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by The Ken
First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising 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. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.
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- Aug 17, 20261h 3m
Part 2: Mukesh Bansal on hiring for loyalty to a mission, "no means not now", writing three books, and compounding sideways
Where Part 1 followed the companies, Part 2 is about the person behind them. Picking up from Mukesh Bansal's move from one venture to the next, this half gets into how he finds talent ("work with them for six months"), the mental models he runs his life by, and the beliefs underneath them. He explains why rationally no one should start a company, how he processes every rejection as "no means not now", why he writes three books by simply showing up to a blank page, and how he separated the longevity basics he trusts from the biohacking he no longer does. It ends close to home: loyalty as loyalty to a mission, what he wants for his two children, why parents' expectations matter less than they did, and a life he rates an 8 out of 10.Chapters0:00 Where we left off1:46 Finding talent: "work with them for six months"3:23 The one open-ended question he asks5:57 Winning vs looking good8:00 The compounding argument, revisited9:40 Learning vs winning: drawing the 2x211:17 Three books, and the annual look-back16:18 Making time to think in a full life18:45 What a chief of staff is actually for21:27 "No means not now" and other mental models25:57 How he writes a book28:30 How health became a throughline31:24 From ecosystem to the longevity basics34:29 Why strength training matters after 5038:08 Why he runs SparX, and the deep-tech turn44:05 Loyalty to a mission, and the number two50:35 The Apple teaching model52:52 Three adjectives, and being "scary" to juniors55:30 His kids' worldview57:54 Do parents' expectations still matter?1:00:12 Weekends, food, and reading now1:02:17 Rating his life an 8Quotes[8:44] "I don't know if this rocket thing will work. But if it works, it'll take at least ten years… they said, we are willing to work on it for the rest of our lives."[21:56] "I call this no means not now. That's how I process all the nos in my life."[24:59] "Zomato was started in 2007. They did not pivot into food delivery till 2017."[26:05] "Just show up and stare at a blank page for an hour. Sooner or later you'll start writing."[61:43] "I feel very privileged and very fortunate. So many lucky breaks have worked out for me."Frameworks & mental modelsNo means not now: process every rejection as timing, not a verdict; it protects the ego and the relationship.Long-term patient, short-term aggressive / product is marketing: charge hard daily, give the ten-year game room, and let a product people love do the selling.Horizontal compounding: compound entrepreneurial skill across ventures, not tenure in one sector.Loyalty to a mission: the durable teams are bound to an unfinished job, not to a person; build a number two and give people room.The longevity basics beat biohacking: sleep, eat less, move, strength-train after 50, tend emotional health; the exotic stuff is largely unproven.Credits & sharingThis episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Aug 10, 202657 min
Part 1: Mukesh Bansal on founder mode in the AI age, the three kinds of professionals in the AI age, and the Haridwar boy who found entrepreneurship in a library
Mukesh Bansal has founded and left more companies than most people build in a lifetime, and in Part 1 he explains why. He founded Myntra and sold it to Flipkart; he co-founded Cult.fit and turned fitness into a category; and today he runs the AI company Nurix and the Meraki Labs studio. Asked what he is now, he says "a learner", and admits he gets bored the moment a company starts working. Part 1 traces the thesis and the companies: how he allocates his weeks, why he thinks the AI era rewards the hands-on operator over the people-manager, what Nurix and Fermi are, why Myntra's move into fashion was an "adjustment" not a pivot, and the small-town Haridwar upbringing and library habit that set him off. This is Part 1 of 2; Part 2 turns to the person, the mental models, and how he thinks about health, family and success.Chapters0:00 Welcome and who Mukesh Bansal is3:15 How First Principles is already connected to him4:21 "Do you see yourself as an operator, a founder, an investor?"5:27 Zero-to-one, and where learning stops9:11 Allocating time across companies10:34 Why an hour of his time isn't what it was12:59 The three kinds of professionals in the AI age14:52 His stack: Claude, Warp, agents overnight17:58 Founder mode, reversed by AI20:19 No more waiting for a tech co-founder23:02 How big Nurix is; and what Fermi is25:38 The Socratic tutor that won't answer27:18 Back to Myntra: the fashion category today31:30 Koyu, Lyskraft and the CRED hypothesis33:41 Why a venture studio, one company a year38:18 Rejecting the compounding path42:57 The near-death at Myntra, and raising with a short runway45:03 Haridwar, BHEL, and the books that lit the fire48:15 Pivots as chess "adjustments"50:48 Conviction vs discovery: betting the megatrend53:08 The Bay Area years and the return to IndiaQuotes[4:33] "I see myself as a learner… doing one company over a period of time, I get bored."[7:08] "Crisis always comes wrapped with a massive gift, if you are only willing to unpeel the onion."[17:12] "I'm making an even stronger point. If you're only a people manager, watch out."[18:58] "For the first time you can hire something equivalent to human cognition for cents an hour."[48:50] "I use the word adjustment rather than pivot. You come to work every day, you're playing chess."Frameworks & mental modelsLearner over operator: hand off once a company stops teaching you.Crisis and momentum: cut the bad, double down on the good.The three professionals in the AI age: the hands-on veteran is the one AI turns into a superpower.Adjustment, not pivot: the best move on the board each day; a true "wipe the slate" is just a new company.Bet the megatrend, stay loose on the path.Credits & sharingThis episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Jul 27, 20261h 0m
Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on the decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him consumer, raising half the fund he could have, and keeping a coach in his sixties
1 · SummaryPart 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh built to make it work. This half is the person. The near-decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him his love of consumer, the Intel years, and the Paper Boat conviction that taught him to back the founder over the idea. Then the man himself: parents who came to India as refugees from Pakistan, a father who kept collecting degrees while feeding the family, the coach he started seeing in his sixties and what separates coaching from therapy, and how he reads a founder by meeting their family. He turned down twice the money he could have raised. He rates his life a 10.2 · Chapters0:00 Part 2 intro 1:22 The Hindustan Lever decade that started it all 2:25 Intel Inside, and bringing the inside out 4:22 The Paper Boat conviction: backing the founder 6:38 What he adds as Fireside's "CEO," and value of good 17:53 Capping the fund: turning down 2x the money 20:24 Hiring: read the person, meet the family 27:01 Refugees, and a father who never stopped studying 30:39 Three words, and a 100%-locked calendar 33:30 Motivating through the down days 34:51 The coach, and coaching vs therapy 43:40 How he learns, and consumer vs tech founders 51:27 Rating his life a 10, and success redefined 52:47 Cotswolds, golf, and the empty nest refilled3 · Pull-quotes[17:56] "I could have raised 2x of this. Genuinely, we could have raised 2x of this."[23:55] "You cannot build to sell. You build for sustenance, you build for good."[27:04] "Both my parents were refugees from Pakistan."[51:34] "A 10." (asked how happy he is with his life)4 · Frameworks & mental modelsFounder assessment through the family: read a founder by their story and support system, often over a meal with their spouse, on the belief that no one survives a decade-long build without one.Build for sustenance, not to sell: the best businesses are bought, not sold; you build for the long run and treat a sale as a business decision along the way.Value of good ("do good to do well"): founder first, planet first, one Fireside, with goodness as the foundation of doing well.Coaching vs therapy: therapy addresses a medical issue; coaching is vulnerability and honesty in a business context, and only works once you have the self-awareness to accept there's a problem.This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Jul 20, 20261h 1m
Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game
1 · SummaryPart 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak of the tech boom, he walked away from tech investing to raise a fund only for Indian consumer brands, when almost nobody believed India had a consumer story worth venture capital. His first backers weren't institutions, they were the consumer families who had built India's brands. This half covers the whole bet: what investors actually said when he pitched a consumer-only fund, why he raised in India rather than abroad, the ownership and follow-on design he corrected fund after fund, his claim that most of his companies succeed rather than one outlier, and his working map of India 1, 2 and 3. Part 2 turns to the person behind it.2 · Chapters0:00 Cold open and Part 1 intro 3:27 What Fireside is, and why it exists 10:04 How the fund makes money 11:23 The stats: 9 years, 4 funds, 68 investments 12:50 Raising fund one: consumer families, not global institutions 17:14 Two years as a solo angel 25:51 Ownership by design, and the follow-on model 34:05 What "success" means, and the anti-power-law 36:56 The centre of excellence 45:40 The three breaks from the VC default, and India 1/2/3 53:47 Quick commerce is brand-first 57:54 Brand vs performance: Underneat, Truvi3 · Pull-quotes[0:20] "For a 5x, nobody will call you legendary."[34:24] "We can build successful funds, fund after fund... not necessarily depending on those one or two outliers. Good news is we also have the outliers."[40:26] "The answer lies in the question. It is hard."[54:12] "The power of the brand is truly manifest in quick commerce."4 · Frameworks & mental modelsAnti-power-law investing: a portfolio where most companies clear "capital plus," not one built to live or die on a single outlier.The three breaks from the VC default: consumer over tech, Indian consumer-family LPs over global institutions, one shared-credit team over lone-hero dealmakers.India 1, 2, 3: his working map of where consumption grows, with India 2 needing products designed for it and India 3 reached through doorstep models.Quick commerce is brand-first: scarce shelf space and a buy-not-browse shopper mean only brands with genuine pull survive.This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Jul 13, 20261h 1m
Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender
Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what, given hindsight, he'd do differently, then the first principles he runs Shiprocket on (distribution beats product), the two or three metrics he genuinely obsesses over, his bet on applied AI, why he believes you can't actually manage people, who does and doesn't survive at the company, the guitar he still plays, his dog, and the question Rohin closes every episode with, which Saahil answers with a single number.Chapters1:02 With hindsight, what he'd do differently2:10 “A paisa of every transaction in India”5:23 First principles: distribution beats product11:32 The metrics he obsesses over17:22 Betting on applied AI29:33 “You can't manage people”31:45 Who doesn't survive at Shiprocket42:05 The guitar, Pink Floyd, and Bruno the CHO58:28 The book he forgets — and how he reflects1:00:50 Rating his life an 8This episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Jul 7, 20261h 5m
Part 1: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on rebuilding the same company three times, the $4 million he was told to take or leave and why in India you sell outcomes, not software
Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks Rohin through the build: Rs 15 lakh of their own money, nearly not being hired by their own first engineers, the hard lesson that in India you sell outcomes not software, an investor ultimatum to take $4 million or nothing, and by the end, just how much capital it's taken to get from that first office to the edge of a public listing. Part 2 gets into how he actually thinks.Chapters0:00 The company that started in 2011, not 20174:01 KartRocket: building an agency to learn the market6:09 Bootstrapped on Rs 15 lakh9:02 Why Indian SMBs wouldn't pay for software17:58 “Take $4 million or nothing”22:38 How Shiprocket was born27:06 What Shiprocket actually is — and how it makes money37:58 The IPO, and the state of the business44:19 Quick commerce without owning a truck48:42 From Delhi to a US career — and back55:59 Lessons from failed fundraises1:04:23 How much they've raisedThis episode was produced by Rohin Dharmakumar and mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN.Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions, and guests you would want to see on First Principles.If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word by sharing and gifting it to your friends and family.
- Jun 22, 20261h 3m
Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in
Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson that restaurateurs who send guests to Zomato and Swiggy have only themselves to blame. He argues delivery and dine-in are two different businesses, lays out his ambition to turn Impresario into a full-service-restaurant platform, and gets personal on hiring, Gen Alpha kids, weekends, and why his life scores 9.9 out of 10. CHAPTERS00:00 Recap and what's ahead: aggregators, the platform, the missing 0.101:48 "Digital landlords": Zomato & Swiggy, then and now02:47 From resistance to cohabitation; how aggregators trained demand05:24 Owning the customer; the cross-sector aggregator tension07:04 The Booking.com / Hotels.com parallel and how hotels fought back09:41 Build your own loyalty — don't blame the aggregator10:09 Delivery vs dine-in: two completely different businesses13:09 Restaurants beat the movies; lessons from raising VC/PE16:34 Growth math: IRR, 20-25% stable growth, the late-stage problem17:45 What motivates him: reading a city and its community18:56 Curiosity over the "5 people"; planning for serendipity24:29 Hiring: "doers and divas" and the largesse of hospitality30:24 Social as social infrastructure: coworking from day one34:25 First principles: people + process, soul, belongingness37:08 Harvesting feedback: NPS, ORM, AI, the guest-experience officer39:18 His kids and the Gen Alpha worldview43:39 Weekends, FIFA, meditation, and protecting solitude48:10 Comfort food and deferring to the chef50:11 The 25-year view; the 10,000 cr platform and the invisible 85%59:03 Anti-loyalty vs frequency: cafes are loyalty, restaurants are experience1:01:44 Final question: 9.9 out of 10, and the missing 0.1KEY COMPANIES & BRANDSImpresario Handmade Restaurants; Social; Zomato; Swiggy; ONDC; Booking.com; Hotels.com; Rebel Foods; Haldiram's; Rameshwaram Cafe; Starbucks; NRAI; PlayStation/FIFA/Minecraft (referenced).KEY CONCEPTSAggregators as "digital landlords"; deep discounting & perceived value; the uneasy truce; owning the customer relationship; the Booking.com hotel-inventory parallel; loyalty programs & direct outreach; delivery vs dine-in as separate businesses; patient capital, IRR & late-stage growth math; "doers and divas"; largesse of hospitality; full-service-restaurant platform; store-level vs corporate EBITDA; the invisible 85% "iceberg" of running a restaurant; anti-loyalty vs frequency; cafes (loyalty/convenience) vs restaurants (experience/variety); NPS/ORM/AI feedback; Gen Alpha.
- Jun 15, 20261h 4m
Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be
Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social, and what it actually takes to keep a restaurant group alive for 25 years in the highest-mortality business there is. The shisha ban, the private-equity money that never arrived, COVID, the marble hustle at age six, and the real engine underneath it all: people.CHAPTERS00:00 Intro: 95% fail by year two — and the man who didn't01:46 Why Mocha in 2001: a city missing "places to be"03:23 Bombay the "coolest cousin"; South Bombay snobbery moves to Bandra05:05 The MTV / Gen X generation and a West-facing India07:47 UCLA, entertainment management, and learning to live culture11:29 What "Handmade" and "Impresario" mean14:13 The business today: 80 restaurants, 900 cr, 5,500 people15:29 Why restaurants die; learning from the community18:02 People vs processes — and why he keeps returning to people19:32 Social: the millennial third space and the shisha ban25:41 The Gen Z puzzle; Saltwater to Bandra Bourn; evolution vs revolution30:46 Real estate: location vs locality and India's "80 pockets"32:32 The metric that matters: AOV x covers x table turnaround35:33 COVID and surviving "mass-extinction events"39:17 The town hall: the team takes 40% pay to save the company40:51 What losing a restaurant feels like; the discipline to quit42:44 Mental model: 4-5 engines to ride economic cycles46:42 The marble business and hustling from age 1251:20 Bowling alleys & Phoenix Mills: people buy time together53:44 Self-rating: 7.5 as a parent, 5 as a CEO55:15 Building a restaurant vs building an organization56:15 The HR crisis: severe attrition, talent going abroad58:44 The one thing he can't delegate: layouts and property selection1:00:49 Becoming a "boardroom warrior" against his will KEY COMPANIES & BRANDSImpresario Handmade Restaurants; Mocha; Social; Saltwater Cafe/Grill; Bandra Born; Cafe Coffee Day; Phoenix Mills "Bowling Company"; Amoeba; UCLA. KEY CONCEPTSThird spaces; "handmade" at scale; West-aspirational MTV-generation culture; people vs processes; AOV x covers x table turnaround; frequency as a metric; location vs locality / "80 pockets"; evolution vs revolution; mass-extinction events & resilience; working-capital-negative business; building a restaurant vs building an organization; restaurant-industry attrition; the layouts/property selection he won't delegate.
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About First Principles
First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising 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. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.
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