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WTF is with Nikhil Kamath: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Nikhil Kamath
"WTF is" is a podcast series where Nikhil Kamath hosts friends and industry experts and holds casual yet intellectually stimulating conversations. The podcast covers a broad range of topics of particular current relevance, including technology, social media, renewable energy, electric vehicles, philosophy, gaming, psychology and more.
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- 1 weeks ago4h 0m
If UPI Is Free, Who Pays for It? | PhonePe, Razorpay & NPCI | WTF is Payments?
Access the full data and references used in this episode below. Open the Canva Research DocumentPlease open this alongside the episode while watching.We scan a QR code, enter a PIN, and move on. I wanted to understand everything that happens in between. If a payment feels instant and costs us nothing, who is doing the work, who is taking the risk, and who is paying for it?I sat down with Sameer Nigam of PhonePe, Harshil Mathur of Razorpay, and Sohini Rajola of NPCI to follow a payment through the system. We draw out the journey between an app, the banks and NPCI, get into why the confirmation on our phone and the settlement between banks are different things, and compare that with what happens when we use a credit card. From rewards and merchant fees to fraud, failed transactions and the cost of handling cash, there is a business behind every way we choose to pay.The conversation also gets into MDR, how the ecosystem funds itself, and what it takes to keep investing in wider access. Then we look ahead: cross-border payments, business payments, wearable rings, digital tipping, and AI agents that might eventually shop and pay for us. The guests disagree on how quickly that future arrives, especially in India.If you were starting a payments business today, which problem would you try to solve? Watch the full conversation and tell me below.TIMESTAMPS00:00 Introduction02:23 Sohini Rajola: Her journey and NPCI's role09:40 Banks, fintechs and digital banking14:11 Harshil Mathur: The problem that led to Razorpay20:36 Sameer Nigam: His journey before PhonePe24:08 Why young Indians want to leave30:28 UPI's early builders and the cost of overregulation43:16 Flipkart's payment failures and the birth of PhonePe52:02 How a UPI payment actually works59:06 If UPI is free, who pays for it?1:05:26 Instant payments vs bank settlement1:08:24 Stablecoins, CBDCs and the future of money1:14:52 Wealth inequality, inheritance and capital gains1:17:11 The zero-MDR debate: Funding the payments ecosystem1:21:31 Should UPI apps have market-share caps?1:33:08 Can new banks and startups compete in India?1:41:18 How card and merchant payments work1:49:39 Credit-card rewards and RuPay on UPI1:54:12 How Razorpay improved online payments2:02:08 The B2B payments opportunity2:05:36 Building payments for medical tourism2:09:54 Why digital tipping is still unsolved2:16:01 What payment data reveals about India's consumers2:21:22 Trust and India's next wave of online shoppers2:26:07 GST, consumption and property taxes2:31:38 Affordable food, quality and accountability2:37:55 Cash vs digital: Measuring India's spending2:42:20 B2B payments, merchant data and access to credit2:44:31 Stablecoins, cross-border transfers and capital controls2:51:59 Will AI agents change how we shop and pay?2:57:57 Is AI in a bubble?3:03:01 AI costs, productivity and human work3:08:59 What should young founders build for AI commerce?3:16:01 Who benefits from AI? Business and investment opportunities3:24:31 Meet the builders: Seven, Dodo Payments and PayGlocal3:26:46 How cross-border payments and merchant-of-record models work3:34:55 Stablecoins and CBDCs: Speed, trust and regulation3:39:20 The founders' view on competition and market share3:41:31 Seven's payment rings: Cashback, revenue and adoption3:47:20 Medical tourism and other cross-border opportunities3:51:07 Tap-to-pay, tipping and the future of wearables3:53:48 Cheaper AI and the pace of agentic commerce3:56:47 Fraud, trust and safeguards for AI payments3:59:18 Final advice for young fintech foundersGUESTSSohini Rajola – Executive Director, Growth at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohinirajola/Sameer Nigam – Founder and CEO of PhonePeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanigam/Harshil Mathur – Co-founder and CEO of RazorpayLinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshilmathur/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" styl
- 2 weeks ago2h 28m
Is AI a Bubble? I Asked the People Building It | WTF is AI?
Access the full data and references used in this episode below.Please open this alongside the episode while watching.https://canva.link/jzw1hvv14z38mewFootage Credits & Sources1. Elon Musk FootageSource: The Economist (YouTube)Link: https://youtu.be/1X-rr1DKSbY?si=wLJd3G82bo389CsH2. Sam Altman InterviewSource: Fortune Magazine (YouTube)Link: https://youtu.be/2my-NU6LuCM?si=MDhrcvqcu_vlod53&t=3363. Donald Trump FootageSource: New York Post (YouTube)Link: https://youtu.be/RsT2NYu8Y_Y?si=fuOhm3kKY-nWEw63&t=154. Australian Government Website hack ClipSource: Firstpost (YouTube)Link: https://youtu.be/gmf8sdQGwm4?si=9UT_LCgkldxXH4YVIs AI a bubble, or are we underestimating how much it can change? That’s the question I kept coming back to in San Francisco. Young companies are attracting extraordinary valuations, while I’m still trying to see how the promised productivity gains are reaching the wider economy.I put that scepticism to Akshay Kothari of Notion, Vijay Krishnan of Turing, and Ricursive Intelligence’s Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie. We discuss where the money is coming from, how much of it is moving between AI companies, and what businesses and individuals will actually pay for. They make the case for capabilities that are already useful, smaller teams doing more, and benefits that take time to spread. We also get into chips, human work, AI risks and what India should build.The technology can be powerful and the prices can still be wrong. I wanted to understand how to tell the difference.Timestamp:00:00 Introduction02:46 Meet Akshay Kothari and Azalia Mirhoseini05:21 AlphaChip: AI That Designs Computer Chips12:11 Cheaper Models, More Compute and Custom Chips17:28 What Notion Does and How AI Changes Work20:12 Vijay Krishnan and the People Teaching AI29:18 Understanding the AI Industry From Scratch32:43 Why Inference Companies Get High Valuations37:09 The Gap Between AI Capability and Adoption41:48 Is the AI Investment Boom a Bubble?46:04 What Happens When AI Can Improve Itself?53:00 The Changing Work of Training AI56:35 Why Silicon Valley and China Lead the Race1:00:38 Where Would You Build an AI Business?1:07:23 AI Agents and the Productivity Debate1:17:40 Are We Losing Our Own Thinking Skills?1:24:23 Meet Anna Goldie1:30:21 The $100 Million Business Question1:34:48 What Google Got Right—and What It Missed1:37:18 AI Chips and NVIDIA’s Advantage1:39:59 AI Shares, Secondaries and the Wealth Boom1:42:54 Can Countries and Companies Own Their AI?1:45:07 Open Models, Scaling Laws and Local AI1:52:07 AI Risks, Security and Human Control2:01:05 What Should India Build in AI?2:07:10 Are AI Safety Warnings Sincere?2:09:04 How Would You Spend Your Last Month?2:14:41 What Comes After the Smartphone?2:17:48 The Future of Social Media and Entertainment2:21:45 Will AI Replace the Apps We Use?2:25:51 Final Ideas: Product Design and Better LearningAkshay Kothari-Co founder and COO, NotionLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari/Vijay Krishnan-Founder and CTO, Turing-https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay0/Anna Goldie-Co founder and CEO, Ricursive IntelligenceLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adgoldie/Azalia MirhoseiniCo founder and CTO, Ricursive IntelligenceLinkedin: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/azalia-mirhoseini-a5308522/"
- 2 weeks ago0 min
AI: The Future, or the Fad of the Season? | WTF is AI? | Trailer
I went to San Francisco with a basic question: if AI can do more of the work, where does that leave the person doing it today? I asked Akshay Kothari of Notion, Vijay Krishnan of Turing, and Ricursive Intelligence’s Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie to help me understand what is changing. We got into people teaching AI to do their own kinds of work, small teams using it to do more, why the money going into this industry makes me nervous, and what someone starting out in India should make of it. I kept asking them to explain it more simply, because I wanted to understand the opportunity as well as the risk. Here’s a first look at WTF is AI. Full conversation coming soon.Akshay Kothari — Co-founder and COO, NotionLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari/Vijay Krishnan — Founder and CTO, TuringLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay0/Anna Goldie — Co-founder and CEO, Ricursive IntelligenceLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adgoldie/Azalia Mirhoseini — Co-founder and CTO, Ricursive IntelligenceLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azalia-mirhoseini-a5308522/Nikhil Kamath — Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of WTF is and People By WTF podcastsTwitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Listen to the podcasts on SpotifyWTF isPeople by WTFWTF Online#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline
- 3 weeks ago2 min
Who Gets To Decide How India Pays? | WTF is Payments? | Trailer
I wanted to start by drawing a diagram of the different kinds of payments and how we got here. We use UPI for everything from everyday purchases to applying for an IPO, but using it and understanding it are different things. What makes us choose one way to pay over another? What does it take to build trust? And why does a conversation about competition turn into a disagreement about who should be allowed to decide?This one moves from consumer incentives and bank regulation to the scale of UPI, caps on market share, and the possibility of AI agents transacting for us. There is disagreement over the costs, the timing, and whether changing commerce means payments must change too. Twenty pages of questions at the table, and one more subject waiting at the end: MDR.Sohini Rajola- Executive Director Growth at the National Payments Corporation of India.Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohinirajola/Sameer Nigam- Founder and CEO of PhonePELinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanigam/Harshil Mathur: Co-founder and CEO of RazorpayLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshilmathur/Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline
- Sep 11, 20263h 21m
Will ChatGPT Book Your Next Holiday? | MakeMyTrip x Taj Hotels | WTF is Travel?
Access the full data and references used in this episode below.Please open this alongside the episode while watching.Open Reference DocumentI put Rajesh Magow, the chartered accountant who co-founded MakeMyTrip on a team where almost nobody knew travel, and Puneet Chhatwal, the Delhi boy who spent twenty-eight years running hotels in Europe before coming home to pull IHCL out of a decade of losses, into one room to explain the business of Indian travel from scratch, and what came out was far bigger than a lesson, from why boutique hotels are better built by outsiders and how a fifty crore partnership between their companies became twelve hundred, to what a hotel actually pays to sit on MakeMyTrip and why booking direct still isn't cheaper, why ChatGPT can't scrape its way into the travel funnel and where voice bookings are taking tier-three India, why Puneet thinks the answer for a 25-year-old isn't another app but a small, clean hotel, why only ten million foreigners visit a country with more than forty UNESCO sites, what went wrong in Goa and where the next thirty Goas should be, why tourism being a state subject is the real bottleneck, and the full playbook both of them would run to take India from ten million tourists to a hundred million.Timestamp:00:00 Introduction07:03 Getting to Know the Guests14:30 How MakeMyTrip’s Hotel Partnerships Work21:45 Booking Direct vs Travel Apps28:26 Puneet Chhatwal’s Journey from Delhi to Europe35:01 Building Villa Stays & Solo Travel Businesses41:43 Will AI Change How We Book Travel?48:40 Customer Data vs Personal Hospitality55:43 Can Robots Replace Hotel Staff?1:03:05 Bringing Small-Town India into Online Travel1:09:52 Should Hotels Cut Out the Middleman?1:16:37 India’s Mid-Range Hotel Opportunity1:23:51 Marketing India & Fixing Tourism Taxes1:30:46 Mass Tourism vs Luxury Tourism in Goa1:38:26 Can Luxury Trains Attract Premium Tourists?1:44:44 Civic Sense & the Tourist Experience1:51:24 Making India’s Attractions Discoverable & Bookable1:58:44 Alibaug’s Potential & the Homestay Business2:05:56 Why Celebrations Are Driving Villa Bookings2:13:42 What Travel Business Should a 25-Year-Old Start?2:19:43 Handling Bad Experiences & Building Trust2:27:16 Nandan Nilekani & the Shift to Hotel Branding2:34:40 What It Takes to Run an Asset-Light Hotel Brand2:41:13 The Wellness Hotel Opportunity2:48:44 Building Travel Businesses for Gen Z2:56:16 Travel Education & New Business Ideas3:02:19 Unlocking Unexplored India3:08:42 Building New Destinations & Event Tourism3:15:38 Private Jet Economics & Closing ThoughtsRajesh Magow, Co-Founder & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip LimitedLinkedIn:<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajesh-magow-9278094/?utm_s
- Sep 3, 20262 min
India Is A Great Country To Travel From, Not To | WTF is Travel? | Trailer
I put the two companies most Indian holidays run through into one room, Rajesh Magow who co-founded MakeMyTrip and Puneet Chhatwal who runs IHCL, the company behind Taj, and what began as friendly needling over whose business is bigger and more profitable turned into the one question I couldn't let go of, why a country with this much coastline, culture and history gets barely ten million foreign visitors a year and what it would actually take to make that a hundred million, which pulled us through OYO's pivot, whether India's problem is marketing or the product itself, why tourism gets half a percent of GDP when every rupee spent on it comes back three times over, where the next Goa is, and the line that stayed with me, that India has become a great country to travel from and not the best country to travel to. Full episode drops soon.Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th
- Aug 10, 20261h 10m
The Battery Everyone Uses Is The One They'd Never Build | EnerVenue x HiNa | WTF are Batteries?
I went to Dalian with a selfish question. I run a fund that invests in energy transition, and I've come to think energy isn't the problem moving it and storing it is. So I sat down with Henning Rath, who runs EnerVenue out of Silicon Valley and is building his first gigafactory in Changzhou, and Tang Kun, who runs HiNa Battery, a sodium-ion company spun out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences that's now ten years old with 600 people and a gigawatt line. I told them I don't know anything about batteries and asked them to teach me. We started at what a cell even is, went through why the entire industry standardised on LFP and what a thermal runaway actually does, and then Henning told me something I hadn't heard: the world had over 14,000 LFP fires last year alone. I asked whether I should start an electric car company or a battery company when I get home. Both said battery and Henning was blunt about it: don't build anything that needs rare earth. Fifty million dollars to start. We got into nickel-hydrogen at 30,000 cycles, sodium carbonate at a tenth of what lithium carbonate costs, why solid state is still at level four out of nine, and the idea I keep coming back to that your car sits idle 98% of the time with a battery and a stack of chips doing nothing, and there's a version of this where every parked car is a micro data center.00:00 Introduction06:45 China's bet on chemistries beyond lithium12:14 Cell chemistry and the trade-offs it forces17:15 Thermal runaway and the limits of LFP22:44 Production quality and how long a battery lasts27:07 Why China won the electric car33:54 Decoupling a battery business from lithium and rare earths38:50 Sodium's cost advantage and its energy density ceiling43:51 Recycling nickel and renting the metal48:17 Where generation, storage and demand should sit54:05 Decentralization and the car as a grid battery1:00:19 Three super cycles and AI's power demand1:05:30 Automation, jobs and China's social contractFootage Courtesy: World Economic Forum (WEF) CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Source: https://www.weforum.org/videos/amnc26_summer_davos_highlights/Henning Rath, Chief Executive Officer at EnerVenueLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henning-rath/Kun Tang, Executive Chairman of HiNa BatteryLinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kun-tang-52a52327/Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFareBatteries #EnerVenue #HiNaBattery #SummerDavos
- Aug 9, 20260 min
Why The Next Battery Won't Need Lithium Or Rare Earth | Nikhil Kamath | WTF Is A Battery
I went into this wanting one answer, if I were starting something today, should it be an electric car company or a battery company and what I got back was narrower and more useful than I expected: don't build the thing that needs rare earth. We got into why sodium carbonate sits at roughly a tenth of what the equivalent lithium inputs cost, what $50 million actually buys you if you're starting this from scratch, why the world saw over 14,000 LFP fires last year alone and what that says about the chemistry everyone standardised on, and the part I keep coming back to that your car is parked 98% of the time in front of your house, and there's a version of this where that's not a dead asset but a micro data center. Every car a token factory. I didn't see that coming.Henning Rath, Chief Executive Officer at EnerVenueLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henning-rath/Kun Tang, Executive Chairman of HiNa BatteryLinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kun-tang-52a52327/Footage Source: BYD footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0oMa2jWXaMTesla footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50PU-cQx7j0Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFareBatteries #EnerVenue #HiNaBattery #SummerDavos
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About WTF is with Nikhil Kamath
"WTF is" is a podcast series where Nikhil Kamath hosts friends and industry experts and holds casual yet intellectually stimulating conversations. The podcast covers a broad range of topics of particular current relevance, including technology, social media, renewable energy, electric vehicles, philosophy, gaming, psychology and more.
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