Kunal Shah on winning in India, second-order thinking, the philosophy of startups, and more
Lenny's Podcast2024-03-24
5K views|4 months ago
💫 Short Summary
Kunal Shah, CEO of CRED, discusses building successful startups in India, emphasizing trust and market understanding. He shares the Delta 4 framework for product improvement, highlights Indian immigrants' success in business, and the importance of maintaining values in leadership. The video explores long-term thinking, risk-taking in India, and challenges faced by global companies. Shah also talks about profit models, internet-based businesses, and the significance of curiosity in personal and professional growth. He emphasizes the value of continuous learning, critical thinking, and overcoming challenges for success in entrepreneurship.
✨ Highlights
📊 Transcript
✦
Insights on building successful startups in India by Kunal Shah, CEO of CRED.
00:47Importance of trust and understanding market differences highlighted for startup success.
Rise of Indian immigrants in CEO roles discussed, along with challenges and opportunities in Indian market.
Shah's background in philosophy influences deep thinking about product development and life.
Advocacy for staying curious and open-minded, sharing stories of failure and contrarian takes.
✦
Kunal shares the Delta 4 framework for product improvement in tech industry.
05:32Kunal reflects on his journey from a philosophy major to a successful tech founder, challenging traditional ideas of success.
The framework emphasizes achieving significant product improvement, with Uber being used as an example.
Kunal's personal experience showcases the importance of innovative thinking and unconventional paths in the tech industry.
✦
The Delta 4 concept emphasizes product efficiency and unique selling points.
09:09Products with an efficiency of four or higher have irreversible effects, high failure tolerance, and generate buzz.
Offline experiences can sometimes be more efficient than tech products.
Using the Delta 4 framework helps in understanding the success or failure of products.
The concept is based on entropy and evolutionary biology, serving as a tool for convincing founders of product potential and training analysts in VC firms.
✦
Success of Indian immigrants in business and tech in the US.
11:03Attributed to humble backgrounds, hunger for success, and appreciation for math and logic.
Society's emphasis on mathematics and engineering contributes to their status and success.
Application of Indian mythology and management principles in business.
Prominence of Indian CEOs in the US tech industry.
✦
Importance of Values and Obedience in Leadership.
15:10CEOs should follow the Dharma of founders for company success.
Comparison between Krishna and Rama as different leadership styles.
Emphasis on humility and continuity in upholding principles for long-term success.
Sustaining values and principles essential for CEOs to ensure longevity and growth of companies.
✦
Importance of Long-Term Thinking in Leadership
19:45Cultural influences like arranged marriages in India prioritize long-term stability over short-term gratification.
Transitioning from a successful CEO to a founder requires different skill sets for sustaining versus innovating.
The value of long-term mindset is emphasized in personal, professional, and societal contexts.
✦
Changing perception of risk-taking in India due to respect for founders, unicorns, and government support for startups.
21:55Traditional views on marriage affecting willingness to take risks, with failed founders facing challenges in job market.
Importance of recognizing and celebrating risk-takers as a country, drawing parallels to historical explorers.
Discussion on the difference between acquiring users and generating revenue per user in India, with ARPU influenced by per capita income.
Global companies attracted to India due to cheap data and high smartphone penetration.
✦
Challenges faced by global companies in India due to low ARPU.
24:21Indian founders prioritize user numbers over revenue generation, leading to monetization difficulties for companies like Netflix.
Indian perspective on hourly wages differs, impacting time value and payment.
Understanding local market dynamics and user behavior is crucial for successful business operations in India.
✦
Importance of brand reputation in low trust markets like India.
29:08Established brands like Tata and Chavan Prash hold consumer trust due to lack of legal protection.
Trust in India often stems from the names of individuals behind businesses.
In contrast to the US, Indian brands are based on reputation rather than fancy names.
Tech companies face a challenge in building trust when entering the Indian market.
✦
Challenges and opportunities for Indian startups.
30:52Low female participation in the workforce is highlighted as a major challenge.
AI is seen as a potential creator of new business opportunities.
AI is emphasized as a tool to enhance skills rather than replace jobs.
Building Cred involved targeting specific customer segments and understanding customer needs.
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Key highlights in building a successful company.
36:44Founders must be willing to evolve and adapt in order to succeed.
Different investor expectations at various stages need to be understood.
Not everyone can scale into every role in a company.
Profit pools in a country reflect its cultural values and understanding these nuances is crucial for business success.
✦
The importance of profit in business and its cultural significance.
40:42Traditional trading model of buying low and selling high contrasted with modern strategies prioritizing high revenue growth.
Challenge of convincing investors to support ventures with initial losses due to cultural expectation for early profitability.
Significance of profitability in gaining respect and recognition, especially in the Indian context.
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The shift towards internet-based businesses is supported by VCs providing capital for distribution and brand building before monetization.
41:32Indian tech companies must demonstrate profitability to compete on a global scale.
Trolling and lack of appreciation are prevalent in Indian comments sections.
Founders are advised to stay positive in the face of criticism and not react to every piece of feedback, especially from those who do not understand their business nuances.
✦
India remains a promising market for startups due to digital infrastructure and government support.
45:10There is a supportive ecosystem for entrepreneurs despite Twitter noise.
The speaker expresses envy towards those who can work with the best in product development.
There is a desire to witness decision-making processes in high-level meetings for learning.
Curiosity is emphasized as a valuable trait, with continuous learning and humility being key characteristics of a curious person.
✦
The importance of curiosity in personal and professional growth.
50:53Prioritizing learning over showcasing expertise is crucial for development.
Drawing parallels between animal adaptation and human behavior in facing challenges like COVID-19.
Emphasizing the value of information symmetry and curiosity in creating a unique edge in business and life.
Curiosity is a key driver of innovation and success.
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Importance of efficiently connecting and collecting information for information symmetry.
52:30Reference to the concept of always collecting dots from Danny Meyer.
Discussion on common traits of long-lasting animals and their relation to startups and leaders.
Emphasis on the value of solving hard problems and staying focused on making big achievements.
Comparison of successful people to crocodiles patiently waiting for their next big move and defining predators as those who burn the least calories to achieve the most gains.
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The speaker discusses their method of learning through forming conjectures and seeking proof for validation.
56:53They delve into topics such as AI effects and lab-grown diamonds, drawing parallels to the impact of cultured pearls on the pearl industry.
Contemplating shorting or going long on diamonds based on the potential influence of lab-grown diamonds.
Suggesting the idea of making GPD searches public to promote learning and knowledge expansion.
Emphasizing the significance of continuous learning and growth in knowledge.
✦
Importance of asking great questions and second-order thinking.
01:00:01Emphasis on asking 'why' questions and exploring history for critical thinking skills.
Examples of how strategy games and intellectual exercises build discipline and analytical thinking.
Significance of understanding origin stories and exploring complex questions for developing second-order thinking abilities.
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The speaker emphasizes wealth creation as a storage of energy, highlighting the non-zero-sum nature of wealth accumulation.
01:03:21He argues that equality of wealth is unattainable and predicts that wealth will always be concentrated.
Elon Musk's comparison of wealth to a database for transferring numbers is mentioned, illustrating the potential for disproportionate wealth creation through energy harnessing.
The speaker discusses the collaboration of species in creating wealth and provides insights on failure in career development.
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Importance of learning from failures and turning them into lessons.
01:07:08Speaker's personal experience of overcoming a financial crisis and starting from a young age.
Value of struggle in achieving success and balancing it with providing a better life for their child.
Encouragement to share knowledge and learn from each other without fear of judgment.
Emphasis on how sharing experiences can benefit and inspire others.
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Recommendations for books on human behavior, evolutionary biology, and learning from setbacks.
01:11:07Importance of continuous learning and deep understanding in personal growth.
Value of asking hypothetical second-order thinking questions in interviews to evaluate critical thinking skills.
Emphasis on evolving perspectives and avoiding repetitive reading habits.
Mention of enjoying 'Inception' and 'Tenet' by Christopher Nolan, with no recent favorite movie or TV show.
✦
Discussion on second-order thinking and training the brain for critical thinking.
01:13:21Examples of predicting outcomes based on events and the concept of wastefulness and status, including animal behavior.
Product positioning strategies, focusing on uniqueness over efficiency, with Apple as an example.
Insights on collecting experiences for meaningful stories and the impact of leading an interesting life.
✦
Importance of overcoming challenges and achieving goals through hard work and perseverance.
01:17:20Criticism of fake motivation schemes and emphasis on the necessity of pain and struggle for true success.
Advocacy for self-love through continuous evolution and problem-solving, viewing life as a game for personal growth.
Encouragement for listeners to engage on social media, share discoveries, and moments of learning.
Conclusion with a thank you message and invitation to subscribe to the podcast for more valuable content.
00:00Microsoft Adobe alphabet IBM H Alta
00:03networks even Starbucks the CEOs of
00:05these companies were all born in India
00:07and immigrated to the us a lot of CEOs
00:09have done well because they follow the
00:11Dharma of the founders quite well these
00:13are the principles were given to me and
00:14I'm going to sustain this and make it
00:16even bigger I want to keep talking about
00:17India and how it's different and how to
00:19build products that are successful in
00:20India no Indian has ever been paid an
00:22hourly salary in their entire life the
00:24concept of time is not the same what do
00:27you see as the biggest opportunity for
00:29Indians startups India is changing
00:31because now for the first time we seeing
00:33Founders being respected and unicorns
00:35being celebrated we have a national
00:37startup day and probably the first
00:39generation that will have to prove
00:40ourselves to be very large profitable
00:41companies I wouldn't want to be anywhere
00:44else in
00:47building today my guest is Kunal sha
00:51Kunal is one of the most well-known and
00:53respected entrepreneurs and product
00:55leaders in India and around the world he
00:58shares endless wisdom on on Twitter and
01:00Linkedin where he's got over 1 million
01:02followers he's the CEO and founder of
01:05cred a fintech startup based in India
01:08which was last valued at over $6 billion
01:11and as of a couple years ago processed
01:12over 20% of all credit card bill
01:14payments in India prior to Ked he
01:17founded three other startups including
01:19free charge which he sold for over $400
01:21million to snap deal Kunal is a deep
01:24thinker both about product and about
01:27life his background is actually in
01:29philosophy which comes across very
01:31clearly when you hear him share his
01:33advice in our conversation we get deep
01:36into what makes working and building in
01:38India different from the US markets and
01:40other markets including why trust is so
01:42essential and why so many people are so
01:44much more risk averse in India we talk
01:46about the biggest challenges and
01:48opportunities within the India market
01:50why there are so many successful Indian
01:52immigrants in CEO roles across Tech and
01:55what we can learn from that also why
01:57companies in India can quickly grow dows
01:59but not arpus and what that means for
02:02building products in India we also talk
02:04about how to stay curious and
02:05open-minded in the power of second order
02:07thinking also stories of failure and
02:09lots of contrarian takes and so much
02:12more if you enjoy this podcast don't
02:14forget to subscribe and follow this
02:16podcast in your favorite podcasting app
02:17or YouTube it's the best way to avoid
02:20missing future episodes and it helps the
02:22podcast tremendously a big thank you to
02:24Sayan my ET for making the connection to
02:26Kunal with that I bring you Kunal Shaw
02:29after a short word from our
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04:24Lenny Kunal thank you so much for being
04:27here and welcome to the podcast Lenny
04:30thank you so much for having me and a
04:32huge fan of everything that you do and
04:35and uh like I said before India is a
04:38huge beneficiary of what the stuff you
04:39do we we are all people who have learned
04:42the art of product by just figuring it
04:44out and watching some content here and
04:47there and reading some stuff so kudos to
04:50everything that you do and like I said
04:52earlier that you do the fabulous job of
04:54taking the information asymmetry of the
04:56art of product and kind of make it
04:58accessible to many of us across the
05:01world so thank you wow I I really
05:04appreciate that this is already feeling
05:05great to me I have a huge so it turns
05:08out this podcast has a huge audience in
05:09India as do you and so I feel like this
05:13conversation is going to be really
05:14special and really meaningful to a lot
05:16of people I wanted to start with
05:18something very tactical there's a
05:21product framework that you came up with
05:22that I absolutely love and I've shared
05:24it with at least 30 Founders over the
05:27last couple years and this is actually
05:28how I discovered initially is I heard
05:31about this thing and I'm like who's this
05:32guy Kunal sha and look at us now
05:35chatting could you explain this
05:38framework briefly and then just how
05:40you've used it or how you recommend
05:41people apply it oh and it's by the way
05:44it's called Delta 4 I don't know if I
05:45even said the name yeah it's it's called
05:47the Delta 4 framework but I think it's
05:49actually quite simple if you think about
05:51it a lot of people say that your product
05:53has to be 10x better and it's not very
05:56measurable uh you don't know if you are
05:5810x better or not not uh unless you're
06:00delusional and the trigger for me was
06:02actually uh I'm the unusual Tech founder
06:05in India I'm a philosophy I'm the only
06:07Humanities philosophy major founder in
06:09India who's got into tech and and uh I
06:13often wondered that most people who were
06:15my peers or people who were ahead of me
06:17were significantly smarter academically
06:20or otherwise and and why did I become
06:22successful with my first start of free
06:23charge which I exited in 2015 for nearly
06:26like $450 million and I was like what
06:30would make this happen because I would
06:32not qualify into this Super League of
06:34really thed IIT rankers that exist in
06:37India and and that got me onto this
06:39philosophical quest to find out what
06:42makes things successful so the simple
06:44framework is like examples I give often
06:46is that imagine uh the old way of
06:49ticking a cab ride and Uber right and if
06:51I asked you give me this score of
06:54efficiency on Uber and let's say getting
06:56the old cap what would you say lny I'm
06:58curious like out of 10 yeah give a cab
07:01like a three and then Uber like a yeah
07:03like a nine yeah so every time you see
07:06that the the product efficiency Delta is
07:09greater than equal to four three things
07:12happen uh it is
07:15irreversible second is that you have
07:18very high tolerance for it to fail like
07:22if Uber fails a little bit you will you
07:25say oh my God that I'm going to like
07:28really stop using it no and the third
07:31thing is that I call it the uh ubp
07:35unique brag worthy proposition so every
07:37time humans unlock a Delta 4 product or
07:40service they cannot stop talking or
07:44sharing about it and therefore all Delta
07:47for products will naturally have lower
07:48CS or sometimes zero CS because people
07:52humans and and think about any how you
07:54discovered but definitely not through an
07:55ad definitely not through some
07:56Performance Marketing here and there
07:57somebody showed you the demo and you
07:59like my God this is crazy and that's
08:01what I'm seeing right now what's
08:03happening with all everything on open Ai
08:05and everything that is happening around
08:06llm feels like magic and it's kind of
08:08Delta 4 because the efficiency of doing
08:09things before and after is now showing
08:11that but there the failure is the real
08:14problem right and and making everything
08:16Tech does not make things more efficient
08:19let's take about talk about an example
08:21uh buying a suit for you are online
08:25versus
08:26offline All Tech cool stuff all this
08:29features built in what would you say the
08:31efficiency of buying a suit online is
08:33versus let's say buying a suit offline
08:35I've actually done that and it was a
08:36terrible did not fit at all uh and so
08:40like it's efficient but the the end
08:41result was not is it's probably often
08:44not not great so it's probably overall
08:46efficiency score what would you give uh
08:48of uh buying a suit online yeah is
08:51offline like it probably give it five
08:54and five like on offline is actually
08:57probably better experience if give it a
08:59that's crazy by because you've broken
09:01the principle this is a tech product but
09:03the efficiency is better offline uh and
09:06therefore the when the Delta is lesser
09:09than four uh what you will discover is
09:13that it is reversible you will not see
09:16people uh uh bragging about it right uh
09:20and you have zero tolerance for it so
09:22you never going to buy Su online I can
09:23tell you that right now right so I think
09:26it's a simple framework I believe that
09:28if many companies applied so I know now
09:31many VCS uh in the US uh use this as
09:34part of the training program for the
09:36analyst I know about it that uh somebody
09:38in sequa mentioned this to me that they
09:40have this part of the thing but uh in in
09:43India we are like not still applying
09:45many of these things I think it's a
09:47simple framework to at least know and
09:49you can apply this to Features you can
09:51apply this to products you can apply
09:53that to business uh uh and and often
09:55time this is a longer concept we can
09:57talk about it in many ways because it's
09:58it derived of some study around entropy
10:02and something about evolutionary biology
10:04which is the root of how I discovered
10:06and thought about Delta 4 that when does
10:08a species get disrupted or and what is
10:11entropy and uh and why does low entropy
10:14require growth of high entropy and like
10:16it's a it's a it's a dayong podcast on
10:19its own so some other time okay we'll
10:21save that for a future followup just
10:22diving in on the psychology of Delta 4
10:25just to kind of summarize this because I
10:26think it's such a powerful framework and
10:28I find it useful to convince Founders
10:30why their product isn't taking off they
10:32may feel like this is better than like
10:34the classic example is a better Excel
10:36look this so much better than Excel it
10:38can do all these things you don't have
10:40to learn all these formulas but the
10:42trick here and that I love is just what
10:44people rate the existing solution 1 to
10:4610 what would they Rate Your solution
10:47one to 10 and that's to be four point
10:49Tire otherwise no one no one's going to
10:51pay attention and I think I think it's
10:53pretty simple people are busy they have
10:54enough things to do they have enough
10:55products and apps they're not going to
10:57take the time to really dig into
10:58something if it's not that much better
11:00absolutely okay I'm going to go in a
11:02totally different direction I want to
11:03talk about Indian CEOs in the US okay so
11:07today the CEOs of Microsoft alphabet
11:12Adobe which is a $250 billion company
11:15turns out uh IBM which is $170 billion
11:18company palel to networks which is a
11:20hundred billion doll company even
11:21Starbucks also 100 billion dollar
11:23company I was look that up and then also
11:25Twitter before Elon took over Twitter
11:27the CEOs of these companies were all
11:29born in India and immigrated to the US
11:32and I might be wrong but I think this is
11:35the largest ethnic group of CEOs of tech
11:38companies other than just white dudes in
11:40the US okay so I'm curious why you think
11:44Indian immigrants are so successful in
11:46business and in Tech in the US
11:48especially in these very high positions
11:50and then is most curious just what can
11:52we learn from that what can we learn
11:54from their success it's it's a great
11:56question I often often wonder about it
11:58and I have had had the Good Fortune to
12:01meet a fair bunch of these individuals
12:03and had a chance to really explore with
12:05them what really went on so there are
12:08few things that pop out and and again
12:11these are all conjectures which I can't
12:13prove in any ways but it's a it's a
12:15thought experiment anyways to talk about
12:17these things first is uh in in
12:20general immigrants that get out of the
12:24country are usually have chip on the
12:27shoulder in a very different way and the
12:29struggle that they have to go through to
12:30just get out and be successful and that
12:33hunger uh that got them there there was
12:36no privilege like they they were they
12:38came from very very humble backgrounds
12:39and and literally no money to start with
12:42so I think the the that this force is
12:45real right but you can say that for many
12:46immigrants in general as well but
12:49appreciation for math in general or
12:51logic which came through the society in
12:54a big way right kind of give let's say
12:56for example lots of engineering
12:57graduates come from only a few countries
12:59because the society was bent towards
13:02let's say earliness of mathematics or
13:04earliness of this and I think that kind
13:06of helps create status that what will
13:09get appreciated for example being an
13:11engineer being a doctor like philosophy
13:13major I was a write off for the society
13:15over here right so uh the reason I am
13:17the rare commodity over here because you
13:19you are not considered to be very bright
13:22unless you break into these very hard
13:23exams and very very hard things so the
13:25filtering criteria on its own is big but
13:28there's another interesting framework Al
13:30together which I have actually learned
13:33from this gentlem deat patnayak he he he
13:35applies Indian mythology and management
13:38principles together and it's an
13:39interesting thing so there are three
13:41major uh Indian God one is the uh uh
13:44prma uh the god of creation Shiva the
13:47God of destruction I'm super
13:49generalizing but that's the
13:50classification and and the third is like
13:53Vishnu which is the god of sustainance
13:54and there avars the word avar comes from
13:57Vishnu keep changing avar right so we
13:59have had Rama Krishna all these guys are
14:02alars of this so what you notice is that
14:05uh if you look at two take a 2 by two of
14:09people who are high on values and low on
14:12values uh high on obedience and low on
14:16obedience you make an interesting 2 by
14:18two right now Lord Krishna uh which is a
14:22one of the very popular avars uh which
14:25was non I mean FS suits the
14:27entrepreneurial C which is high on
14:30values but very low on obedience he was
14:32known to be the
14:33naughty God and he could actually create
14:35lots of things and there is Rama which
14:37is known to be the one which follows
14:38principles and obedient right so they
14:41will follow Dharma uh and scale on that
14:44and and then there are these notorious
14:46characters there raavana which is low on
14:48values low on obedience and there's
14:50duryodhana which he says that he's low
14:53high on obedience but low on values
14:55right so these are the people that you
14:56don't want to be and what you notice is
14:58that uh
14:59a lot of CEOs have done well because
15:01they follow the Dharma of the founders
15:04quite well they have not diluted the
15:06dhma of the founders uh who have started
15:10these companies and managed to sustain
15:12that uh and a lot of CEOs have this need
15:15to say oh I'm going to change the
15:16company forever and it will be my
15:18identity and I will change the logo and
15:21I will change the name and I will do all
15:23sorts of things right but maintaining
15:26Dharma right where I will say that these
15:28are the principles given to me and I'm
15:29going to sustain this and make it even
15:31bigger comes from humility of saying
15:33that there is something is built with
15:36some pure form factor and I think
15:38therefore that character stays on right
15:41and therefore the the characters of
15:43Brahma and Shiva are the founder istic
15:46I'll create and Destroy like that's the
15:48thing but sustainance is is the harder
15:50one and therefore aars keep happening uh
15:53uh over and over of time and and
15:54different hurdles come and different
15:56levels come but when you when you think
15:58about uh the the archetype of at least
16:01the Indian SE have seen that they are
16:03fabulous at moving between Krishna and
16:06Rama all the time right they can play
16:08this consistently uh and therefore they
16:11keep evolving and and keep making these
16:13companies bigger and bigger and I think
16:15we we'll see a lot more of this in years
16:17to come because now they have the role
16:19models of these individuals who have
16:20kind of done well but the the key
16:22principle is that if you ask the
16:24founders they will love be CEOs if
16:28they're around
16:29because they maintain the Dharma of the
16:32thing and and for example let say what
16:33Tim is doing he's maintaining the Dharma
16:35of Steve Jobs because if you had tried
16:37to change the tharma of Steve Jobs and
16:39what the values the companies are it's
16:41very hard to imagine it to be sustaining
16:43itself forever and ever wow what an
16:46answer this what I love about this is
16:48this combination of using a 2 by two and
16:51Indian mythology is like the microcosm
16:54of you which is philosophy and Tech uh
16:58and so I love that and makes a lot of
17:00sense that's where your mind goes
17:02something else this makes me think about
17:03is I read this book a long time ago Jim
17:05Collins either good to great or one of
17:06his early books about leadership and he
17:08talks about level five leadership I
17:10think is him and where level five
17:12leaders are ones where it's not about
17:13them it's about the business and they
17:16can disappear in the future and things
17:17will work great yes and and I I feel it
17:22is very hard if you believe that your
17:25identity needs to have its own position
17:28and Legacy
17:29uh and and therefore a lot of time
17:30chasing status causes disruption because
17:33you will say that oh this doesn't have
17:35my signature in it uh and therefore
17:38becoming uh
17:40uh accepting the religion and trying to
17:42be the the pope of it or the father of
17:45it is is better than trying to say oh I
17:48need to have my variant of religion uh
17:50and that's where the creative
17:52destruction starts happening interesting
17:55okay so you said that there's this good
17:56balance between Krishna and Rama that
17:58happens can you just uh again summarize
18:00the where they are in that 2 by two so
18:02Rama is uh high on values and high on
18:06obedience and Krishna is high on values
18:10and low on obedience but they both are
18:12high on values which means they will
18:13follow Dharma uh uh and and they will
18:16change the side for example let say
18:18Satya uh during the open a crisis played
18:21Krishna uh and and guard things out but
18:25he'll switch back to being Rama and
18:27continue to keep scaling it up
18:29amazing and just to close loop on here
18:31is your sense that they're like they're
18:32actually thinking about this and they're
18:34religious or is this just like in The
18:36Ether of growing up in India and this is
18:38just part of the culture it's a great
18:40question I don't think they consciously
18:41think about it uh but I think if they
18:44ever heard this they would agree with
18:46this because that's what they grew up
18:48with and and the value systems are much
18:50more long-term for example I believe all
18:53bad behavior in humans humans come from
18:55being
18:56shortterm right uh and and being
18:59longterm uh uh comes in a very it's a
19:02it's a big choice to make and and a lot
19:04of times uh a lot of people argue that
19:06oh we have arranged marriages and like
19:08it's 95% arranged marriages and less
19:11than 1% divorce rate comes from this
19:14whole long-term thinking right that
19:18people are married through values versus
19:22attraction or lust and all of that stuff
19:26but more long-term oriented and about
19:28building building a family building
19:29values or or low divorce rate is about
19:32we'll fix uh along the way versus trying
19:35to say oh I I need to evolve and I need
19:37to move forward so I think being
19:40long-term uh uh about that mindset and
19:42and that's why some cultures last for
19:45thousands of years because of this need
19:48for everybody to be more long-term
19:51versus short us ask could use a lot of
19:53that these days you mentioned this
19:55interesting uh fact about how in India
19:59there so the fact that most startups
20:00fail you said you know I think the
20:02classic stat is 90% And that the risk is
20:05a lot higher to start a company and then
20:07fail can you just talk about what that
20:10what impact that has how do people try
20:11to avoid that because that's that'd be
20:13amazing if you can reduce the risk of
20:15starting a company or is it just it
20:17happens and people get super in debt I I
20:20think uh long-term societies are
20:23naturally more risk
20:25overs right uh and not all great CEOs
20:29can become great Founders for the same
20:31reason in fact I would say that it
20:33actually makes it very hard to be a
20:35Founder if you've been a great CEO
20:37because you've turned into this
20:39sustainer uh uh uh versus Destroyer or
20:43Creator right uh so the Nuance I'm
20:46talking about is when you are thinking
20:48about like Risk capita India is changing
20:51because now for the first time we seeing
20:53Founders being respected and talked
20:56about and the unicorns being celebrated
20:58and our prime minister talks about
21:00startups quite openly we have a national
21:03startup day and so on and so forth so I
21:05think there is a thing that has changed
21:07this thing but the core princip let's
21:10understand the core human behavior
21:11Basics India still has large arrange
21:15marriage and if you are a founder and a
21:18failed founder your Chan of getting a
21:21person to marry is still a hard thing to
21:24achieve so if this is all true then the
21:28appetite to take risk will be conted
21:33right and somebody gave an interesting
21:34example to me that there's a very large
21:36let's say uh uh FM uh cpg company in
21:39India uh and let's say you do a z to1
21:41over there and and the CEO changes in
21:44four five years and your you're 0 to1
21:46failed but you are the best person
21:48that's why you given the 0 to one the
21:49next CE is like so what have you un done
21:51in the last five years he like nothing I
21:53just Tred to launch it failed and and
21:55you neither given a promotion in the
21:57company neither a new company will say
21:58oh my God I'm going to hire this Talent
22:00so the guy who stayed on this stable
22:03brand within the cpg company kept
22:05growing because that has natural
22:06Tailwinds all he has to do is nothing in
22:09that brand and then suddenly what you
22:11see is that he or she's like managed to
22:13do well and this guy is done 0o to one
22:15has not done well so we we do not
22:18celebrate uh Risk Takers as a country
22:20yet and I think we'll we we'll change
22:23that I think it's changing already but
22:25we have a long way to go uh one of the
22:28beautiful things I I often talk about is
22:30that I was in Portugal uh once and I saw
22:34I don't know if you have ever been and
22:35seen this but in the church uh normally
22:38let's say only the royalties allowed to
22:40be buried or or crated or whatever like
22:42they they are there only one more
22:44category the loud is the the Explorers
22:47vasod Gama all of these guys who
22:49explored the world and took risk and
22:51took the country forward they were given
22:53the same position as the royalty right
22:55so when we give the highest status to
22:57risk taker
22:59the country appreciates it because
23:01ultimately we're all looking for markers
23:03of social
23:04validation super interesting I want to
23:07keep talking about India and how it's
23:08different and especially what may
23:10surprise people about the market both
23:12building there and then how to build
23:13products that are successful in India I
23:15saw in a different interview you talk
23:17about how there's this big difference
23:18between Dows and arpus that in India
23:22it's really easy to get Dows basically
23:23get lots of users really hard to make
23:26Revenue per user and that changes the
23:28way you build product broadly could you
23:30just talk about why this is the case why
23:32is why is it so e get Dows versus arpus
23:35so that means I think arpu is a function
23:37of per capita income of a country right
23:41you cannot make $100 per user from a
23:44country for a product when their income
23:47is let's say $2,500 per year as an
23:49average for the whole country right so
23:52what happens is uh many global companies
23:55love to come to India because we have
23:57the cheapest data
23:59very high smartphone penetration so if
24:01you look at lot of global Giants they'll
24:03have 500 million users from India or
24:05sometimes a billion numbers coming from
24:07Asia uh and and they don't have huge
24:09arpus but they they help you show the
24:11user growth which helps you in your
24:13public market and there therefore
24:14improve your valuations right for
24:16example my my guess is that I don't know
24:18if this data is public or not or talk
24:21about but my guess is that meta would
24:22not have more than three or4 dollar per
24:25user per year monetization in India but
24:28if you look at the user growth in India
24:30it'll be huge right so a lot of times uh
24:35for global companies India becomes a
24:36great Ma Farm uh but very low on arpu
24:41and therefore a lot of Indian Founders
24:42who try to copy the Western Market
24:44saying I'm going to have a few hundred
24:45million users make a terrible mistake
24:47because they will need to then go abroad
24:49to find their arpus to balance the ACT
24:52you talk about how Netflix is a good
24:53example that where they launched India
24:55they got lots of users but just couldn't
24:56make a lot of money yeah because uh uh
25:00for that users to find relevant content
25:03and pay for Content when we have tons of
25:05free data tons of free content like all
25:07over the place like short videos which
25:10are competing with time like so much
25:12going on over here uh uh people actually
25:14paying for that by Design is going to be
25:16less and and I'm not saying that it'll
25:18not change in 10 20 years but uh the
25:20expectation that many global companies
25:22come over here saying that oh I'm gonna
25:23have like these tens of millions of
25:26users who start paying me as soon as I
25:28come
25:29uh for Spotify for Netflix for almost
25:32anybody with uh or or Amazon Prime for
25:34that matter has not pan out so one of my
25:37takeaways here is just when you look at
25:39a startup as an investor especially and
25:40you see like we've got a 100 million
25:42users don't treat that the same as say
25:46100 million users in the US or other
25:48markets absolutely one more thing is uh
25:51value of time is a concept right so one
25:53of the things you'll notice then is that
25:55no Indian has ever been paid an hourly
25:57salary in their entire life life right
26:00but let me ask you a question what was
26:01your first ever job and how are you paid
26:03my first ever job I was tutoring
26:06tutoring women on back computers and
26:08passing Microsoft certification test and
26:10I was paid I'm pretty sure was hourly
26:12now most likely you'll remember what the
26:14houry income was and and even though
26:16you've started making a lot more you
26:18somehow have the concept of what the
26:20value of your one hour
26:22is yeah but if you ask most Indians uh
26:25and if you ever come to India and do
26:28this exercise when you meet them ask
26:30them what's your income per day or
26:32income per hour nobody will be able to
26:35answer no matter what their job is they
26:37could be staff at the restaurant to
26:40somebody who's doing really basic work
26:42to anybody in any fancy job because
26:45we've never ever be paid an hourly
26:46salary so when you are not paid an
26:48hourly salary the concept of time is not
26:51the same and then the concept of time is
26:54not same paying for time is hard to do
26:58right and and therefore you'll see a lot
27:00of Indians who make let's say I don't
27:02know maybe $100 an hour uh uh still
27:06spend an hour to S $10 on a flight
27:08ticket because that's what it is and and
27:10if you by the way discuss that with many
27:12of the Indians in the west also you'll
27:14realize that this is a common joke that
27:17they will still fight for the $10
27:18because the value of time is something
27:20that is harder to get used to unless
27:23from your childhood that the unit of
27:26time was moved smaller and small
27:29that is really interesting and you're
27:31saying that comes from just the fact
27:33that people never get paid hourly it's
27:34always a salary and so people concept of
27:36valueing time uh uh uh uh like many
27:40Indian languages do not have a word for
27:43efficiency wow and that's true for many
27:46Asian languages the word for efficiency
27:48does not
27:49exist so then how do you value it if
27:52it's not in a
27:53vocabulary
27:55fascinating there's something else along
27:57these lines of
27:59Dows and arpo and efficiency that you
28:01talked about that I love which is this
28:03idea that focus is is a curse in Asian
28:06markets that in the US there's often
28:08this advice Focus build one thing that's
28:11amazing that everyone loves try to make
28:13that work scale that and then only then
28:14build a new product or build something
28:16uh build a new big feature and your
28:19advice is in India and Asian markets in
28:21general it's the opposite and I think
28:22it's because you make so little per user
28:24could you talk about that yeah I think
28:26one is you make very little per user so
28:29you have to do many things but also all
28:31low trust markets when and let me Define
28:34low trust markets as their uh consumers
28:36are a lot more wary of trying new things
28:40uh because there are not institutions
28:41that protect you against a bad behavior
28:43done by a company right so for example
28:45if I ever had a fall uh in a coffee shop
28:48in the US I can think about suing them
28:50and making money off it in India you
28:52only worried about I'm going to pay my
28:53thing and you don't even think about
28:54suing the coffee shop or you were hoping
28:56that you will get any money for that so
28:58what happens is in a low trust country
29:00uh uh and it's all developing nations
29:02are low trust by Design uh because the
29:05institutions are not strong enough to
29:06kind of really really take care of many
29:08things what happens is there is
29:10concentration of trust so you will see
29:12that super apps super star super
29:14companies all exist in low trust markets
29:17because the lack of trust creates
29:19concentration of trust right uh and
29:22therefore you will see one app can do
29:24400 things for example we have a company
29:26like Tata that can do salt to car to
29:28jewelry to anything that people will buy
29:30because it's a Tata brand because it
29:32comes from a low trust Society trusting
29:34the brand and and not being oh I'm I'm
29:37going to go preferred just new brand and
29:40and try the the the joy for trying new
29:43new things is not so high in low trust
29:46Nations wow I'm learning a lot here I
29:48didn't know all this so essentially
29:50brand is even more exponentially more
29:53important in Indian markets it's funny
29:55but the oldest brand in the world is a
29:58brand called as chavan prash uh it's
30:00it's a by a g name guy named chaan who
30:03built a prash which is a a sort of a
30:05place that you can have for good health
30:07and and uh it's it was built in India uh
30:10uh many many many many centuries ago uh
30:13uh and and and by lots of Indian
30:16businesses still have the name of the
30:18person behind it even the US used to
30:20like that like GP Morgan all these guys
30:22are not some fancy name they're name of
30:24people uh and therefore in India trust
30:27still comes from a lot of names of
30:30people who had a lot of trust behind
30:32them and reputation behind them I want
30:33to zoom out a little bit before we go in
30:35a different direction what do you see as
30:38either the most pressing challenges in
30:40India right now for Tech or the biggest
30:44Andor the biggest opportunity for Indian
30:46startups and then just generally where
30:48do you think things will evolve in the
30:50next few years sometimes I wonder the
30:52challenges and the opportunities are
30:54exactly the same uh for example one of
30:57the biggest challenges we have is uh we
31:00have very low female participation of
31:02Labor compared to many markets but I
31:04also believe it's an opportunity because
31:05you can let's say use Ai and create many
31:07new types of business and opportunities
31:09because now like work from home is not a
31:12alien concept anymore you can actually
31:14create very interesting businesses for
31:15that number two is uh uh uh we
31:21are low on per capita income so what AI
31:24can do instead of taking our jobs away
31:26just make us brighter because now uh
31:29like Satya talks about that now
31:31expertise is available in
31:33air so you can actually just kind of
31:35ride on that and really make the world
31:37very equal in many many ways right so
31:41that's massive opportunity and also the
31:43challenge because I often make this joke
31:45that the largest employer of the world
31:47is inefficiency and if you take that
31:49away too quickly we'll have a very very
31:51jobless world right so the thing is that
31:54uh it can be an opportunity for a
31:55country like India and also potentially
31:57a because if you don't start becoming
32:00great at AI I I was actually just
32:01telling somebody today that maybe all of
32:04our interviews should become about
32:07giving a task that they can only perform
32:10if they were very good at Ai and no
32:12matter what the job is you make that the
32:15minimum criteria that uh if they cannot
32:18use that leverage that they'll become a
32:20liability in five years
32:21anyways and the last one is uh we have a
32:25very young
32:26demographic very well positioned with
32:30access to technology access to
32:32smartphones and so on and so forth a lot
32:33of hunger uh but our challenge is also
32:35that it's also the first generation that
32:37is truly learning what is
32:39entrepreneurship what is risk and and
32:41we'll make all sorts of mistakes get
32:43there and I hope we don't go into shell
32:46after having these large scale failures
32:49which You' have not seen before India is
32:50not used to
32:52layoffs like startup world is used to
32:55layoffs but in India if you startup to
32:57layoffs it becomes the national news and
33:00all sorts of discussions happen over
33:01here so we not there yet so we are stuck
33:05between like being a somewhat of a
33:08collectivist or some of individualistic
33:09Society we are somewhere we India is a
33:12great remix of
33:14everything I love this line you just
33:16shared of inefficiency is the largest
33:19employer in the
33:21world I totally get that okay so let me
33:25talk let's talk about cred for a bit so
33:28you had I think three startups before
33:30cred okay and then you've been building
33:32cred for about six years now I'm curious
33:35just on this journey of cred what you've
33:38learned or or changed your mind about
33:41during this phase of your career versus
33:43previous phases I think ced's Insight
33:46was actually quite simple we realized
33:48that uh unfortunately the value of time
33:51and per capita income is concentrated in
33:5325 million families and therefore
33:55focusing on them is important and they
33:57are lot more Global in their approach
33:59versus rest of India so so you have to
34:02build them very differently uh and and I
34:05realize that ability to focus on a
34:08customer set which is not historically
34:11possible to do because everybody every
34:13investor expected us to be the next
34:14China uh and the only similarity of
34:17India and China was the population and
34:18nothing else was similar so I think uh
34:21having that conviction that I'm going to
34:22build only for this folks and this large
34:24enough market uh it thankfully I had a
34:28one success for somebody to bet so our
34:30like our series a was $25 million I
34:32would have not had that luxury if I had
34:34no success in the past because I had no
34:36product with any monetization to prove
34:37that I'm doing the right thing it turned
34:39out okay but I think I I could get a lot
34:42of people to take risk behind my insight
34:45or my thesis is because I focused on the
34:48right customer category and and built on
34:50it but I think the few things I've
34:52learned differently is that uh uh
34:54companies that are very very good at 0
34:56to1 will not naturally become greater 10
34:58to 100 uh there are lots of different
35:01lessons to learn the founder has to
35:02evolve the biggest thing that has to
35:04happen most people what Ked are people
35:07who have not seen a bigger business than
35:09cred which comes at its benefits and
35:11cost so you have to gentrify the org
35:14every now and then to to make people
35:16understand the value of many of these
35:18reliable things and and I often tell
35:20people that entrepreneurs are
35:21uncertainty
35:23absorbers uh for everybody for for
35:26employees for investors for customers
35:29they they are and therefore they they
35:32they they get rewarded for being those
35:34people to remove uncertainty from
35:36people's life uh but the kind of
35:39expectations keeps changing at the
35:41company of scale for example if you have
35:42a a let's say a a seat stage investor
35:46they are very used to very high
35:47uncertainty and they're happy with some
35:50absorption but as you get to growth
35:52investor and say you had Sovereign on
35:53your cap table the the amount of
35:55stability you need to provide is
35:57significantly more and therefore you
35:59need to evolve very very differently so
36:01I think those are the few lessons I have
36:02learned Talent you start realizing that
36:04not everybody can scale into everything
36:07and and you cannot expect that you can
36:10give up the zero to1 DNA just because
36:11you're building 10 to 100 so how do you
36:12kind of coexist with those things how do
36:15you react to big changes in the market
36:17and not become this slow company uh uh
36:20and every company goes through that I
36:22mean if you look look at what Zak went
36:23through in the last three four years was
36:26that he had to I often tell that he had
36:28to play the Shiva come and do a lot of
36:31Destruction to become big again right so
36:34I think that's what Founders can do uh
36:37and and and it's not easy to do one of
36:39the things I've learned is that profit
36:42pools of a
36:44country tell you a lot about what the
36:46country values and trying to uh copy
36:50somebody else's profit pool to your
36:51country will not be a wise idea because
36:54the country's values are demonstrated in
36:56what profit pools exist let's take an
36:58example in the Thousand most profitable
37:01companies in India the number of
37:02retailers would be probably two or three
37:06but if you look at the Western Market
37:07you'll see a bunch of them because uh
37:10it's a consumption Market plus very high
37:13divorce rate means you always peacocking
37:15again in the market again you're trying
37:17to be fit and be cool and all of that
37:19India has very low divorce rate less
37:20than 1% uh arranged marriages uh and
37:24fashion spend and because we have a
37:26lower female part paration of Labor
37:28India is probably the only Market where
37:30female fashion Spence is less than men's
37:32fashion Spence everywhere else it's
37:34probably 5 6X more for them so what
37:36happens is you start appreciating what
37:39the country values for example I have
37:41noticed that many patriarchal societies
37:43have very significant market cap in
37:45financial services versus
37:49consumption and these broad patterns you
37:52start thinking about very very
37:54differently so many lessons there I love
37:56this idea of a founder being an
37:58uncertainty
37:59absorber this other point you made about
38:02Zuck becoming the Shiva in destruction
38:04touches on something Brian chesky and I
38:06chatted a bit about is how Founders
38:08often start in control giving very
38:11micromanaging just driving the ship and
38:13then as the company grows they delegate
38:15and Empower and then things start to
38:18slow down and then they come back play
38:21the Shiva and and take control again is
38:24there anything there that you've seen
38:25yeah but that's a universe it's a
38:26universe through the exact same phases
38:28so if you study Indian mythology you'll
38:31see that there's a Brahma Vishnu Mahesh
38:34cycles and every yug is it gold goes
38:36through these three phases all the time
38:38beautiful I see so this is just
38:40inevitable this is the circle of life
38:42absolutely amazing I love this all just
38:45ties back to your philosophy background
38:47I love it it's
38:48beautiful this episode is brought to you
38:51by duv tail the customer insights hub
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39:55Lenny okay so on cred so there's a funny
39:58thing that happened I asked people on
39:59Twitter what questions to ask you on
40:01this podcast and one of the most common
40:03questions was when do you think you'll
40:05become profitable which is interesting
40:07because when I have other CEOs that are
40:09founding a company that is and most
40:11companies aren't yet profitable nobody's
40:12asking that question so I'm just curious
40:15why why is that such a common question
40:17that comes up it's it's fascinating it's
40:19fascinating uh as a country most
40:23businesses were of
40:24trading you buy something at low cost
40:27sell at a higher price and you make
40:29profit right most of our businesses most
40:32of our family businesses were trading
40:34right but building a capex heavy
40:37distribution monetizing it later on
40:40focusing on high Revenue growth rate
40:42versus trying to get profitability first
40:44is not known to us right so when they
40:48see these large numbers of losses like
40:51there's a shock that why would somebody
40:54give you this kind of money like and and
40:56by the way my my own dad wouldn't
40:58respect me till I was a profitable
41:01company so it's not surprising that
41:03people in India have this comments but
41:05it also comes from not understanding how
41:07businesses are built in Internet world
41:10where VCS are giving you the capital to
41:12kind of build distribution unique
41:14product Edge brand all of that stuff and
41:16then monetize later on and and monetize
41:19big and then have very large profit
41:21pools to go after but a lot of times uh
41:24uh this comes
41:26from not understanding this business uh
41:29and and I feel it'll change because many
41:32internet companies are now getting very
41:35profitable public listed so we'll have a
41:38decade uh uh let's understand one thing
41:40like in the US uh maybe 27 30% of US
41:44market cap is now tech companies India
41:47tech companies would probably make less
41:49than 2 3% of the market cap so uh we are
41:53mostly and and I'm not saying India has
41:55this fabulous history of building very
41:56very profitable tech companies we are
41:58probably the first generation that will
41:59have to prove ourselves to be very large
42:01profitable companies but we are still
42:03figuring out what this means and and the
42:06fact that this question by by the way I
42:08can tell you one thing that I have been
42:10asked this question by people on Twitter
42:13way more than my any of my investors
42:15ever asked me this question which also
42:16creates an Arbitrage for entrepreneurs
42:18who can actually build businesses and
42:20ability to raise Capital uh and and
42:22prove their business model with very
42:24Revenue high high Revenue growth rate
42:26and and build large Brands and so on and
42:28so forth but I find it fascinating as
42:31well uh also what one thing we see
42:33fascinating in India is that there is
42:35like immense amount of trolling and
42:38doubt that will come in your comments no
42:40matter what you do uh uh so if you see
42:42any founder in India they'll post
42:44something about their thing the comments
42:46will rarely have
42:49appreciation so uh uh it's it feels sad
42:53because uh when you see global companies
42:55do stuff like India will lose their
42:57on Apple Vision Pro and all the stuff
42:59and like the Twitter will go Gaga over
43:01it but I think when it comes to and I
43:03believe uh Envy is
43:06hyperlocal we do not envy Elon Musk for
43:10all the stuff he does because he's so
43:12far away but we we Envy our own uh uh
43:16because they were just like us not many
43:18years ago uh and therefore uh Envy is
43:22like Wi-Fi it's like a it's like an
43:24hyper local service how do you stay
43:28positive and focused and not let that
43:30stuff bring you down and you have advice
43:32for Founders in India that are dealing
43:33with the same sort of feedack it's funny
43:35the number of calls I've got from
43:37Founders Who start getting hate I'm the
43:39go-to person to get this call because uh
43:42uh they've seen me get it for many more
43:44years and I tell people that we couldn't
43:47have made it this
43:49far if we cared about criticism of
43:54everybody uh versus people who've done
43:56better than us if somebody who's done
44:00anything better than me gives me any
44:03amount of criticism I will absolutely
44:06flip and make all the changes and evolve
44:08and I I seek feedback all the time from
44:11people but if I start taking feedback
44:13from everybody who who do not understand
44:15and noan and empathize with what I'm
44:16doing I'm not saying that we should not
44:17take customers feedback that's very
44:19different but let's say somebody
44:21commenting about your business who does
44:22not understand the Nuance of it uh you
44:25can't be reacting to everything and I I
44:28often tell people that know there's a
44:30reason uh elements with lower valencies
44:33are called noble gases because they're
44:35hardest to get reaction from that's over
44:38my head but I I I love it anyway it's so
44:42interesting like I love all these
44:43different these elements you're pointing
44:45out of how different building in India
44:46is that I think people in the US have no
44:48idea about and so I appreciate you
44:50getting into all these little
44:52elements is there anything else around
44:54the Indian market that may surprise
44:56people before we go into a different
44:57direction about building a startup there
44:59for all the challenges uh India Remains
45:02the most promising Market that one can
45:04be building for right now because
45:06everything is going our way we have all
45:07sorts of digital public infrastructure
45:10government support uh uh all these great
45:13people doing extraordinary things uh
45:16apart from the Twitter noise and Twitter
45:18is designed for uh uh outrage getting
45:21likes so I I wouldn't read too much into
45:23it but I think all of us are doing well
45:26because we have an audience Set uh an a
45:30ecosystem that is fully supporting us
45:32and and really taking it forward so I
45:34think I I wouldn't want to be anywhere
45:36else in building because of this
45:39extremely vibrant uh crazy opportunity
45:42that one can learn from however I wish I
45:45often wish that I wish I could get one
45:47month internship with Brian and learn
45:50how to do things and I've never had the
45:52luxury I can only watch his podcast with
45:54you to learn a few things but what if I
45:56got a chance to be there and and I and I
45:59missed that part where I've never been
46:01really trained by the extraordinary
46:04product brains or even observe them make
46:07decisions so I recently posted one thing
46:09that you know the the word operation
46:11theater comes because operating used to
46:14be a public process and people used to
46:16pay money to watch surgeries and see all
46:18the bloody gory stuff uh even before
46:20anesia was born and and and and there's
46:23so much joy in seeing somebody do their
46:26action and and I wish there was theater
46:28for Brian take a product decision Zach
46:31take a hard call on killing a product or
46:34or or or seeing Tim uh uh rejecting uh
46:38uh all the ideas that they have to
46:40before the GTM of a product I think we
46:43could benefit so much from that and and
46:45unfortunately it remains in very small
46:47circles and like I said I the reason I
46:49said you do a fabulous job of removing
46:50some of the information asymmetry and
46:52kind of making it more democratic but
46:54there is so much more that we all could
46:56Lear learn uh and I I I feel extremely
47:00uh envious to many people who have the
47:02opportunity to kind of work with the
47:03best of the best because many of us from
47:05India never had the luxury we had to
47:07figure out everything on our
47:09own wow how cool would that be just to
47:12have a camera in some of those meetings
47:14just as a learning experience because
47:17like very few people are in those
47:18rooms and there's so much to learn I
47:21think though people will find holy
47:24this one this is how decisions are made
47:25what is going on and two is like uh I
47:28don't want to work for this person this
47:30sounds very difficult and stressful
47:33those are probably some takeaways that
47:35will emerge kind of along these lines
47:38something that comes up a lot in your
47:40talks and work is is curiosity yeah you
47:44have a show called cred curiosity you
47:47often talk about the power of curiosity
47:48I'm just curious why is curiosity so
47:51important to you and why is it important
47:53for other people to always stay curious
47:55and what Valu is there I think a curious
47:59person is somebody who's constantly
48:02demonstrated demonstrating that they are
48:04not proud of their
48:07expertise and they will demonstrate
48:10extraordinary amount of excitement when
48:12they face a problem which they have no
48:13clue how to
48:16solve uh and and therefore a lot of
48:18people stop growing because they want to
48:21constantly demonstrate their expertise
48:24versus demonstrate their curiosity
48:27right because curiosity should come from
48:30security because imagine I was in a I'm
48:33the founder CEO of this company and this
48:35group of 60 people on WhatsApp somebody
48:37post something I'm and ask a dumb
48:39question what does this word mean you
48:41you need to have the security to feel
48:44okay with it but a lot of people out of
48:46insecurities try to demonstrate
48:48expertise and and do it or Google not
48:50ask this people and I think that slows
48:52down the compounding growth and I think
48:55uh yeah it keeps you very good at
49:00adapting right uh so it's funny I was
49:04recently GPT is my favorite thing to
49:06keep asking random questions because now
49:07I don't need to really worry about
49:09Google having those questions answered
49:10or not because I can ask the GPT so I
49:12recently asked the question that which
49:14animals have managed to survive which
49:16species or animals have survived for
49:17more than 100 million years without
49:19changing too much and what is common in
49:21all of them so GPD came about the
49:23interesting answers which says that it
49:24shocks uh uh uh uh like horseshoe crab
49:29uh uh uh like uh uh crocodiles and all
49:32of these people have survived to do this
49:34thing so three distinct traits were one
49:37ability to reduce metabolism at
49:42will okay it's
49:44fascinating I can bring down my
49:46metabolism by 20 like one one is to 20
49:51or like crazy crazy scale they can bring
49:52the metabolism down the second one is by
49:55the way a lot of in ancient uh yogis
49:58have demonstrated this as well uh it
50:00comes from the same yogic practice the
50:02second thing is about and and if you
50:04think on company's context is the same
50:06if covid came did you could you could do
50:08s down your metabolism and
50:11survive right or you burnt your way out
50:13of
50:14the and disappeared the second thing
50:17that was interesting was very high
50:19conversion rate on every attempt to
50:21secure
50:22food right uh uh they don't go around
50:25chasing random and doing things they
50:27have a very high conversion rate which
50:29means High judgment and the deadliest
50:34bite so they will not Chase many options
50:37but if they chase something they will
50:38have the biggest bite on it and they'll
50:39convert it and the third thing that was
50:42more interesting one was they have
50:44survived all sorts of crazy
50:47environmental
50:48changes just adapting and adaptation
50:51comes from
50:53Curiosity right uh uh uh and and and you
50:56you could see those people in Co there
50:58were two sets of people who were
50:59completely gone into shell and there
51:02were like who are like this curious like
51:03okay so what do I do with this like what
51:05happens now like do I need to change
51:07something do I need to tweak something
51:09so ability to change very quickly so I I
51:14often feel that curiosity is that
51:16demonstration to adapt and learn and
51:20and you only create more information as
51:23symmetry to me wealth is nothing but
51:26information symmetry all the best
51:28companies in the world have unfair
51:30information
51:31asymmetry and and that comes from
51:35Curiosity because you're constantly
51:36collecting dots connecting dots
51:40collecting dots connecting dots and end
51:43up creating this Unique Edge for
51:44yourself and information symmetry for
51:47yourself and if you assume that I have
51:50collected enough I mean there no human
51:53life is going to be enough to connect
51:54and connect all the dots right we never
51:57be able to get and sometimes I envy the
51:59stuff that you do because you like you
52:02are efficiently connecting and
52:04collecting dots uh by having luxury of
52:07all these people to talk to and and you
52:10are making more dots getting connected
52:11so your information symmetry is growing
52:13wait till you uh IPO and then someday
52:17maybe leave credit and then you could
52:18start this podcast a podcast of your own
52:20like this and connect all the dots and I
52:23think that's a reference to Danny Meyer
52:24who's uh the founder of all these fancy
52:27restaurants and big on hospitality and
52:28has this phrase always be collecting
52:30dots I think
52:31ABCD link to that yeah um okay wait this
52:35is really interesting this list of what
52:37are the common traits of the most
52:39longlasting animals they can lower their
52:42metabolism at will they have a high
52:44conversion rate to get food and they've
52:47survived many types of environments and
52:49I think there's a lot you can transform
52:51as you've done to startups and leaders
52:54this could be its own if you haven't
52:55written about this this would a cool
52:56blog
52:58post I'm curious who you look up to in
53:02business either in India and outside
53:05India who comes to mind we like I really
53:08inspired I'm inspired by these folks I I
53:11often tell people that I hate the word
53:13favorite because it tells me to become
53:14Limited in my mind so I stay away from
53:18being favorite but I I learn all the
53:20time from everybody and there are so
53:22many people to learn across the world
53:25and in history in recent past and and
53:29and every time you will discover
53:31fascinating
53:33extraordinary things about them so I I
53:35don't think I have a person I am this
53:39person about how did they solve this
53:41heart problem so many one of the things
53:43that we started doing recently and not
53:45very ritualistic about it so far is I
53:48ask uh myself and my key reportes every
53:53month we go around the table and ask
53:55ourselves what are the hardest problem
53:56we solved last
53:59month and it's very hard to come up with
54:02an
54:03answer and if you do this to the product
54:06leaders like just go around and ask what
54:09was the heart problem you solved last
54:10month you will realize that we all stay
54:13very busy and displacement is hard but
54:15if you notice extraordinary successful
54:18people they'll have a lot more content
54:21to talk about every month every
54:24quarter because they are obsess obsessed
54:27about making that big
54:29displacement uh and does not come by
54:32being
54:34busy and that's another thing that you
54:36cannot chase the big thing you don't see
54:38a crocodile being busy you see a
54:40crocodile just waiting patiently at the
54:42watering hole for that best meal and
54:46have the deadliest bite for that so the
54:49beautiful definition of predator
54:51Predators I read was the one who burns
54:54the least amount of calories to earn the
54:56most am of
54:58galleries so how do you become that and
55:01I think when I meet people who are
55:02extraordinary at that and it comes in
55:04all shapes and forms I learned something
55:06from them so in these meetings you have
55:08are you judging
55:09people's success based on how many hard
55:13problems they solve now that they've
55:14heard this they're going to be like yeah
55:15I need more because if you're senior
55:18what is what is the role of a senior
55:20person you have to be the chief Problem
55:23Solver I love that I I often think of
55:25leaders as a professional firefighters
55:27are just endless fire to put
55:30out kind of along the lines of people
55:33and where you learn from is there any
55:34sources of content this is actually an
55:36audience question on Twitter uh anog
55:39Verma asked this what are your favorite
55:41sources of content to learn from in
55:43terms of what's happening in the world
55:45and what to pay attention to I wish I
55:48could think of an answer my method of
55:51collecting information is mostly about I
55:53come up with conjectures in my head and
55:56then I go all over the place to find out
55:59if there are
56:01proofs of what I'm saying is true or not
56:04for example I recently came with a
56:05conjecture that everybody who's been
56:07successful in the history of business of
56:10VIIs have historically done a lot of
56:13philanthropy to create a good image for
56:16themselves and therefore being treated
56:17as a respected citizen versus being
56:20treated as a person who did VI to make
56:23wealth and then I asked this to GPD and
56:25I GPD came with like 50 people who did
56:28what uh and what were their viic how did
56:31they change the reputation by doing lots
56:32of philanthrophy and all of that stuff
56:35and and then a thing happens and then I
56:38research in all sorts of directions and
56:40and I have no boundaries to if I go to
56:42chemistry or physics or a human behavior
56:45to some Universal principles so my
56:48method of learning is constantly come up
56:51with conjectures from the dots that
56:53you've connected and then like Absol
56:56absolutely work hard to find proof of it
56:59and then use that to connect to the next
57:00do right so I often tell people that
57:03everything that you every book you read
57:06makes your brain porous to read the next
57:09book that's the purpose of books but
57:11that's true for every single thing we
57:12learn it makes our brain more porous for
57:15the next thing that we are supposed to
57:16learn is there a recent example that
57:18where you got super sucked into some
57:19topic uh it's my daily life I get sucked
57:23into topics every now and then uh uh for
57:26example I've been like uh thinking about
57:28second order effects of AI and what
57:31happens to countries and and jobs and
57:33and and how to expect some of these
57:35things to change not change rate of
57:37change rate of skill change uh I got
57:39recently obsessed with what happens to
57:41lab grown diamonds if they become big
57:43does it kill diamonds does it make
57:45diamonds bigger and then I looked at
57:47parallels so Pearl industry was very big
57:50before uh cultured uh uh pearls came and
57:55the high status of pearls disappeared
57:57because everybody could have pearls uh
57:59uh but not too long ago pearls wased to
58:02be a very Royal thing to be every prince
58:04and princesses uh used to have pearls
58:06around them but as soon as it was easy
58:08to uh uh uh manufacture in a lab it lost
58:12its value so I think so then should I be
58:15shorting uh or or going long on diamonds
58:17thinking about what happens so but
58:19there'll be a temporary period of making
58:20a lot of money on lab grown diamonds uh
58:23which will kill it it will become
58:25parasitic on the status of diamonds and
58:28uh in Destroy all its profit pools you
58:31heard it your first time to buy some
58:32Diamond Futures uh I feel like I feel
58:35like there's no one in the world chat
58:36GPT impacted more than you considering
58:39how much you want to spend just digging
58:41into random topics I I often wonder that
58:44if you took the most serious people and
58:46made their GPD searches
58:49public lot of people will learn because
58:51the problem of GPD is now it will give
58:53it will it'll make the people with great
58:55question do well versus people who are
58:58are looking for uh basic answers so I
59:00think the world is going to be unfair to
59:03people who can ask great
59:04questions interesting okay well I got to
59:07ask you is there any advice you have for
59:09asking great questions that has helped
59:11you in your work and career and life
59:14whenever somebody has many choices and
59:18they make the right choice in whatever
59:20domain they have for example let's say
59:22you could hire anybody but you hired
59:24great people or or let's say you could
59:27marry anybody but you married a great
59:29person and so on and so for somebody who
59:31has many choices to make how do they
59:33make
59:34choices for that domain of expertise and
59:38I think that is the most and and many
59:40times they cannot be they don't be to
59:42explain how they make great choices so
59:43you to really go in into that because
59:46they don't really have their mental
59:47models figured out uh they cannot
59:49articulate they cannot coach they cannot
59:51explain but if you can figure out a way
59:53how they make great decisions in general
59:55in in whatever domain of uh work that
59:57they are doing you'll find many
59:59interesting insights coming over there
01:00:01the the the other good questions to ask
01:00:03is about uh second out of thinking what
01:00:06do they think will happen uh to the
01:00:09world and why did they come to that
01:00:11conclusion and you see their full chain
01:00:13of thoughts is very powerful for example
01:00:17uh second order thinking is known to be
01:00:19the most powerful trait to predict
01:00:20success of somebody
01:00:22but I often wonder what happened in
01:00:27childhood of people who became great at
01:00:29te thinking and that question is not
01:00:32fully discovered or discussed yet uh and
01:00:34I've found some loose examples of did
01:00:37you play strategy games or only physical
01:00:39games has a strong correlation to
01:00:41building so rigor came from physical
01:00:43games but uh second a thinking came from
01:00:46playing strategy games as a kid and if
01:00:48you had both you could do really well in
01:00:51general because you have the discipline
01:00:53and second thinking together uh then uh
01:00:56did you ever have an exercise uh on
01:01:00looking at history for example one of
01:01:02the things I recommend to uh parents to
01:01:05do with their kids I call it the Wi-Fi
01:01:07school is uh ask them a one why question
01:01:10every time every meal and let them come
01:01:13back with the answers next day for
01:01:15example why do humans wear jewelry and
01:01:19why is uh uh something in a certain way
01:01:23and let them go into the full depth of
01:01:25History and find out uh or why why is it
01:01:30so expensive to advertise on Super Bowl
01:01:32and and so on and so forth you just take
01:01:33one question and if you train them on
01:01:36why they evolve at a very different rate
01:01:39because how what are the questions which
01:01:41do not evolve at you at a much higher
01:01:43rate because why is the Deep question
01:01:45and and it breaks a lot of things in
01:01:47your head or another question is about
01:01:48origin stories that how did how did
01:01:51elevators come into being and and what
01:01:53made earphones happen What made
01:01:55microphones
01:01:56why is it called microphone and why is
01:01:58it called a phone and if you just Mo
01:02:00want to go into this depth you'll see
01:02:02people kind of build second AO thinking
01:02:03automatically because either you go in
01:02:05history and see second order sing coming
01:02:07invol with that or you play games that
01:02:10train your brain for second order of
01:02:12sing it's a spectrum uh but that's broad
01:02:15range of things that I think people
01:02:16should be asking I'm looking forward to
01:02:18a canal uh children's raising book like
01:02:21a book to help you raise kids this could
01:02:23be your future I don't have kids so I
01:02:25can run EXP on everybody else's kid so
01:02:27it's it's a great thing to do I feel
01:02:29like with these questions uh I think the
01:02:30rule has to be you can't just ask Chad
01:02:32GPT for the answer if actually it's not
01:02:35bad uh I think you should encourage it
01:02:38because we have to assume that we are
01:02:39going to be all co-pilots of AI now uh
01:02:42what you have to do is derive the second
01:02:44order Insight that okay if this is true
01:02:46where is the similarity of this in
01:02:48somewhere else like give me an example
01:02:49of this found somewhere else and so on
01:02:53and so forth amazing okay okay I have
01:02:56just a couple more questions before we
01:02:57get to our very exciting lightning round
01:03:00first let's visit contrarian
01:03:02corner I'm curious what's something that
01:03:05you believe that very few other people
01:03:08would agree with you on and why do you
01:03:10hold that belief our understanding of
01:03:13wealth is flawed uh and what wealth is
01:03:16uh to me wealth is nothing but storage
01:03:19of energy uh and therefore the reason
01:03:21wealth is not Zero Sum because energy is
01:03:24and we are just finding all ways to
01:03:25convert energy in our advantage we the
01:03:28only species that have managed to
01:03:29convert all forms of energy to our
01:03:31advantage kinetic energy and fuel and
01:03:34sound and solar like no no other species
01:03:36has done this and therefore since
01:03:38Industrial Revolution our wealth has
01:03:40gone like this and continue to be like
01:03:42that Ai and nuclear fusion and all this
01:03:44stuff will kind of take us right there
01:03:48so I I I have a strong view that we will
01:03:50never never have uh equality of wealth
01:03:54uh in fact Chase that is actually a bad
01:03:57idea but if you let people uh do well
01:04:02and Chase weal they have enough wealth
01:04:04for everybody else uh and we could take
01:04:06a lot of people out and I think it's
01:04:08comp complicated because we can have all
01:04:09this Democratic arguments that oh the
01:04:12wealth is concentrated and all that but
01:04:14that's the physics of wealth it'll
01:04:16always be concentrated it changes
01:04:19mediums companies countries they're all
01:04:23to me wealth is nothing about an
01:04:24entropic complexity uh that'll keep
01:04:26changing its form and shape uh uh uh you
01:04:29can keep fighting it or accept physics
01:04:31and and take the benefit of that physics
01:04:34I think of Elon had this interesting
01:04:36point that wealth is just a database
01:04:39where
01:04:40everyone's wealth I guess is just an a
01:04:42row in the database and here's how much
01:04:44everyone has and you're just
01:04:45transferring numbers around and that's
01:04:47that's the whole e the is important that
01:04:50you can actually increase the database
01:04:52size infinitely that's true uh and and
01:04:55and therefore his vision of uh sun's
01:04:58energy like if we really convert all the
01:05:00energy to our advantage the amount of
01:05:01wealth we'll create for humans is
01:05:03disproportionate uh and and all the
01:05:05species that have managed to collaborate
01:05:07and cooporate to create wealth for
01:05:10example let's define wealth as biomass
01:05:12so let's say ants and bacteria and
01:05:14humans are the only few things that have
01:05:17the largest biomass on this planet
01:05:19because we figured out how to make
01:05:20energy work to our
01:05:22advantage wow uh I love all the
01:05:25directions we've
01:05:26gone probably the last question is there
01:05:29a story of failure in your career that
01:05:32would be interesting to share something
01:05:34that taught you an important lesson it's
01:05:37a series of failures uh uh I think there
01:05:39is no Escape for anybody who's done
01:05:41anything in life not failed a lot like
01:05:43every day every uh thing but I I would
01:05:46say that uh many initiatives many
01:05:50products companies that I've built uh
01:05:53have absolutely failed uh uh hiring that
01:05:56have failed uh trust broken betrayals uh
01:06:01so I think there is no end to it but I
01:06:04think entrepreneurs have this
01:06:07weird ability to
01:06:10forget about
01:06:13failures and almost turn that into a
01:06:17lesson that you hold and you forget the
01:06:19story uh and and like for example Co is
01:06:23literally no memory for me I I just
01:06:24don't remember
01:06:26what was C right it's just a blank in my
01:06:29head right now and I think we humans are
01:06:31great at forgetting the the memory of
01:06:34failure but remember the lesson from
01:06:35failure but I think I'm constantly
01:06:37learning uh and and uh I often believe
01:06:40that life is too short to make all our
01:06:42mistakes ourselves so we should be
01:06:43learning from other people's failures as
01:06:45well uh and a lot of times we don't do
01:06:47that because we believe that we are
01:06:48special nothing like that will happen to
01:06:50us uh but but as as humans we should be
01:06:54learning I would say that my life
01:06:57started from a failure my my family went
01:06:59through severe financial crisis I to
01:07:02start working from age 15 and uh I feel
01:07:06till date I'm just trying to escape that
01:07:08failure that happened in the family so I
01:07:11think many of us are just uh uh fighting
01:07:15that initial large failure that we've
01:07:18had and don't want to be anywhere near
01:07:21that and although we are significantly
01:07:22far away from that but the feeling is is
01:07:25exactly that circles back to one of our
01:07:29first few questions about the chips on
01:07:31shoulders uh driving a lot of motivation
01:07:33there's this phrase chips on shoulders
01:07:36uh Drive chips in
01:07:38pockets that's interesting yeah uh is
01:07:40there anything more you want to share
01:07:41about that early uh challenge you went
01:07:44into or is that something you've shared
01:07:46often I mean I've shared that enough but
01:07:48I just I I should not talk about it
01:07:51before because I think that I would get
01:07:52some sympathy for that and and I till
01:07:56like recent past I speak about it
01:07:58because I I want people to realize that
01:07:59I was not some gifted kid who had some
01:08:02rich parents who made me extraordinarly
01:08:05bright and put me in great school and
01:08:07colleges and I made my way through that
01:08:09uh uh uh I I I should start talk about
01:08:12ear because I I there's lot of tendency
01:08:14to give sympathy to people that oh this
01:08:16guy had struggled and I I I don't want
01:08:18to be given any credit uh uh for playing
01:08:23that poverty card card or this card or
01:08:27uh uh struggling for food card like
01:08:29that's not an excuse uh uh there are so
01:08:32many people in the world who've done
01:08:33extraordinar well because they had the
01:08:35gift of struggle and I often tell people
01:08:38that this is the biggest curse of
01:08:39successful parents that that's the only
01:08:41gift they'll not be able to give to
01:08:42their kids the gift of struggle that
01:08:44they
01:08:45had wow I think about that a lot we have
01:08:48a kid he's eight months now and so I'm
01:08:49trying to figure out the balance of
01:08:51struggle versus making life easy and
01:08:53great uh a new challenge for me to
01:08:56figure out before we get to a very
01:08:57exciting lightning round is there
01:08:59anything else can you wanted to share or
01:09:00leave listeners with anything any last
01:09:03nuggets of thought well I I I would love
01:09:06for the listeners and from different
01:09:07fields of product is that uh please uh
01:09:10share what you're learning without being
01:09:13fearing Judgment of your peers because
01:09:15there are many many people who are
01:09:18learning only because you share your
01:09:20Evolution and your thoughts and I I
01:09:22believe that a lot more could be
01:09:24contributing and and a lot of your
01:09:25listeners are really bright people if
01:09:28they all shared uh uh many people from
01:09:31many places in the world would learn uh
01:09:34uh and and achieve some amount of
01:09:37success thanks to your sharing amazing
01:09:40with that we've reached our very
01:09:42exciting lightning round are you
01:09:44ready all set let's do it first question
01:09:48what are two or three books that you've
01:09:50recommended most to other people it
01:09:53keeps changing a lot but uh my books are
01:09:55usually around understanding human
01:09:57behavior uh and I keep changing based on
01:10:00the person but I think it's the biggest
01:10:02subject all our customers all our
01:10:04investors all our employees all our
01:10:07relationships are all humans and the
01:10:09subject that we are weakest on is human
01:10:10behavior and how do we live this life we
01:10:13playing life on extremely hard mode if
01:10:15you don't learn human behavior so I
01:10:17would say that's one thing the second
01:10:19thing at evolutionary biology it teaches
01:10:21a lot about how species evolve and how
01:10:23do they make decisions and what are the
01:10:25core motivations that drive everybody uh
01:10:28so that's another one I would recommend
01:10:30and I I don't to make recommendations
01:10:31because I I can barely finish a book to
01:10:35to be honest so I I believe in drifting
01:10:37and going deeper into topics so
01:10:39understand the topics versus trying to
01:10:40say uh give me this three books and I'm
01:10:42going to be good uh and the last one I
01:10:44would say is that uh uh any thing that
01:10:49can make you learn something about their
01:10:51Journey versus their success right so uh
01:10:54uh sometimes autobiographies are too
01:10:57celebratory in some ways but if you can
01:10:59just kind of understand how they how did
01:11:02they if if any book can teach you how
01:11:05people recovered from a setback in great
01:11:07detail is a great book to learn
01:11:10from an audience member on Twitter
01:11:13actually asked a similar question along
01:11:14these lines if there's one book that you
01:11:16could read over and over and over what
01:11:19would that be is there one I I
01:11:21absolutely don't believe in Reading over
01:11:23and over uh uh because I I I believe
01:11:28that we are evolving things you might
01:11:30discover the same stuff coming from
01:11:31different books and you'll say oh I can
01:11:33categorize this in my brain again and
01:11:34again but I I think we
01:11:37should uh we we tend to
01:11:40become Believers in it becomes too
01:11:45religious if you repeat
01:11:48yeah next question do you have a
01:11:50favorite recent movie or TV show that
01:11:53you've really enjoyed I I love love open
01:11:55Heimer because of the struggles but uh
01:11:58and Nolan's craft of making the movies
01:12:00but uh nothing in the recent past that I
01:12:03feel is right up there do you have a
01:12:05favorite interview question that you
01:12:07like to ask candidates that you're
01:12:10interviewing uh I like to ask a
01:12:12hypothetical second order thinking
01:12:14question for example if everybody who
01:12:17has taken a covid vaccine dies tonight
01:12:20what happens in 12 months from
01:12:22now can you explain the world from
01:12:25what happens to money what happens to
01:12:27law what happens to countries what
01:12:29happens to military what happens to
01:12:31stock market what happens to order of
01:12:34things and
01:12:36and I would say less than 10% of really
01:12:40smart people can really have good
01:12:42answers so it tells you how good they
01:12:45are in second order thinking uh but the
01:12:48questions can keep changing for example
01:12:50you said that what if arranged marriages
01:12:51were banned in India made made got
01:12:54capital punishment for doing arranged
01:12:56marriages what happens to the country
01:12:59how do we change from there uh uh like
01:13:01some absurd scenarios but then what
01:13:04happens after that not to give away your
01:13:06secret sauce but what do you look for in
01:13:07an answer that gives you a sense there
01:13:09the range of things that they could go
01:13:12into and think about if this happens B
01:13:15happens and then C happens like the the
01:13:18leavs they could
01:13:19make and just so people understand when
01:13:21you're talking about second order
01:13:22thinking what's the simplest way to
01:13:24describe that concept I think the
01:13:26simplest way to think about this is that
01:13:28uh being able to correctly judge the
01:13:33butterfly effect of an event in as close
01:13:37as possible for example okay like a lot
01:13:40of people in stock market use that to
01:13:41say how which stocks will go up and down
01:13:43like that's there's something that has
01:13:45happened in the market oh there is a war
01:13:47now in uh with Russia then what happens
01:13:51to the market like can you be good at
01:13:53predicting that but in every thing in
01:13:55life like uh if this happens and uh a
01:13:58lot of people hate this uh because it's
01:14:00very taxing to the Brain Brain Brain
01:14:03absolutely hates second thinking unless
01:14:06you have trained your brain with second
01:14:08thinking all the time that it looks
01:14:09forward to it so you convert this into a
01:14:12hate versus a reward cycle and that
01:14:15comes with probably doing it probably
01:14:17early on in your life that later on
01:14:19people hate doing second a thinking it
01:14:22is yes that sounds like a lot of work
01:14:24for the brain
01:14:26okay just a few more questions do you
01:14:28have a favorite product that you've
01:14:30recently discovered that you really love
01:14:32I'm looking forward for My Vision Pro
01:14:34that is coming
01:14:36soon it's a future future Favorite
01:14:38product uh we have actually boss for
01:14:40meta coming on as the next guest in my
01:14:42recording I'm not sure when they come
01:14:44out in sequence but we're going to talk
01:14:45about his thoughts yeah the most
01:14:49fasinating thing that I saw was uh Zak
01:14:52talking about the utility of uh
01:14:55meta being better than Vision Pro and
01:14:58their product and and that's exactly
01:15:01going to work well for Apple because
01:15:03when you try to make the product more
01:15:06utilitarian it loses status and and uh
01:15:09if you study animals you realize that
01:15:11the one which gets the highest mating
01:15:13success is the one which can demonstrate
01:15:15ability to waste resources and not be
01:15:17very efficient with resources uh and
01:15:20therefore people who are known to buy a
01:15:23product that is wasteful will actually
01:15:25earn higher status and I think Zak made
01:15:27it actually quite easy for Apple to
01:15:29demonstrate their Superior positioning
01:15:32by saying that oh we are not as
01:15:33efficient we are not as cheap we are not
01:15:35for everybody wow just continue to blow
01:15:38Minds even on our lightning
01:15:41round do you have a favorite life motto
01:15:45that you often come back to share with
01:15:47friends and family find useful in work
01:15:49or in life uh I it's not a favorite
01:15:52model but I think we we truly are
01:15:54transient
01:15:55uh and we are very lucky to have this
01:15:57life that we have and we have to make
01:15:59the most out of it uh uh and and all
01:16:02these struggles will mean nothing uh I
01:16:05often tell people that wish for your
01:16:08life to be so great that you have
01:16:10collected the highest amount of content
01:16:11when you are old you have no end to the
01:16:13stories that you can talk about that
01:16:16reminds me of a book I once read that
01:16:17really had an impact on me where
01:16:19somebody was trying to make a movie of
01:16:20their life and the producer was like
01:16:23there's nothing there's no good movie
01:16:25here you have not done enough
01:16:26interesting things I love it and so he
01:16:28actually became he turned his lens into
01:16:31what to do in life by thinking what
01:16:33would make a great story and so he just
01:16:36started do and a great story is
01:16:38something where you overcome challenges
01:16:39and Achieve something you wanted and so
01:16:41that became his life motto I'm gonna try
01:16:43hard things and overcome them and that's
01:16:45G to be I love it my life I love it I
01:16:47love it I'll link to that uh book in the
01:16:50show notes final question you have this
01:16:52series on Twitter that you call Monday
01:16:53motivations
01:16:56I'm curious what's motivating you these
01:16:57days I find internet is filled with all
01:17:00these people trying to give this fake
01:17:02motivation and make money off that stuff
01:17:04and and like it's almost like a Dr for
01:17:07people to feel oh my God there's
01:17:09motivation I'm going to do well uh uh I
01:17:11I just want to remind people that all
01:17:13success comes from extraordinary amount
01:17:16of pain and struggle and hard work and
01:17:18there is no shortcut to anything
01:17:20material coming in life and so the M
01:17:23motivation post comes as the anti-
01:17:26motivation uh uh uh post because uh the
01:17:29world is filled with uh I believe that
01:17:32the biggest profit making scheme that
01:17:34I've seen in recent times is to tell
01:17:35people to love themselves and they'll
01:17:37pay you money for saying that and and uh
01:17:40uh and I think the best way to love
01:17:42yourself is to keep evolving so my
01:17:45motivation comes from Evolution
01:17:48connecting dot solving harder problems
01:17:50than I have solved in the past and I
01:17:52think life is ultimately a game that you
01:17:54want to feel that your levels have
01:17:56changed and your skills have changed
01:17:58constantly Canal you are wonderful thank
01:18:02you so much for being here two final
01:18:03questions where can folks find you
01:18:04online if they want to reach out and
01:18:05follow up on some of the stuff and how
01:18:07can listeners be useful to you you can
01:18:09find me on social media look for konal
01:18:11sha I'll you'll find me everywhere I
01:18:13usually have different personality on
01:18:15each social media and and uh uh in terms
01:18:18of being helpful uh keep tagging me on
01:18:20interesting things that you discover
01:18:22that gave you that moment of oh my God I
01:18:24did not know this uh I would love that
01:18:27amazing kol again thank you so much for
01:18:30being here thank you so much for having
01:18:32me bye everyone thank you so much for
01:18:35listening if you found this valuable you
01:18:37can subscribe to the show on Apple
01:18:38podcast Spotify or your favorite podcast
01:18:41app also please consider giving us a
01:18:43rating or leaving a review as that
01:18:45really helps other listeners find the
01:18:47podcast you can find all past episodes
01:18:50or learn more about the show at Lenny
01:18:52podcast.com see you in the next
01:18:56episode
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