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First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder.
From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique.
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- Season 3 · 14 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 19Summary I have hosted First Principles for four years and 58 episodes, and I have never once stopped to look at it. This episode is me doing that. There is no guest. It runs…
- Part 2: Mukesh Bansal on hiring for loyalty to a mission, "no means not now", writing three books, and compounding sideways · 1 h 3 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 17Where Part 1 followed the companies, Part 2 is about the person behind them. Picking up from Mukesh Bansal's move from one venture to the next, this half gets into how he finds…
- Part 1: Mukesh Bansal on founder mode in the AI age, the three kinds of professionals in the AI age, and the Haridwar boy who found entrepreneurship in a library · 58 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 17Mukesh Bansal has founded and left more companies than most people build in a lifetime, and in Part 1 he explains why. He founded Myntra and sold it to Flipkart; he co-founded…
- Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on the decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him consumer, raising half the fund he could have, and keeping a coach in his sixties · 1 h 0 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 161 · Summary Part 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh…
- Fireside Ventures' Kanwal Singh on the consumer-brands bet nobody believed in, why "for a 5x, nobody will call you legendary," and on refusing the one-100x-outlier game · 1 h 1 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 161 · Summary Part 1 of 2. Kanwal Singh is the first venture capitalist to appear on First Principles, and the reason is the bet he made with the fund itself. In 2017, at the peak…
- Part 2: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on wanting a paisa of every Indian transaction outside the marketplaces, who doesn't survive at Shiprocket, and still playing Pink Floyd on a Fender · 1 h 1 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 15Part 2 of 2. In Part 1 we walked the road from 2011 — three companies, an investor ultimatum, and the capital it took to build. Part 2 is the mind. Saahil Goel starts with what…
- Part 1: Saahil Goel of Shiprocket on rebuilding the same company three times, the $4 million he was told to take or leave and why in India you sell outcomes, not software · 1 h 5 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 15Part 1 of 2. Most people date Shiprocket to 2017; in truth it was born in 2011, and the road there runs through two companies called KartRocket and Craftly. Saahil Goel walks…
- Part 2: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on digital landlords, doers & divas, and why delivery will never eat dine-in · 1 h 3 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 14Part 2 moves from the journey to the operating philosophy. Riyaaz Amlani unpacks his evolving stance on the aggregators — from resistance to "uneasy truce" — and the hard lesson…
- Part 1: Impresario's Riyaaz Amlani on Mocha, "Handmade," four near-deaths and 25 years of building places to be · 1 h 4 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 14Part 1 of Rohin Dharmakumar's conversation with Riyaaz Amlani is the origin story: why a returning UCLA grad decided Bombay was missing "places to be," how Mocha became Social…
- Part 2: Kuku’s Lal Chand Bisu on the Bathoth-to-Bandra arc, learning from iterations not books, and why nos beat yeses · 1 h 15 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 13Part 2 picks up exactly where I left Bisu — on why a 7-year-old audio platform is releasing a theatrical film on May 8. From there, we go everywhere. Bisu's actual journey from a…
- Part 1: Kuku's Lal Chand Bisu on killing three products, ditching the free tier and charging Bharat ₹399 a year · 1 h 4 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 13Lal Chand Bisu started Kuku in audio in 2018. Almost everyone in the press wrote them off — the louder competitor was getting the headlines, the VCs didn't believe vernacular…
- Part 2: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on why Indians only eat healthy Monday to Thursday, focusing on brand over scale, and what drives him now · 1 h 3 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 12Welcome back to First Principles. This is Part 2 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. If you have not listened to Part 1, go back and start…
- Part 1: Curefoods' Ankit Nagori on cold emailing his way into Flipkart, designing for talent density, and surviving a pandemic on 2 crores a month · 54 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 12Welcome to First Principles. This is Part 1 of our full conversation with Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO of Curefoods. Ankit joined Flipkart as the 22nd employee after cold…
- Part 2: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path” · 58 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 11Welcome to First Principles! This is part 2 of episode 52, the full conversation. Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was…
- Part 1: Captain Fresh's Utham Gowda on seafood as the world's last unorganised trillion-dollar industry, why undervaluation is a founder's superpower and his “reverse career path” · 1 h 6 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 11Welcome to First Principles! This is part 1 of episode 52, the full conversation. Rohin met Utham Gowda at Spacebot Studio in Indiranagar on a Tuesday afternoon. Utham was…
- Part 2: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy · 57 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 10Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 2 of the 51st episode of First Principles. Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the…
- Part 1: Kalpana Morparia on the culture of dissent, the 90-day NYSE race, and why ambition requires self-redundancy · 1 h 0 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 10Hello, listeners, and welcome back to part 1 of the 51st episode of First Principles. Ms. Kalpana Morparia reached out to us via email after the bro-ification episode. It was the…
- Part 2: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence · 1 h 1 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 9In the 2nd part of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup…
- Part 1: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence · 50 min · Kausi 3 Jakso 9In part 1 of the 50th episode of First Principles, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup…
- First Principles, second look: The 2025 wrap · 1 h 38 minWhat a year it's been. After a long hiatus and when we thought we'd closed the curtains for good, First Principles came back in April 2025 for Season 3. And what made this…
