First Principles
First Principles is a weekly interview podcast featuring authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. Each episode delves into personal philosophies, mental models, decision-making frameworks, reading habits, parenting styles, and personal interests that make each leader unique.
Episodes
Part 2: Kuku’s Lal Chand Bisu on the Bathoth-to-Bandra arc, learning from iterations not books, and why nos beat yeses
Part 2 picks up exactly where I left Bisu — on why a 7-year-old audio platform is releasing a theatrical film on May 8. From there, we go everywhere. Bisu's actual journey from a small village in Shekhawati to Bandra. The "full equation" view of metrics. Why saying no requires more work than saying yes. Why most of his learning comes from iterations, not books. And, in his closing answer,
Part 1: Kuku's Lal Chand Bisu on killing three products, ditching the free tier and charging Bharat ₹399 a year
Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular India would pay, and the assumption was that short-video would flatten audio. None of that aged well. Kuku FM did ₹242 Cr in FY25 at 175% YoY growth, with roughly 10 million paying subscribers. This is the conversati
Part 2: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on why Indians only eat healthy Monday to Thursday, focusing on brand over scale, and what drives him now
Welcome back to First Principles. This is Part 2 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. If you have not listened to Part 1, go back and start there.In this half, the conversation slows down a little and gets even more interesting. Ankit has strong opinions about why healthy food will always lose to biryani on a Friday night, what building a brand people
Part 1: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on cold emailing his way into Flipkart, designing for talent density, and surviving a pandemic on 2 crores a month
Welcome to First Principles. This is Part 1 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods.Ankit joined Flipkart as the 22nd employee after cold emailing its founders at a book fair with almost no relevant experience and within six years he was Chief Business Officer. He then co-founded Cult with Mukesh Bansal, built it into one of India's most recognised fitness
Part 2: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path”
Welcome to First Principles! This is part 2 of episode 52, the full conversation.Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation,
Part 1: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path”
Welcome to First Principles! This is part 1 of episode 52, the full conversation.Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was compact, measured, and precise in the way he spoke, like someone who has spent years learning when to talk and when to listen. What's striking was how quickly he opened up. Within the first half hour of the conversation,
Part 2: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 2 of the 51st episode of First Principles.Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast.Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She
Part 1: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 1 of the 51st episode of First Principles.Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the most pleasant surprise and we immediately knew we had to get her on the podcast.Here's someone who joined ICICI in 1975 as a lawyer, had absolutely no background in finance, and was then asked to run Treasury. She
Part 2: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence
In the 2nd part of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades.He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as th
Part 1: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence
In part 1 of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades.He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as the comp
First Principles, second look: The 2025 wrap
What a year it's been.After a long hiatus and when we thought we'd closed the curtains for good, First Principles came back in April 2025 for Season 3. And what made this comeback so special? Simple: Rohin was genuinely excited to be back in the interviewing chair.That excitement is infectious. It showed up in every conversation and every question. This year, he sat down with eight incred
Part 2: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive
Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 2 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish
Part 1: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive
Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 1 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish
Part 2: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 2 of the conversation.The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak,
Part 1: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 1 of the conversation.The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak,
Part 2: Trilegal's Rahul Matthan on the firm, the partnership, and the principles
Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3.In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, pr
Part 1: Trilegal's Rahul Matthan on the firm, the partnership, and the principles
In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution.Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique cha
Part 2: Anand Jain of Clevertap on starting with nothing and learning, building and leading as you go along
Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap.Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did.In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire u
Part 1: Anand Jain of Clevertap on starting with nothing and learning, building and leading as you go along
Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap.Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did.In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire u
Part 2: Ultraviolette Automotive's Narayan Subramaniam on tinkering, designing and learning by discarding
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 chan
Part 1: Ultraviolette Automotive's Narayan Subramaniam on tinkering, designing and learning by discarding
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 chan
Part 2: Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease on creating great ancestors, India’s development journey and ‘regulatory cholesterol’
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 chan
Part 1: Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease on creating great ancestors, India’s development journey and ‘regulatory cholesterol’
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 chan
Part 2: Sahil Barua on why Delhivery is the antithesis of moving fast and breaking things
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 a
Part 1: Sahil Barua on why Delhivery is the antithesis of moving fast and breaking things
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 a
Part 2: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture
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
Part 1: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture
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
Introducing Two by Two, a new premium business podcast from The Ken
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 d
The Final Supercut Part 2: Founders 21-41
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
The Final Supercut Part 1: Founders 1-20
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 th
Last Principles
First Principles is coming to an end. But it's not the end of the road for you as listeners.We still want to hear from you and know what you expect from the podcasts from The Ken. Let us know with your suggestions and critique.We'd love to know your thoughts and you can let us know here.Also, you can always write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your thoughts.
Five women founders speak about leading with empathy, ambition, and not being apologetic and just focusing on building
Becoming an entrepreneur is a leap of faith. Regardless of when or even if your business sees the light of day, starting up is still a tremendously hard thing for someone to take up, work on and say out loud to the world.The leap of faith still exists when you're a woman founder, but with a bunch of other variables you didn't ask for also thrown in.But I'll tell you what doesn't change. I
Part 2: Manav Garg sold his business and started TogetherFund with Girish Mathrubootham. Naturally, the $150M fund has a founder-operator bias. What does that mean?
In the first part of my conversation with Manav Garg, I introduced him as the founder of Eka Software. This week, I would like to reintroduce Manav as a venture capitalist and the co-founder of Together Fund, a VC firm. Well, you know how I feel about having venture capitalists on First Principles if you've listened to my conversation with Alok Mittal.I had said in that conversation that
Part 2: Alok Mittal—teacher, angel investor, former VC—asserts Indifi is not a disruptive business. He also emphasises organisations should not fall into the trap of founder-worshipping
"This notion of a startup should be centered around the founder is a mindset. It makes for great stories. It makes for great heroes. And that's the reason why that sustains But, you know, there are great organizations that have been built where founders did not believe in that. And the organizations sustain even after the founder leaves."That's what Alok Mittal, founder and MD of Indifi,
Part 1: Manav Garg started and ran Eka Software for 20 years before selling it. His #1 advise to founders? Budget 6 months to "manufacture" your co-founders
“As I said, I am from a middle-class family. I was earning $10,000/month, which is a large sum in those days. And sitting in Singapore, Bangkok, travelling around the world. So my the larger question in my mind is that how do I take the decision?” says Manav Garg.Manav Garg, founder and former CEO of Eka Software, a SaaS company that operates in the global commodities trading space. "Form
Part 2: Jaydeep Barman explains how internet restaurant Rebel Foods and luxury good giant LVMH have more in common than one can imagine
Jaydeep Barman has settled into his role of being a CEO for quite some time now. He admits he was not always the nicest of people when they restarted or ‘actually started’ Faasos, which later became Rebel Foods, as a QSR chain in 2011. He would be unreasonable and brash with the people he worked with and in his own words “must have rubbed people the wrong way”.But with time he has gained
Part 1: Alok Mittal of Indifi on why org culture should not be defined but discovered
Alok Mittal has been on both ends of the startup ecosystem. He’s been a founder and a VC. These days he’s back in the founder’s seat but still enabling businesses but through his lending platform Indifi which lends money to Small and Medium Enterprises or SMEs.He has very strong thoughts about org building even though he admits Indifi is only 9 years old. He speaks from his observations a
Part 1: Jaydeep Barman of Rebel Foods on why his business is 'misunderstood'—and why that's a good thing
Rebel Foods was incorporated in 2015. Before that it was Faasos and Faasos has been around since 2004. But co-founder and CEO Jaydeep Barman says back in 2004 when he and his co-founder Kallol Banerjee started it, they didn’t look at it as a means of living. It existed to some extent, primarily, to fulfil their own craving for good Calcutta rolls as Pune, where both of them were living at
Part 2: Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility on finding his 'true north', again
When Chetan Maini – co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility – stepped down as Mahindra Reva CEO in 2015, he wasn’t thinking what was the next venture to start. In fact even though he stepped down he was still involved in the space.His time was still spent in understanding the possibilities electric mobility could unlock for the world and how these possibilities were being explored around
From succeeding in overcrowded markets to creating customer delight, five founders share their secrets
What does your company do?There are many ways to answer this question.Most founders have a really good answer, some have a meandering one.Well, let’s just say it’s always a compelling answer.This week we have five founders to answer that question on a broader range. They function in very competitive sectors and are successfully making their mark in their respective sectors by innovating a
Part 2: Harsh Mariwala of Marico on experimenting with learning, fitness and leadership at 72
Our guest for this episode has a very specific weekly routine. Pilates - once a week.Strength training - once a week.Aqua therapy - once a weekFunctional training, swimming, breathing exercises, meditating daily with just a little troubleGolfing three times a week followed up with posture exercises And very recently, experimenting with intermittent fasting.Maybe you’re imagining a very sp
Part 1: Why Chetan Maini of SUN Mobility stopped making EVs when it got cool
Chetan Maini, the co-founder and Chairman of Sun Mobility has done a whole lot in his life. He’s been forever a tinkerer as you’re bound to find out if you read his father Dr.S.K.Maini’s book REVA: India’s Green Gift to the World.Chetan’s raced solar cars, built his own car company REVA and is now building a pay-as-you-go energy infrastructure for a greener future with Sun Mobility. You’l
Part 2: Girish Mathrubootham on Freshworks' trade secrets – and why he opened them up to competitors
Girish Mathrubootham – founder and CEO of Freshworks – feels strongly about having the authority to take one’s own decisions, from a young age.He made a very apt example in our conversation with him earlier this month at his office in Chennai: a kid never gets to make his own decisions, even if it is to just order food of their liking. This in turn translates into their adulthood as an in
Part 1: From Parachute to Saffola, Marico's Harsh Mariwala on building and branding India's biggest consumer products
Sometime in the early 1970s a young Harsh Mariwala joined Bombay Oil Industries, a company set up by his grandfather in 1948, just a year after India’s independence. The company would trade in spices, oils and chemicals.Over the next two decades Harsh learnt the ropes of the family business. Till in 1991 - two decades after he had joined Bombay Oil - he left it to start his own company, M
Part 1: Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks on why he doesn't measure 'winning' by numbers
If you're here to find out more about our brand new early careers podcast, check out The First Two Years and how you can join the TFTY community here! You can also listen to our trailer on Spotify and Apple. Welcome to Episode 41 of First Principles.When asked, Girish Mathrubootham* – the CEO and Co-Founder of Freshworks, says that there’s one thing most of his direct reports would agree
Part 2: Why Vaibhav Gupta of Udaan doesn’t identify problems by patterns
There is a cliche often associated with hyper growth startups. That running one is like learning how to fly a plane while you’re already up in the air. Or perhaps it's like learning to change an engine while you’re driving a car. There is another version of this analogy: it's like learning how to build a plane and learning how to fly it and also mastering how to change an engine mid-air,
Five founders on creating trust, patience and careers in their organisations
Welcome back to First Principles. I’m your host, Rohin Dharmakumar. Thank you for listening to us. We’re thankful that you choose to spend a few hours with us each week! Today we have a “supercut” episode. Normally our conversations go deep with one specific guest, but every now and then we zoom out and go broad by stitching together a multi-guest conversation. And the invisible thread th
Part 2: Aneesh Reddy of Capillary Tech on how being called a “bully” led him to be a better leader
Welcome back to Episode 39 of First Principles!A few weeks ago, you heard the first part of our conversation with Aneesh Reddy, the CEO and Co-Founder of Capillary Tech, a software company offering products and services in the customer experience space.And you might remember that in that episode, Aneesh took us through the journey of Capillary in instalments – because as he explained, Ane
Part 1: How Vaibhav Gupta of Udaan builds, scales and improves execution playbooks
Welcome to Episode 38 of First Principles!If you're here to sign up for the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!In this episode, you will hear Vaibhav Gupta, the CEO and co-founder of Udaan, an online trade platform whose mission is to "transform India".It hopes to achieve that lofty goal by bringing tens of thousands of shopkeepers and grocery store owners closer to their suppliers
Part 2: How Viren Shetty of Narayana Health is building a career free of ‘groundhog days’
Welcome back to Episode 37 of First Principles.If you’re here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!A few weeks ago, we had a wonderful conversation with Viren Shetty – the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health. Narayana Health – formerly called Narayana Hrudalaya – is a hospital network that’s also listed on the stock exchanges. Today’s episode
Part 1: Aneesh Reddy of Capillary Tech on his wins, mistakes and a breakout SaaS model
Welcome to Episode 36 of First Principles!If you're here to find our latest edition of the First Principles Newsletter, here you go!Our guest for this episode is Aneesh Reddy, the co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies, a Bangalore-headquartered software-as-a-service – or SaaS – company that is one of the global leaders in customer loyalty and engagement.Capillary powers the custome
Part 2: Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors on entrepreneurship, liberation and legacy
A few weeks ago, we published an episode with Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors. We discussed what it was like to bet your future on an idea that no one had tried before, in India. In Soumya’s case, that idea was a business model around wealth management.You might remember Soumya saying it really wasn’t easy. Her peers had doubts. Her clients had doubts. Her family had doubts. She had
Part 1: Viren Shetty of Narayana Health on becoming ‘worse’ to become better and other ways to fix healthcare in India
Welcome to the first 2024 episode of First Principles! Though we’re only 15 months old, we’re also technically into our third calendar year, after our first episode in August 2022. A happy new year to you. Here’s to many more years of wonderful conversations, learning and growing.Our guest today is Viren Shetty, the executive vice chairman of Narayana Health—the publicly listed healthcare
Part 2: Why Ritesh Agarwal is a 'peacetime CEO' despite OYO's many wars
A couple of weeks ago, you heard our episode with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and Group CEO of OYO rooms. If you remember, he talked to me about the atmosphere at the organization after COVID hit.To put it simply, it was wartime inside OYO.Cash needed to be protected. Leadership had to be let go. The company completely changed.In the first hour of the conversation with Ritesh, who explain
Part 1: Soumya Rajan of Waterfield Advisors on turning a 'sceptical' idea into a resilient business
“What is something you believe in, that no one else around you does?”If you’ve heard episode 30 with Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, then you’ll recognize this as a question that he had to answer while applying for the Thiel Fellowship.It’s a simple but powerful question that usually differentiates motivated, passionate and unreasonable founders from other equally capabl
Part 2: Karthik Jayaraman of WayCool looks back on his career, starting up at 40 and building leaders
Welcome to to episode 31 of First Principles! If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you’ll notice that this was supposed to be an off week for us as a fortnightly show. We used to release new episodes every other Thursday. And last Thursday was our episode with Ritesh Agarwal of OYO Rooms. But starting this week, First Principles is now a weekly podcast. We’re going to bring you a
Part 1: Ritesh Agarwal of OYO on building a business on differentiation, communication and resilience
Welcome to Episode 30 of First Principles!We recorded this episode at Spacebot Studio, a new, sleek space overlooking the metro in IndiranagarOur guest, Ritesh, was already at the studio.Ritesh was asking the owners of the studio a bunch of questions: how big is this space? How many bookings do you get in a day? Are there other studios around in this location? And it’s not surprising, bec
Five founders on their childhood, choices and what drove them to start up
Welcome back to First Principles! If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you know that First Principles covers a lot of topics. Leadership, organization building, decision making, learning methods, careers, life principles, habits, people management, parenting..it goes on.But if there’s a common thread that connects them all together, it’s entrepreneurship. Thus, today we have a “sup
Part 1: Karthik Jayaraman of WayCool Foods on why disruption isn't always necessary for innovation
Welcome to Episode 29 of First Principles.Our guest for this episode is Karthik Jayaraman, the co-founder and MD of WayCool Foods.Karthik's leadership style and philosophies differ from many of the earlier leaders and founders featured in the last 28 episodes of First Principles. Perhaps it's because he started WayCool, an agri-tech startup, after turning 40. Karthik jokes that some peopl
Five founders on building a unique product and making it last
Welcome to First Principles, The Ken’s fortnightly leadership podcast! I am Rohin Dharmakumar, your host.First, if you’re a new listener of this podcast, I think you’ve clicked on the right episode. And if you’re a long-time listener – thank you, by the way – then you might know that here at First Principles, we have a few favourite questions. And we try and ask these questions to most of
Five CEOs talk about their journeys, struggles, successes, and failures
If you started listening to First Principles—The Ken's fortnightly leadership podcast—in 2023, then today's special episode might be something you'll love. We went back to guests from episodes 6 to 10 from 2022 and created a supercut episode highlighting some of the most interesting bits from conversations with these accomplished leaders.We'd urge you to listen to the full episodes, but t
We don't have an episode today, but a newsletter
We don’t have a new First Principles episode this week, but we do have something special for you.If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, you’ve already built a curiosity for mental models that force you to look at the world differently. To break down complex problems from the ground up. To analyse and synthesise.This, precisely, is also what the First Principles newsletter is about.Each Sunday, t
