Nithin Kamath on what to Invest In After AI, Finfluencer Drama, Deepfakes and more...

an enforces employee lost like 4 CR Rupees to scam what no I just read Lon mus biography and I'm like dude what am I doing with my life you know like you had a very interesting stat that you once gave out that less than 1% of people make more than FD returns in the market the whole wealth concentration problem on this planet is just going to accelerate in an AGI kind of a world right if I had some money now and I knew this future was coming should I invest in real estate gold in India real estate I think me and nikil are both quite bearish about this right I mean what are we paying for OnePlus open conversations

round two today we have none other than nian Kut and today I'm not going to talk about his trading story how did you get here none of that today we're going to talk about the future what happens if AI comes in it starts taking a few jobs what should you invest in we talk about Universal basic income we try to theorize on what that number is and then we also ask questions like what happened with influencers and sebbi is that really going to impact Finance businesses why is zeroda betting so aggressively on content and we also get latest insights and updates about the current startup narrative because Nathan's also an investor through his entity rain matter and they've learned many lessons investing in Founders working with other VCS that we'll hopefully get to learn today stay tuned this is not something you want to miss Nan is the myth the legend you know

everyone know knows him so I don't need to do an intro again naan I want to get straight into it firstly thank you so much for coming here secondly I want to start with the most pressing question of the hour which is I've been seeing this entire like sebbi influencer thing right and I saw your post on trading Q& A where you had your thoughts on it but I thought that was a very short post I wanted to know more about it I'll tell you what I think right I think obviously there are regular influencers then there are people who go and do stock tips right and I think we have to differentiate the two but I also know or maybe this is the narrative that a lot of zeroda you know new user onboarding at least in the past came from many of these influencers and the average person obviously driving traffic do you think this impacts you what do you think of this yeah no thanks for having me here and show showing me all your fancy you know stuff uh yeah so see thing is we haven't till dat spent any money marketing and advertising so every single customer almost has come through a through an influencer right as in so when we first started Zera you know one of the learnings from my previous AAR being a Trader a sub broker Etc is that people don't get up one day and decide to buy and sell stocks they're usually influenced by someone uh so the first thing we had done was actually set up this thing called as a an affiliate program you know so which is when was this 2010 when we the first thing on our website was uprising the second page was affiliate right because uh I wanted our customers to talk about us and also get a cut out of it right so in a way you know we were there and doing the same thing much before uh now the problem I think um with this whole barrage of content on everyone right I think it's everyone trying to build content I think the incentives are kind of a little skewed now is uh in the in the financial world at least people who maybe across you know people louder get more audience right so the incentive is always to be loud and what has happened is because with the newer generation influencers are people are making these claims which are not real right they're just saying stuff like you know it's easy to make money and this you know I bought a mercedes-ben trading markets you know in three months you had a very interesting uh stat that you once gave out that less than 1% of people yeah you know make money on the markets I mean make more than every returns in the market and uh and the thing is it's not just in the market right I mean even if you were to pick business right we've invested in a lot of businesses um out of every 100 businesses maybe one actually succeeds and the only easy thing about trading is really getting started trading right because starting business is tough right so you don't really have mass participation of sorts um yeah so coming back to your influencer thing I think uh the problem I had over the last two three years while it's benefited us as a businesses um you know influencers setting wrong expectation because the problem is if you set wrong expectation even if you introduce a customer he's going to get disappointed very quickly and the problem in the market is if you get disappointed you don't come back right and you not only not come back you'll probably go influence 10 other people around you to not invest in the markets right and we've seen this happen in every bull market cycle you know I've seen two large Cycles the 2007 2008 and the you know the before the dot one and in both the Cycles you know during Market the peak of the market you had a lot of activity and then it just falls off cliff because there's some form of you know wrong influencing happening in today's world it's a lot more because of social media and you know access to YouTube Etc but U so yeah my problem was that you know is that uh is that we need to have a check in terms of the kind of content influences are putting so but it is like I said you know it'll probably any regulation around is Will negatively affect the business in the shortterm but I think one of the things that we've done right at Zera is that we was constantly thought about long versus short turn and uh and you rather not have someone open an account get disappointed and not trade for life you want them to turn out yeah you don't want them to right and and the thing is one customer you know we've seen this historically One customer for us eventually ends up refering at least 25 30 other customers so it's almost like I have a wested interest to ensure that customer remains active in the markets and the only way he will is if he comes and kind of Trades invest with the right expectations in mins interesting and this I think everything flows back to this flood of content that's suddenly going out on the internet right I think

even the number of scams have increased because YouTube yes it's like 500 600 million people but also WhatsApp is huge and everyone has a WhatsApp account and you've been so vocal I've seen so many tweets on my timeline of you know nithan saying this person this is a new type of scam if you go to Instagram there'll be like five accounts let say Varun Maya and they're all trying to like get people in some crypto scheme or some you know invest I'll give you five rupees if you do this activity how do we deal with this it's like a lot of people don't get the information of this is a scam yeah no I mean so what we've done at zeroda right is that every time you figure that someone's trying to manipulate a stock um so we have this user experience called nudge so on the trading app itself we build like this alert mechanism so if a customer is trying to buy a stock which is getting manipulated we warn the customer saying you know what there's someone manipulating it it's almost impossible to control what's happening on WhatsApp and telegram actually uh because at least with YouTube there is some trail right as in there'll be some affiliate link or there'll be something there'll be something you know with telegram and WhatsApp there's nothing so it's really hard and uh yeah so I think the best we can do is really uh like you know intermediary like us can spot these cams fast and then maybe alert the user that's really the best and uh but I think SE has been doing an amazing job taking strict action wherever there's some trail right as in actually go after those people and then and punish them and that's really I think the best way you can solve for this yeah but there's just so many independent actors who SE just can't go after everyone because these are not technically influencers right these could be like really small accounts just got your number from some leak so it just feels like it puts everyone in a tough spot and I my personal experience of this is when I was like from 19 or 20 there's someone who sent me a message saying I'll sell you PlayStation for 5,000 rupees brand new PlayStation right some something they had figured out so they like I'll sell it at 5,000 I got scammed and after that I've been I am beware of every WhatsApp message I'm like I I've got screwed once so do you feel like it's a trial by fire you have to get screwed once and then you just like aware and aw I mean you got lucky

that it was a 5,000 rupe scam right as in how much of the scams now I mean people once they get sucked into it right it can go as high I mean other day I you know we came across this case an enforces employee you know a friend I think it came in the papers as well lost like 4 CR rupees uh to scam you know so what yeah narrate the story how did that happen no I mean uh this was not stock related but it's someone calling up saying you know your parcel has got stuck at the customs and there is some whatever I think narcotics in it and then you know he getting you know fall you know I think he started with five LS and then just kept adding on I mean there are a lot of such cases happening right now wow it's like now it feels like it's a lot of social engineering and I mean it's tough time I mean you what you just showed me on what AI can do I it's just ridiculous right as like you can uh yeah I could run an ad saying hey I'm ntin Kut right please go buy this stock I can do that right now I thing is I'm not going to because but there'll be some motivated Bad actors who will yeah cuz like many of these repositories some of the AI stuff that I showed you is open source so it's scary so thing is um uh we you know during onboarding a customer we have this process called

inperson verification right we ensure that the person opening the account oh you can easily cheat that yeah you know so now the question is you know there's a question to the entire financial industry right because today we use that inperson verification as one of the ways to ensure the person opening the account is the same person now if that can be cheated do you go back to opening physical accounts then and because if it's going to have it's going to be a nightmare like a mega impact on the entire industry I mean Banks Brokers insurance nbfcs and all of them you know so like um so yeah so it'll be interesting to see how regulations around this play out I think at some point we will ship uh Hardware to people which is maybe for irisk verification or Thum print verification because to be very honest cheating uh a kyc on you know a webcam is easy like it's been easy for four five years there's this repository called Deep face live where I can put on any face I want and in fact I can just clip out the face from somebody's passport plug it on my face it will cheat the algorithm it will cheat whatever is you know uh getting you into the kyc so I feel it's been possible for a while but now it's like one click yeah it was much harder ear also it's like I said when you showed me that video I couldn't spot it was fake right as in uh I think some of what we had seen you know we've seen these cases but we have like a manual check you know it's a person sitting and tracking this and we also have this sending out an OTP you know to check the liveliness ETC but you know which he has to display and but yeah now I think you know we're thinking about it like how do you how do we solve for this problem because uh I think it'll have to be Hardware you'll have to have a thumb print everyone will need to buy a thumb print thing or phones will have it right phones can kind of already do it yeah but what do you match it against yeah right the thing about you know person verification is so you know when you do it so today typically you know you look at the photo on Adar and you match it saying you know your other photo matches with the inperson verification but if you don't so you need to have access to some master database of sorts do we have that of fingerprints in India no with Adar there is biometric as well but uh that means then you will have to send the device to the customer right because no customer is going to buy I think it'll already be on phones like if you yeah I mean today isn't but I'm guessing phones will have to evolv over time in this year yeah what a world we're entering so you

know this flood of content is like it's very interesting to me right because three years ago actually preo you wouldn't have expected this but today the average Indian is spending four five hours a day on video I mean you guys are also creating a lot of content now you have Zing you have the Zera Channel Nichols part even though it's kind of independent is still part of the entire ecosystem why are you going so crazy on content and also maybe a followup like is there some insight that you've learned from Nel's podcast that you could apply broadly to all the content you guys are doing now so thing is um so right from day one the first thing I did when we started Zer started blogging right and because I knew that the superpow we had as a business right from day one is transparency right because um generally Financial Services firms are very opaque in the way they work right because you can't have a CEO of a company and coming in just talking whatever he wants you know uh so I knew that it's an edge so we started blogging so we spent a lot then Karthik started building Varsity in 2013 so it was all in text right and that was really and I used to spend I think from 2011 I probably spent like two hours a day talking to journalists until 2017 18 right because the way you get see you as a business of money you're trying to build trust and credibility right so you have to build your own content and you also want to be you know I mean Economic Times for example was is like you know is a rockstar in credibility right as in as a you know so uh how do you get more features on you know some of the you know mainstream media channels Etc so but I think 2016 onwards the effort started having like a ding result of sorts um why I think people stopped consuming traditional content you I think that's a switch that started happening from 2016 right as in uh the viewership of English business channels started dropping or uh you know people picking up newspapers and reading it stopped and you know so you started seeing that happening and uh I actually was really late to the social media scene as well you know so I still don't use insta I mean in the sense I have an account but I really just you know uh is that for the sake of it yeah as in you know every time I say something in Twitter I screenshot it I mean someone in the office screenshots and Sayan share this um and uh so I went I think I started on LinkedIn in 2018 uh started on Twitter I think around 2019 uh but until then I used to really be the you know person managing zeroda social media handles I also realized that you know as if something's coming through the business handles you know the platforms have started you know kind of throttling the reach of sorts um so yeah so I think all of this plus this YouTube right I think I knew really early that this is the place to be uh in 2015 I ran a prank in the office uh I you know got like these Canada actors to come raid our office as cops and you know we captured this whole thing and so I knew back then that this is a place to be and I had like all you know all these random kind of ideas that video Mr Beast but Zera version yeah and uh and no one right as no one would ever think a stock broker running a prank video of cops raiding the office saying the founder is a cheat and he's run away you know I mean the reaction on that video is just crazy I think half our office is crying on that day um and um uh but I think in this whole Rush of building the business it was a slip right I think we were there before everyone else uh all this focus on content that we are doing right now I think we should have done it in 201617 and uh I think we lost a little bit on the competition there because some of the newer Brokers came in because you know in my head that whole transition of the primary search moving from Google to YouTube like it didn't register you know like but you had some experience that's the thing right like with new technology they look like toys in the beginning like the AI stuff if you look at it 6 months ago we did some demos 6 months ago I was like okay it felt like a toy but it's almost like you can't tell whether it's going to transition from a toy to a serious thing I mean even without business right as in um in 2020 the a right you know total our customers asked asss under management was maybe 15,000 crores right and uh I don't think any of our peers you know the bank Brokers looked at us very seriously because they're like okay you're making some profits but what eventually matters is what is the a of the business right as in how much do customers trust you with their assets today it's three and a half lakh cres you know so I'm saying both sound like Heavenly numbers to me no 10,000 cres is not much you know I mean in the sense it is not it's not your money right it's customers is holding assets with you right isn't but three and a half lakh cres we are in the league of some of the bank Brokers today right as in that's and I'm guessing today people take us a lot more seriously than I'm not talking about 2010 when no one even realized what we are I'm talking 2020 when we were decently big as a broker right as in like I keep telling in the office that there is no status quo in today's world right as in uh everyone's going to get disrupted and it's you just have to stay sharp and ners and there is no other way to build a business so content is going to be like a big spent for you guys over the next but the problem is I don't like I don't know like so today you know every day I get up um I have five newsletters to look at I have my Economic Times newspaper I have I'm like dude I mean who's I mean why are we just adding to the cognitive burden on this planet by just creating more content

yeah but I have a Counterpoint to this I watch Nel's podcast and I think that has incredible viewership because it's not just hey here's a 10piece seg segment on I don't know some something some industry right it's Nel grilling the founders or like having fun with them it's like it's also a lot of casual stuff feels like coffee with curen but you know business that is never going to go away because that's not something you need to push on to people they will come watch it no see thing is for nikil I think it's his super power right because I've known him from childhood I'm seven years older to him but I think from my time I was in like maybe 17 18 every time I had to go out of go out in town for a party or Etc he'll say you know what I know the owner of this hotel you know he'll you know you you'll not charge your cover charge you know why don't you go here and so that whole socializing and with the right kind of people I think right now he is probably just two people away from anyone on this planet you know in the sense the degree of separation is just that so one is that and second as a investor Trader uh I think the whole you need to be curious there is no other way right every about every industry otherwise you know you miss out on opportunity so that is like almost like his uh what he does for a living which is trying to be curious about you know opportunities out there so this is anyway what he do but he's doing it on a table yeah but what I'm saying is there's no cognitive burden on the user watching correct no but the thing is if

10 other such channels come up doing similar stuff right then it is a burden right like I mean in a sense you know I consume I listen to a lot of podcast and I do it while I'm driving while I'm

working out while I'm running and now I've just come down to maybe 2 or three uh you know one is unacquired then there is I love I binge on history so you know there is this Empire um so that's it because I'm and maybe all in once in a while but uh it's just become too much because in the US quality of

content so high like if you listen to it you know you want to you can just spend the whole day listening to different podcasts right today in India it's easy to stand out but given everyone everyone's interest now to you know kind of be in this game and keep upping the game I don't know I mean I don't know what will help you stand out I mean eventually would you just end up adding cognitive burden and the other problem

is if you have a lot of similar kind of content people producing content then you are forced to then up the game and sometimes when upping the game you can take shortcuts or do some stupidity right make mistakes yeah you know like you try to start pleasing the audience and I think you lost the game right as in yeah you start saying things you don't want to say but you know will pull your VI you know and for me being on social media I struggle with that you find it scary I mean stupidly scary I in because I have checks and balances in place in the office you know I have this three people team who have the right to kill everything that I want to see and uh so I usually draft something sleep over it and I that's a very painful way to use Twitter yeah you know on Twitter there's a rule right it's called the main character rule every day on Twitter there's one main character right who is getting cancelled right who is being hung in front of everybody else the goal of Twitter is to never be the main character you have 365 days a year into whatever 50 years or whatever your goal is to never be the main character the problem is the more famous you are the more Envy you generate like one of the questions I was going to ask you is well last few years especially over the last year it's just both you and nikil right you both catapulted not just as businessmen but also as you know public figures and I feel that will come with its own burdens of the pros are amazing right distribution the cons are also Envy the cons are oh my god I've got to be careful about everything I say the cons are you know you have a team around you and you're like cut that cut this cut that it's like it's you you're being super careful right cognitively how you how do you deal it because to be very honest as a consumer as somebody who actually cares I really want to see you tweet I don't care I just want the pro right and I feel like to be very honest I can trust you a lot more because you're bootstrapped but I've met Venture funded Founders I've seen them twe EET I know what it is like closed doors and you know this thing with you and nikil it's kind of the same thing no I think both of us in a way you know probably Gans right I think one of the reasons say my social media works or his podcast works is because there is no real agenda behind it in the sense I I'm okay to go and say stuff that hurts the industry like if you were to ask me about influencers I'm okay to say I'm conflicted and on one hand it probably helps the business but maybe it's not the right thing to be happening maybe there's regulation required right so uh so I think just putting out that vulnerability is all right and that freedom comes actually from not having investors or you know saying get up and you know having to grow every day right as in um so I think some people get it wrong by trying to be a little salesy right as you're constantly selling something um I look at my social media as more like it's your personal social media I mean not even that I'm like if something there's something that can help someone else I should be going out there and saying it you know if it's about health it's about Finance it's about climate whatever you know if I know something or I feel something that's going to help someone else I'll go and say it but I really don't like this where people like you and it's a lot of other people like you who are like I should be very concealed about my thoughts and be very careful because I feel like that's valuable information for the next generation of entrepreneurs to learn from and just because there like a few people who want to sit the day I stop being CEO of a regulated business I'll probably do that you know so you know I mean I was just looking at Alon musk's and all that interview I'm like just I'm just mindblowing you wish you could do that like the audacity right as in it's just I mean now I think especially you know running a regulated business right as in uh it's hard to be you know just out there putting out your point of view I think you have to be in the same Center you can't take uh you can't at least you know you can have you know extreme opinions but I don't think you can go out and publicly can you give me a story of where maybe you've said something and the regulation part has actually hurt you no I mean I haven't said it so it's not hurt me you know but you know the fear is there you know so those checks and so the thing is uh you know uh like I am like my usual decision-making framework is I need to know the worst case outcome before doing anything so I wouldn't have said something um I think I've done some stupidity for example my last birthday um you know uh like I had taken a pick after my workout and I was like you know I'm not going to share this stuff and because people around me were like you know nothing you need to share and then uh you know Nik me and bunch of us got together had a couple of Tequilas and you it got shared and uh but I know that was stupidity but I knew you know I had made P saying that you know this will probably come across wi but it's okay you know if a 40 plus year old is you know is having some midlife crisis it's it's one you know so uh it's but yeah but it's really hard and know I have realized when I'm traveling I'm tweeting more I'm on a holiday I'm tweeting more because I'm having that K it's dopamine it's not even dopamine it's like oh I'm not working enough let me do something do so like if I if you see like a lot of frequenc sudden increas in frequency I'm either going through holiday or having I'm kind of questioning myself on how much value no I just read Lon mus biography and I'm like dude what am I doing with my life you know like you know he's running six businesses working like you know what he says like constantly working you know I'm maybe not working you know so yeah so every time there is um questions like that I uh a lot more questions in my mind I have realized that I'm usually Tweeting or sharing more on social media and yeah I'll tell you a slightly

cancelable take I have but I think a lot of smart people agree right that AI is just getting better right and there is this let's just say for now a myth of something called artificial general intelligence where there will be a day and the definition of AGI everyone has different definitions my definition and the definition of companies like open AIS all economically viable work can now be done by one of these systems I do think we're going to get that some point right and on this podcast I want to discuss that future you're the best person to discuss it with because I think a lot of things are going to change because in post AGI economics if everything is created you know in abundance what happens to money right and there's a lot of theorizing right so you don't have to be right it's just I would love to hear this from you right yeah no mean more than money what will you do with your time is a question right and this is something I keep thinking about because I have a eight-year-old son and I'm like you know in a world where he's going to grow up where maybe he'll have more time than anyone you know anyone any human has had in the history like what is he doing right you know me and kalash keep talking about this as well um I think it's about finding something meaningful to do which is more important than you know before you think about money right as in like have hobbies it could be something it could be cooking you know like I take I have a lot of fun playing music to myself you know I pick up a Guitar I sing to myself I don't need an audience right but that 30 40 minutes I spend with my you know with myself just you know I enjoyed quite a bit I love playing sports so just playing the sport is I think I think people have to first figure that stuff out as in you know you have to assume that you'll have more time on your hand figure something to do which will give you some bit of happiness doing it can't just be scrolling and watching content all day right as it has to be something else uh so I think first is that now when it comes to money yeah I mean I don't know it's a really tough question um it's and also how you know will this just accelerate this whole wealth concentration problem right because if you know if a company could generate x amount of wealth with a lck people if they need only 90,000 or say 50,000 people so the companies invested just made more wealth you know so the whole wealth concentration problem this on this planet is just going to accelerate in an AGI kind of a world right as in I mean forget AGI I mean just where we are in terms of AI I think over the next one two years uh and the thing is historically you know if you look at humankind every time well concentration has accelerated it led to some Civil War of sorts yeah and you know the precondition for civil war is the old Nobles have to fall right so right now the current white collar workers have to fall and it's so sad that AI is coming for them first in way right like people like me so the old Nobles get very dissatisfied and they have connections one degree connections to the you know the elite and that causes like Society just collapse internally right um but what do you

think is going to be more valuable would you okay actually I'll ask you right real estate you think if I had some money now let's assume and I knew this future was coming should I invest in real estate gold I mean in India real estate I think me and nikila both got bearish about this you know so I mean what are we paying for right as in um like you know when we set up a foundation in 2020 and the first project we picked up was a restoration project and uh it's 100 Acre piece of land next to the forest in krishnagiri and so you know this guy was trying to turn it into a Willa project and he said dude you know you have elephants coming here Bears coming here and all you know this endanger species you know you can't turn this into a project right you so he said let's kind of take this and restore it so and then he started asking for a prize it's in the middle of nowhere the land has zero yield you can't grow nothing you know I know I'm like you know how are you as in what is the logic for asking say 20 lakh rupees an acre in the middle of nowhere and you know it's just that and and makes absolutely no sense and the problem of this inflated land prices in the country it's also hurting the economy uh because through the foundation we work with social sector which is you know working with a lot of people you know working in The Villages Etc and a lot of farmers today have this notional value of their land now think about it right you know if your land is worth 20 lakhs an acre would you work for a year to generate 20,000 rupees from it you wouldn't you'll say let me just sell half of it and live off it for the next 10 years right as in why would thinking the incentive system is bad there yeah and it's all the root CA is the land price this inflated land price let see the way you need to look at land is very similar to how you would look at a business right say if you uh you know if you can rent an apartment for say 25,000 rupees a month or say three lakh rupees a year it should know that apartment can't be costing more than like 5% if you assume as Le yield you know it shouldn't be costing more than say 7 lak rupees you can't be spending 2 CR rupees on an apartment and be earning 3 lakh rupees right it doesn't make it the M doesn't add up you know so yeah so I think the land prizes in the country you know are inflated so in a world like this it doesn't I wouldn't be investing in real estate but the question is let's say the salary tab goes to zero you can't rent right you know at some point in the future you can't actually rent this so in that scenario would you go spend all your money investing see the thing is everyone needs a house for sure right I mean like to house to live in is at it's a non-negotiated I mean it's just peace of mind I mean it's you know it's going to give you freedom to do a lot more in your life so absolutely everyone needs to go buy a house you know uh like one place to call I think you call it a home and but as an investment it would make sense you know I mean if you also thing is India is not getting younger anymore right as in while we have this demographics on our side I think 10 20 years from now we'll be an older population as well I mean if you go to Europe right now like countries like ital average is like closing on 50 years and I mean you can buy a village for what you pay for an apartment here you know yeah absolutely yeah so because there are no people right see in uncertain times

historically gold has worked yeah right so you're better on gold I mean if I had to like keep money somewhere like uh I think gold is not I mean not as jewelry of course right buy some gold ETFs buy some gold bees or whatever I mean it I mean usually everyone's West I mean it's not like I don't have real estate U but everyone is invested in real estate so people don't like listening to someone having a negative view on real estate no that's okay right you're not going to get cancelled for this but okay gold real estate what

else would you still invest in mutual funds you have put on the bootstrap hat right now not the Hat I'm saying like 10 years down the line when things get really bad if they get see the thing is you have to if like I said AI I think is going to just help companies become more efficient right which means they'll probably start generating more income not across all companies but I think it's you probably start picking up companies and indices which will benefit out of efficiency right as in and uh but the thing is I think the overall impact on the on Humanity will be so large so I don't know if you can just pick up pockets of you know companies and say you know what somehow I'll beat it you know so I think everyone will get affected right do yeah so uh so I don't know U see I'm invested in the markets so in a sense all my net worth is tied to how Indian markets do uh yeah so in a way I'm conflicted there as well so I'm extremely bullish on India because generally you know we're a we're one of the last few countri trees

are still growing um we seem to have good demographics so I don't know I mean how AI is the you know the Joker in the pack you know like how that'll impact all of this but uh but if it impacts India it's going to impact everyone like including the rest of world right I think India's done a great job of telling the story of India you was you put out a tweet on this that Americans want to invest in India Americans don't America is so torn on social media that everyone feels like we're living in a dumpster it's not actually like but the narrative has gotten really bad but India this tight control of narrative externally exporting The Narrative they've done a good job so it feels like I know people from outside were like is there a way to get into India right so that's I think your Tweet said that yeah no also no see

the thing is um so I have friends you know I mean I'm sure we all have friends right but I I take great interest in figuring out what Indians are doing outside India and because it's a potential target market for us we don't have a product for them today uh because um it's very hard for an NRI to be investing in India so we're trying to solve for some of it but that business interest is there to figure what Indians are doing with their wealth outside and you know what is the kind of Life they're leading Etc I mean I think

you know what you seeing in Europe I mean this whole you know countes moving to the right you know this whole nationalis nationalization nationalism coming to the Forefront as in I think like in the last three months I have had three people that I know who have been mugged in the US right Indians right just for the color of the skin right and of course they were in the wrong neighborhood because they made everything about race yeah you know so it's just becoming that and it's just I think you know and it's always just one incident away right I don't know what will be that one incident that'll just make it all you know nasty right and um us is at least all right but I think Europe for example is in a much you know trickier spot for immigrants and Etc so yeah so my question usually you know

for people going around the country is see the education is anyways not valuable as in a sense I you probably can find it all for free right as in you're going there as a as a way to get a job right and but you don't want them to settle there yeah this been this thing never settle there no but it's not possible once you spend so much money on that education you have to settle there to make it back right so I mean I I don't want the smartest people of this country to go out of the country right as in it's uh so you know if you would ask me what excites me most about Zera the fact that we are helping India financialized right as in today our customers like I was saying hold like three and a half lak rows of Securities with us otherwise this money could potentially have been in I don't know real estate of gold or fixed deposits where it's not really helping the economy in anyway I think what India

needs is this whole culture of Indians investing in entrepreneurs right and usually the first step of this is public markets right I mean if you invest in stocks you then start questioning oh is there a way to invest in a company early right as in then you know your friend comes to you and says you know what I have a business idea uh and if you have the money you're you know you think oh maybe I should give some money to this person right and so you think it'll move from public markets to like seden all the way to seden absolutely as in I mean that's what we want I mean that's the hope I mean that's why I get up every day excited about Z saying you think if there was a way to allow the public markets to invest in early stage companies you would facilitate that absolutely so as in uh I think one of the big problems I have is like so there's I think what 60 70 billion dollar of money that got invested in the India startup ecosystem and 90% of that is foreign right which also means that 90% of all the wealth was get got created outside India right and historically I don't think any country has gotten wealthy with weth getting created somewhere else right I mean it's another form of East India Company right as in if I know of course you know East India gave us railroads English spoons Etc but all the wealth got created somewhere else right as in so you know if we want this country to get inclusively rich we need Indians to be backing Indian entrepreneurs right and U and that's really the core of like you know I mean the only reason I am still so excited about everything that we're doing at zeroda or at rain matter Etc because everything is just saying that you know the outcome of that is is potentially this happening okay so do

some math okay post AGI math let's say there is universal basic income let's say people lose a lot of people lose their livelihood and the government says okay I'm going to give you some money the first and most obvious problem I see with this is that there's a two-party system everyone says my number is 6,000 next guy 7,000 but if you were you know with all your experience what is the number do you think that every person in India or every household would get let's say if AGI happened tomorrow no I think before that number I thing you need public goods in this country right you need you know your basic which is your education your medical your infra like your transport your food that has to be taken care of you know I don't think uh you know you should even talk about Ubi until you have all of that in place right as in and so you're saying first Universal basic resources in a way you give everyone certain you would give everyone certain resources yeah access to the resource you know without having to you know like how some of the Nordic countries have done it right I in you shouldn't be getting up and saying I don't have you know I don't have money to send my SCH kid to the school that shouldn't happen you know everyone should have access to education every should access to um you know to be able to move from one place to another uh without having to buy a car and Etc so it's I think those public goods have to be kind of first worked on after that

what is really the number that is required I don't know I mean it's a it's just I don't even know if I'm qualified to call that number it's fine like most likely it's not going to be the number no but I'm saying I would like to hear your viewpoint on it yeah I mean see the thing is government does government have access to you know that kind of resource to pay everyone that number I mean that is a math government will have to do right um but I think there are some of these things in India right which you can potentially tweak around which can actually help government get access to a lot of resources like your we tax inheritance tax the rich Farm you think the taxes will go up has to right I mean where else will the money come from there is if you want to cover for everyone and you want to spend so much on the infra and public goods money has to come from somewhere and um I personally think inheritance taxes I mean no person who's financially made it would say it but I think it's almost unfair not to have inheritance tax right because um know I've realized that as you know as you keep concentrating wealth it just becomes so much more easier to make money right as in I mean today it's a lot more easier for me to make I don't know like a million dollars compared to what it was 10 years back right and so the thing is so then it keeps getting easier for the guys on the top right and then you know if you can if you keep passing on that well generationally from one generation to another it I don't know it's just queued against the overall you know you're right inher inheritance tax no I mean in the sense it has to you have to you know every time we change hands there has to be some distribution of it right I'm saying because then it kind of it helps the society as well you know I mean if you're assuming that eventually there is going to be a Civil War at some point right because this concentration of wealth at some point is going to lead to Civil War like an inheritance tax actually slows down the problem right because then the jenta knows that you know something's being done right it's in know counterintuitive but I think it's smart to have something like this uh because then you know you're not kind of pushing the society to that brink of sorts you know if you can like it's

cities right I mean of course you know if you're in a village you can survive with lesser so I think it's a maybe per capita I don't know from where the money will come you know if you have to give like you know two2 and half thousand to every individual a year yeah I mean we'll have to figure out I mean that also has to be there right there has to be money to be able to be paid out as well yeah sounds scary and do you

feel like in this world with all the abundance with all the free time what do you think you will do I'm loving my binging into history uh my music my sports and also you know just spending time with my son to help him figure what he will do with his free time when he is because he'll probably have a lot more time to lead in a world where you'll have a lot of free time you know and I'm constantly trying to pick up on Hobbies which will just keeps me excited and also with what we do through rain matter I probably spend like 10 20% of my time on that both on the foundation the climate side or the investing side both sides you know I mean the way we think about it is like how for-profits can solve for some of the problems the social sector also can solve for some problems think about

the government right running a country is really hard right you know I mean I find it really hard running Zera which is probably like 1200 people right I mean you know think of a country of 150 cres then how does government run it the way we think about social sector is you know they go experiment pick up small problems experiment you know kind of have MVPs of sorts show the results to the government and see if you can then help the government make right decisions right I mean that's how we think of social sector and because

eventually the biggest impact is when the government acts I mean you can do any amount of donation philanthropy it makes no difference I mean the entire India philanthropy is maybe less than how much Maharashtra spends on education right in the sense it'll you know it is it can never match up you know whatever money you spent so yeah I spend 10 20% of my time on this but it adds a lot of meaning on the remaining 70 80% of my life right as in otherwise you know I would probably just questioning saying what am I doing with my life yeah uh you've been investing

through rain matter for a very long time and you've been very vocal about the entire ecosystem right fact that startups are overvalued that there's now an incentive problem because of liquidation preference you know the tweet that you put up was great but I'd like you to expand upon it because I'll tell you what I've noticed now it's strange VC's always want to be told because they're also selling it to you know the private Equity Funds outside that India is a big Market that everything in India is like you know the math is always based on the kind of the YouTube math right 600 million people on YouTube 800 million people on phones and internet and therefore you'll have this many transacting users I feel like now Founders are going out and telling VCS who say that hey it's Market's large Founders are now saying no markets are not large which is strange because Founders actually need to tell that story if they want to raise vure Capital otherwise it makes no sense right you can cannot build a big outcome business so my question to

you is you've learned thousands of lessons what is like three lessons you think everyone should know no I mean I think just be real you know this the problem I've realized is this um is that you know as a I mean as people building businesses right we are storytellers right and sometimes we oversell right and it's very easy to that oversold story to think that it's real you know I mean you keep saying the same story many times you just reinfor for it somehow right as then you start believing in the story like know there are people like for example in our industry experienced folks who come to me and said naan there are I don't know 10 CR people who have demand accounts today and in 3 years four years there'll be 40 cror I'm like what you smoking I mean like where are this you know where the remaining 30 CR people who don't have money to put food on the table start investing in the markets that doesn't what is going to transform around the world that's going to make this happen so the thing is the problem is if you set wrong expectations to your yourself to your team to your investors then you're forced to go meet that expectation and that's really the problem I mean once you said the wrong goals you're just chasing something which is not out there right and it's very hard to get there and you know if you see all the people overspending on acquiring customers or um giving stupid deals to retain customers I mean all of this is just to meet up to a wrong expectation that was set to an investor so if there is a correct there if Founders are going out there and telling more real stories to the investors that's amazing you know I mean more of that should happen and um but do you also feel like when you set very correct expectations in India which I think people should also we start seeing many of these billion dollar opportunities disappear yeah I don't think today you can have as many unicorns as we had last year right as in inent India isn't such a large market yet the better is that it'll be in the future at some point of time and we all want that to happen but it isn't and it's it's okay I mean see thing is you know we're building a country and there is no quick way to do this and um I mean I still can't get the obsession with the word unicorn I don't think now anyone cares no word like you know for a while I think everyone media frenzy was like now unicorn has almost become like you know like people get scared you know the word unicorn so I don't think unicorn people care but uh but yeah know I mean it is corrected and it's farther better but it's very hard to say I mean certainly there's you know today it's corrected because there's not enough Capital available if tomorrow VC's again go into the frenzy of deploying Capital into India it would not correct it'll just go back to the same thing right because then no but I think now Founders a wiser second time third time Founders a wiser I don't know know I mean I think it is it's just you know they're all playing by the market of sorts you know they know that today's market being real is what will probably get them dollars that's because the dollars are not available for people who are exaggerating but if tomorrow it's again one of those you know times where VCS are flush with money and they have to deploy and their deployment is going to be based on who's going to sell the most exaggerated story we'll probably go back I mean we have seen this happen cyclically it's not like you know it's a new phenomenon yeah it's like you know I mean India VC you know isn't more than a 10 year old phenomena but if you look at VC's in the US it keeps happening you know every cycle you know it happened in 2007 it happened during it happened you know 2020 2021 so you know every 10 years 15 years you have that one cycle where you know people think oh you know what all entrepreneurs are you know are wiser now and they will not do any of those mistakes but eventually there is greed there is you know with all of these things around you know we'll end up doing I think entrepreneurs end up doing the same mistakes over and over again and you what do you think about the current entrepreneurs who are kind of stuck there like who who' raised a lot of money who have like 50 million in the bank 100 but mentally checking out are you seeing a lot of that yeah I mean it's like being in a bad marriage right and and like I said you know a bad marriage is when you marry someone setting the wrong expectation right I mean you go out on a few dates and you make yourself to be like this person who you aren't and then you know the partner realizes you aren't this person then it's a bad marriage and it's really hard to get out of a bad marriage you know so are the founders in a bad marriage with the idea or the investors or the money with the investors but then that kind of that you know that spreads out to everything right but once you know you can't just get away from it right you can't if you're taken money it's an obligation you have you can't say you know what I'm going to just switch off and do something else tomorrow doesn't you're kind of stuck and U you know once you raise the money you have sold a dream to your team which is actually the hardest part of the business you know investors you probably meet once in a quarter in a Clos room right now if you sold you know you miss sold ex you know to your team that's when you have to look at their faces yeah but I think good Founders take care of the teams no matter what but the thing is you take care of them but then if you've sold wrong dreams you know the root cause of all of this is money right as in too much of money and anytime there is excess Capital it just has all these weird outcomes um I think for even for a Founder I think you know when you said lessons the other I think the big lesson here is to is too much of money is a problem because then you know you want to go after too many opportunities you lose extremely ambitious yeah I mean you have this Kea of wanting to do everything and you know assuming that money can somehow solve for all problems and money doesn't money rarely solves for anything at all in life so the way you know my mental framework at Zera has been that all these Moon shots that comes as you know ideas Etc we'll do it through rain matter we'll invest in it yeah rather than trying to do it ourselves because otherwise almost all the fintech Investments that we have done we could have just built it ourselves but if we had attempted that I think we would have lost focus on our core product right and also you need Founders to run the ships yeah I mean of course but thing is even what's the worst that can happen I lose that money invested right I mean that's really the worst that can happen right but if you if I had attempted that idea I would have probably lost on my core product offering as well which means I would have probably potentially hurt my business as well so I mean that's how we have thought about it Zer saying that anything which is adjacent to what we do as a business buiness let's just partner was us trying to do this ourselves interesting I mean it's a lot of I been found myself right so I've been through some of this not at the scales that many other people have played at but still very interesting to learn these lesson I wish somebody came and told me these like 10 years ago right um yeah no I mean this is not like you know I was born with it this are all learned from mistakes itself interesting and how do you correct this do you think staging is like a better idea do you think like we should have set stages is like a seed only goes still here A series a only goes to here second time founder premium is not as high how do you like if you had to change it what would you do in the last one or two years you know a lot of blame has been put on the Indian founder uh I think the blame

lies as much on the investor because you know the investor is the one who experienc whose time I mean the only thing the investor is doing is sitting and thinking right he's got no other job right I mean he's just thinking and deploying Capital which is a Founder has thousand things to do right as in like you to run a business take care of the team all of this so I think it's the investor who has to be setting the expectations right so if um I don't know what can be done to fix it uh but uh I think India needs like a bunch of good VCS who you know who temper down expectations go out and communicate correctly and um I think it'll help the I mean like when I say some of these things right as in on social media it is uh I know that I have the privilege to say some of these things because um but many VCS can't like I'm sure a lot of VCS think this but they've also raised Capital they have LPS like I empathize with everybody like I feel like it's money that becomes the villain in all of this right but I empathize with everybody I'm like as a Founder you have like a million things to do as a VC you you've also told a story to raise LP Capital LP is limited partners so VCS don't invest their own money they raise money from other people so it's just yeah it's a it's a messy thing and the media is obviously celebrating you cons no but

media enjoys the downward Journey more than the upward Journey you know so it's uh I think there is I think they do both no enjoyment is more from downward for sure the number of views for all the good news you know the viewership they got for the good news on ettech probably will be a fraction of all the bad news they get on E Tech right you know so it's a do you have opinions on that on how the Medias on that media no but that's see the thing is that's you know even today the thing about the game that's you know you're going to do what is going to get more viewership right as in and that's you know coming back to the whole influencer topic right that's the problem you know which is if you're going to do what's going to get you more views you have an incentive to just be loud and say things which are not real right because the louder you are the more audience you get right and U it leads to kind of bad outcomes and but I don't know I mean I don't know what's the right way to fix these problems interesting I have one last question for

you they're competitors that Z has and I think obviously they're nowhere close in terms of Revenue or you know Pat but they are making headwind in terms or rather they are making progress in terms of you know user growth do you guys think about this of course and do you think that at some point you might change the advertising no advertising strategy are you hard set on that yeah see the thing is today as Z we don't have a product for someone who doesn't have an intent to invest or trade right I mean so we you know what we have is if you have an intent to invest or trade we have a platform we have many platforms if you have an intent to learn how to trade we have education you know bunch of things around education but if you're someone who don't have either we don't really have a product for you right and so today since we don't have a mass Market product that I can you know go and on the street and sell it to anyone I don't see the point of advertising right I mean um and now advertising you know regulation you know in a regulated business like ours we are not allowed to sell greed right in the sense you can't go adti saying you can make money with me or quickly Etc so what are you advertising you're really advertising saying um you know my platforms the best I'm the cheapest which is what everyone advertises then how do you really stand out by marketing and advertising one is that the second problem is I don't see the thing is this is how we have thought about it I don't know if it's the right way to think about it or not the second problem is today when a

customer comes to us we don't have a c right that means I'm not thinking oh I spend 2,000 Rupees to acquire this customer I need to recover this from the customer so you don't do Shady things it's not even shady as in so there is no you know in internally in a business there is no one thinking of a customer's Revenue right and in a financial services business if you start thinking of every customer's Revenue you can potentially do stuff which is not right for the customer right I mean walk into a bank today you'll come out with a bad product someone would have sold you something which is not right because everyone's in the bank constantly thinking about a certain Revenue I pull an Insight out of this right uh you have to tell me it generalizers but if you have no CAC if you have zero C then you can do better for your customers absolutely in across any field because you don't have to you know monetize each and every customer that's incredible that's why in the US a lot of these businesses built on top of YouTube right where they have no CAC right treat their customers a lot better yeah it is me I mean it's a super power like you know I know my peers who think of customers as 2,000 3,000 rupees CAC and want to generate it as quickly as possible and that's a wrong place to be right because you will just turn out your customers so like I said of course in short terms it can seem like it's adding user growth adding Revenue but that can all just disappear in no time right because these are all users whom you are churning away because you know foring them to yeah to do more and also the second thing is you know Zer I think

the core philosophy has been never do to a customer what you don't want done to you right in so like I hate spam I mean like right now I'm just so frustrated I mean every day I've spending maybe 15 minutes just marking emails as spam I'm like are there more spam Bots out there than humans you know like sometimes I wonder right because I get more emails from spam it's going to get much worse right you know I mean even with all those filters Etc and plays with Google even after that right as in uh so um so yeah so like so today we have taken a stance as Zera saying that we will not send any spam to our customer I won't send a push notification unless the customer wants it right could I have taken the stance if I spent 2,000 3,000 rupees on a customer maybe not right and eventually if I would think about in the long run

every business needs a mode right as in you need to be able to do say and do things which is hard for others to say and do I don't think any of my peers will be able to say the last two minutes three minutes of what I just said right and if you that's the bootstrap superpowers so you guys have multiple superpowers bootstrap then zero C see thing is I think even if you had

investors right who are aligned because the business has done well right it's not like the business hasn't done well I don't think it would have been a problem even if you had investors who are were in it for the right expectations or investors who are happy with moderate growth right who are not pushing you every year to keep growing right as in if you're right investors I think you can still build a business following some of these policies philosophies but as soon as you start spending money on CAC right I've seen it changes the genes of the business right everyone in the business is now used to spending money to acquire customers when you don't have to spend money on a customer you have to think about new products your new how do you keep your support up you know because all of those challenges margins are much better yeah I mean better margins someone said this better margins lead to better businesses better culture sorry so thing is so you know until this math until 2022 so in 12 years we had gotten to I think a crow customers if I had spent we had spent 3 to 4,000 rupees a customer to acquire there would have been around 4,000 Crowes that was all the profits we had made in 12 years right so 11 12 years so that means if we had spent 3 to 4,000 rupees a customer we would you would not be profitable wow you know so it's uh yeah I mean if people are wow so your G is your margin it's a different way of looking at it but uh but yeah it is that interesting

interesting Nathan thank you so much for being here this is lovely I learned so much and I think there are very few people who can publicly say what you say and I think to me the people who can actually do that are the people I want to chat with right paradoxically cuz I'm like tell me the truth I don't want like something you know corporate speak thank you so much for being here one of the cool things we do on the show when we end it's a ritual it's like it's in my this thing of making it an experience for everybody that comes because I kind of took your time right is I gift everyone a brand new phone oh sweet brand new phone Cheers it's for you and uh yeah thank you so much and I hope we get to do this again no thanks thanks for having me here hopefully this was useful that was

a very insightful conversation because personally I learned so much and I think meeting some of these people you just be a student in front of them you absorb so much and I'm financially literate we learned how Founders are thinking now that the entire Narrative of unicorn is going down we learned a lot of things about how the economy might change after artificial general intelligence and to be very honest I learned so much and I think just being a student in front of people like nithan is an honor the ability to learn the ability to absorb I'm just grateful for the opportunity so that's it for me bye