WTF is with Nikhil Kamath

The street believes struggle makes the founder, so we removed the struggle — twenty-five strangers, a brand and four crores each, ninety days in one house in Alibaug and then sat down to ask the only question that scared us: does a head start make a founder, or unmake one? Nikhil Kamath, Kishore Biyani and Ronnie Screwvala audit the model, the equity split everyone questions, the two philosophies built into this house, and what the three of us will do if twenty brands don't sell.

00:00 Introduction
06:18 Is The Foundery a selfish bet?
12:29 Why building new beats the capitalist high
18:28 How the company-builder model formed
24:47 The new consumer categories driving the bets
30:41 What happens after Day 90
35:13 The equity split everyone questions: 25% vs 75%
43:11 Where the ideas come from, and how the gates work
50:56 Founder–idea fit and the flaws each founder owns
58:05 Why equity beats an endorsement fee
1:05:14 What happens if the brands fail
1:11:08 What actually drives Nikhil
1:17:46 Abundance vs scarcity in one house
1:23:54 Social mobility and India's bubbles
1:28:54 What the founders are unlearning
1:33:09 Twelve months out: what they'd change

#NikhilKamath
Co-Founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF'
Twitter: @nikhilkamathcio on X
Instagram: @nikhilkamathcio on Instagram
LinkedIn: Nikhil Kamath LinkedIn
Facebook: Nikhil Kamath Facebook

The Foundery is a venture builder that forges entrepreneurs into co-founders and builds companies with them from the ground up.
Website: The Foundery
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCtJssM5FzLXSWIf5VWUmT2w
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jointhefoundery/?hl=en

Kishore Biyani – Founder & CEO of Future Group

Ronnie Screwvala – Co-Founder & Chairperson of upGrad, Founder of UTV Group
LinkedIn: Ronnie Screwvala LinkedIn

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
WTF is Podcast on Spotify

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
People by WTF Podcast on Spotify

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
WTF Online on Spotify

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

So we ran an experiment. We call it The Foundery. Sixty days ago, twenty-five people we'd never met moved into a house in Alibaug — each one handed a new-age consumer brand, four crores, and ninety days to build a real business with us. Not a college, not an accelerator: a place where we become your co-founders and build the company alongside you. In this first conversation, Nikhil Kamath, Kishore Biyani and Ronnie Screwvala get into why we built it, what we're risking, and what happens if none of it works.

#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

The Foundery is a venture builder that forges entrepreneurs into co-founders and builds companies with them from the ground up.
Website: https://www.thefoundery.in/

Kishore Biyani – Founder & CEO of Future Group

Ronnie Screwvala – Co-Founder & Chairperson of upGrad, Founder of UTV Group
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronniescrewvala/

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

I got two of the biggest names in Indian pharma into one room, Rajeev Juneja of Mankind and GV Prasad of Dr. Reddy's, who'd somehow never actually met before this, and what came out was part masterclass and part origin story, from why being relentlessly contrarian beat following the herd, to how a college dropout from Meerut turned everything he hated about a medical store into a pharma giant, to why a chemical engineer who says he owes his career to his marriage spent decades chasing one original molecule, and somewhere in between we got into why India makes the world's generics instead of discovering its own drugs, what it really takes in time and money to bring a single drug to market, why GV thinks the AI-will-cure-everything story is overstated, where GLP-1s go next, and the one thing they'd tell a 25-year-old trying to build in pharma.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
04:27 Rajeev Juneja's path from medical-store apprentice to building Mankind
10:11 Mankind's contrarian OTC and bottom-up market strategy
16:23 G.V. Prasad on science and the Dr. Reddy's lineage
23:06 Segmenting the industry and how generic drugs are made
29:15 Why drug purity standards are shared but enforcement differs
36:40 Why India is the pharmacy of the world by volume, not revenue
41:00 How margins are split across the pharma value chain
45:17 Whether online pharmacy and consumer brands are real openings
53:15 Whether hospital roll-up valuations are justified
59:10 Tariffs, Jan Aushadhi and drug price controls
1:03:21 How China built a pharma-innovation ecosystem in a decade
1:10:02 Long-horizon governance and removing entrepreneurial fear
1:15:40 China's incentives, talent and leverage over the US
1:22:01 Why the Ayush and wellness market outgrows pharma
1:25:05 The evidence, quality and standardisation debate around Ayurveda
1:35:13 The sexual-wellness opportunity and the stigma problem
1:40:26 The fertility, IVF and egg-freezing opportunity
1:43:45 The API narrative debate and how a drug is synthesised
1:50:54 Biologics, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines explained
1:55:57 Stem cells and peptides, separating therapy from hype
2:00:06 The semaglutide story and how GLP-1 works
2:05:01 Mankind's ethical-selling philosophy on GLP-1
2:08:06 Why India leads in small molecules but lags in biologics
2:15:07 Where a young founder can enter the GLP-1 wave
2:23:38 The yin and yang of innovators and generics
2:29:05 Diagnostics, CDMO and the China-plus-one opportunity
2:37:18 Applying AI to pharma and the expired-medicine problem
2:43:01 Why founders should never copy a set formula
2:45:30 Succession, home diagnostics and the microfluidics frontier

#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Rajeev Juneja-Vice Chairman & Managing Director at Mankind Pharma Ltd
LinkedIN- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeev-juneja-27882a24b/

G.V Prasad Reddy-MD & Co-Chairman at Dr. Reddy's
Linkedin-https://www.linkedin.com/in/gvprasadster/

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

I always assumed India was becoming the pharmacy of the world, until this conversation made me sit with the sharper truth that we're the generic pharmacy of the world, and from there we got into whether China really killed our API industry or whether Indians still quietly lead it, why a drug like semaglutide turns into a miracle and a problem the second everyone wants it, the side effects nobody wants to talk about, the ethics of running a prescription-driven business, whether the global enthusiasm around Indian hospitals is actually justified, and why fear might be the single biggest thing holding Indian entrepreneurship back.

#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Rajeev Juneja-Vice Chairman & Managing Director at Mankind Pharma Ltd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeev-juneja-27882a24b/

G.V Prasad Reddy-MD & Co-Chairman at Dr. Reddy's
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gvprasadster/

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Spent a few hours with young bright founders below the age of 25 from the 3rd WTFund cohort. WTFund is a non-dilutive ₹20 lakh grant. From over 3,000 applications, we shortlisted 8 startups. We spoke about what they’re building, but also about doubt, ambition, money, and the uncertainty that comes with starting early. Some clear ideas. Some unfinished thoughts. A conversation that felt more real than structured.

https://www.allthingswtf.com/wtfund

00:00 - WTFund Bootcamp
02:02 - Intro
03:20 - Prava - AI-Led Transactions
10:22 - Astraeus Innovus - Preventive Cancer Screening
18:45 - Turocrates AI - AI-Driven Diagnostics
26:35 - AntiMattr - Voice-First Computing
32:12 - O3 security - Securing AI Systems
39:05 - Bloom Rehab - Tech-Enabled Recovery
42:00 - Journey to Building
46:22 - Philosophies of life
50:31 - Placestation - Automating PCB Assembly
55:32 - AEYI : AI-Powered CCTV Monitoring
57:50 - Q&A with Nikhil
01:04:14 - AI Girlfriend & Dating
01:05:35 - Schools of Psychology
01:08:26 - Nikhil's Birthday Plans
01:09:11 - Golden Hour
01:10:10 - Healthcare & Longevity
01:12:33 - Trading
01:16:32 - Advice for Young Founders 

#NikhilKamath Co-founder of Zerodha, Gruhas Host of ‘WTF is’ & ‘People by WTF’ Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio 

WTFund India’s premiere non-dilutive grant fund for emerging entrepreneurs.
Twitter: https://x.com/TheWTFund
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/wtfund 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewtfund 

O3 Security A security platform that stops software supply-chain attacks in real time — whether it’s AI-generated or human-written code to production.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/o3_security/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeyi/ 

Aeyi Aeyi is a GENAI-powered system that turns normal CCTV cameras into real-time safety and monitoring tools.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aeyi_surve/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aeyi/ 

Antimattr AI-powered earbuds for hands-free audio computing.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/antimattr.one/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/antimattr/about/ 

BloomRehab Rehabilitation robots for neuro and ortho recovery.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bloomrehab/ 

Astraeus Innovus A ₹100 saliva test that screens for oral cancer in under 5 minutes.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/astraeus-innovus/about/ 

PlaceStation A desktop system that automates PCB assembly for faster, accessible electronics manufacturing.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/placestation_/ 

Prava A payments infrastructure layer built specifically for AI shopping assistants and agents.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pravapayments/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prava-payments/ 

Turocrates Improving patient outcomes using a digital and AI-driven operating system for diagnostic labs.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/turocrates-ai/ 

#WTFund