansion.

In episode 48 of Two by Two, we discuss how these disruptors came about, and based on their journey, can we observe other such disruptive third players in India?

Joining hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan was Professor Rajendra Srivastava, former dean at the Indian School of Business and presently the executive director at the ISB Centre for Business Innovation.

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Additional reading:

Does your company have an India strategy – https://hbr.org/2023/06/does-your-company-have-an-india-strategy

Why Indigo Airlines may be India’s best export to the world after cricket and bollywood? – https://medium.com/@rks_72086/why-indigo-airlines-may-be-indias-best-export-to-the-world-after-cricket-and-bollywood-5beb92182343

Market-based assets and shareholder value – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002224299806200102

Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals that Will Make or Break Your Company written by George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker (recommended by Professor Shrivastava)

The Rule of Three: Surviving and Thriving in Competitive Markets written by Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia (recommended by Professor Shrivastava)

Additional listening:

Is Zepto a gold medallist or a bronze medallist? – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/is-zepto-a-gold-medalist-or-a-bronze-medalist/

Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho’s culture – https://the-ken.com/podcasts/first-principles/vidit-aatrey-on-building-a-problem-first-mindset-into-meeshos-culture/

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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].

Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, is unfortunately also a poster child for urban chaos. A city bursting at the seams, where unplanned growth has pushed its infrastructure to breaking point. Imagine roads that can’t handle the sheer volume of vehicles, leading to traffic jams that eat away at hours of your day. It’s not a minor inconvenience; it’s a daily grind that impacts productivity and quality of life.

And it doesn’t stop there. Bengaluru is constantly battling water scarcity. When the monsoons hit, it’s a different kind of nightmare. Even something as fundamental as waste management is a perpetual struggle, with the city’s rapid expansion overwhelming existing systems.

Ultimately, Bengaluru’s plight is a reminder of what happens when urban development races ahead without a long-term vision. It’s a web of planning failures, governance challenges, and population boom. Until these issues are addressed, Bengaluru and many other Indian cities will continue to grapple with their struggles.

But despite all of these issues, what is the fix for Bengaluru’s problems?

Hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar try to uncover where it went wrong and what the eventual fix will be for its issues, along with our guest Pravar Chaudhary, creative director at Bengawalk, a creative agency that tells stories about urbanisation and climate change in India.

Bengawalk, for the netizens of Bengaluru, is a familiar face with their regular updates on what’s going on in the city and the inconveniences and quirks of Bengaluru on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and Youtube. They break down the cause of citizens’ frustration with Bengaluru with their detailed breakdowns, and they do this beautifully with their videos, writing, and design published online.

You can follow all of their work here.

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Additional reading:

Bengaluru’s solutions are Bengaluru’s problems – https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/bengalurus-solutions-are-bengalurus-problems/

Bengaluru’s solution for its traffic mess that tech couldn’t fix: even more tech – https://the-ken.com/story/bengalurus-solution-for-its-traffic-mess-that-tech-couldnt-fix-even-more-tech/

It sucks to be a tenant in Bengaluru right now – https://the-ken.com/story/it-sucks-to-be-a-renter-in-bengaluru-right-now/

Videos referenced:

The never ending construction of Bengaluru – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV7s_aks_4A

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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 12 June 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.

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Can an AI bot coach and counsel you?

AI is getting better every day and bringing us closer to a scalable, always-on support and a model for both leadership coaching and mental performance.

This makes it much more attractive to organisations because it’s less expensive, contextual, personal, self-learning and scalable within organisations.

There are futures where this may become the default, and one-on-one human coaching and therapy may become the exception.

In this week’s episode of Two by Two, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar discuss whether AI can fit into the mould of coaching and therapy, and if there is a future where it becomes the norm.

And joining them to discuss and debate this are Gaston Schmitz, partner and founder coach, Asian Leadership Institute, which provides leaders and high-performing teams with executive coaching. Our second guest is Aakriti Joanna, founder and CEO of Kaha Mind, which is a leading mental health organisation for individuals and organisations in India.

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Additional reading:

The AI chatbots offering workplace counsel – https://www.ft.com/content/ede799c4-8a1c-4c39-8a9b-01899d5b6754

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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 05 June 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.

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Bigbasket, Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto are all fighting to capture more and more share of the quick-commerce market. But as they scale, a new set of players fulfilling one use case in minutes is entering the market with hype and funding.

Does this mean we will see an unbundling of quick commerce from being an everything store to having separate apps for everything? Or is it just another cycle of unbundling and bundling?

Hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar discuss in the latest episode of Two by Two with Madhav Kasturia, founder and CEO of Zippee, and Sanjay Ramakrishnan, founder and general partner, Multiply Ventures.

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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 29 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.

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Smallcase was an innovative financial product that arrived early to solve a problem for investors. Since its launch in 2015, Smallcase’s proposition has been quite simple. It allowed users to invest directly into thematic baskets of stocks or exchange-traded funds that they called small cases. As an investor, you have complete control and transparency over whatever you want to invest in. Sometimes, there are small cases of stocks that are going to do well during the monsoon season. Sometimes it’s stocks that are going to do well because India is going to push forward in manufacturing. Sometimes it’s a basket of stocks that’s going to do well because India is going forward in things like, say, AI.

Smallcase rode this retail investing wave over the last ten years. It reached 3.5 million users and had about 14,000 crores in transaction value. While a new generation of young traders flocked to the market and were looking for direction on where to invest, how much to invest, and what to invest in.

However, of late, Smallcase has faced a different kind of competition, and that competition comes from mutual funds that have taken Smallcase’s same playbook and started offering thematic investment. It has also started facing competition from passive funds and competitors like Phonepe and other brokerages like Motilal Oswal, ICICI Direct, Geojit, etc. Over the last few years, Smallcase’s revenue has grown, but so have its losses.

In episode 44, hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar discuss what makes Smallcase special, whether those advantages still persist in a changing market, and whether it can find a way to live up to its original promise.

Joining the hosts for the discussion are Bhavesh Sanghvi, CEO, Growthfiniti Wealth and  Nirav Karkera, head of research, Fisdom.

Welcome to Two by Two.

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Additional reading:

Smallcase bet on DIY investors. Then DIY investors moved on – https://the-ken.com/story/smallcase-bet-on-diy-investors-then-diy-investors-moved-on/

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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 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.

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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.

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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/

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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.

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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.

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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

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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/

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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.

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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].