Deepinder Goyal: Zomato Vs Swiggy, 10-Min Delivery, BlinkIt & Business In India | FO453 Raj Shamani

39:44family tuning as well but I don't know but it is tuning somehow in my head I always have heard my parents or everyone in my house just this I have heard I have heard that I have not that I have not paid money or loan like the first time I remember a car loan and I was like financially smart like I have the money I'm parking it and loan and just like a three month fight so that's why my tuning comes in because I have a lot of debt or credit but now I've gotten better with it but with you is it family or just you family and I think like debt so you know I think when you take debt you are cashing in into the future into your future I will get money in the future you are getting cash today what if you don't make the money in the future what happens I don't want to answer that question for myself so I am very much like the money in the bank is the money that's about it that's about it okay to shut down let's say business personal life understood business ke liye paisa nahi hai the only way hai ki equity raise nai ho pa rie hai danda band ho jayega koji loan dine kari ready hai to loan le lo ke business continue karni ke liye you're like nahi danda band kar dunga lakin loan nilung I think agar aapki equity raise nai ho ho ho ho ho pa rie right now aur aapki debt raise ho rie hai to that debt will be worse for the business than the equity at a lower price so I would rather lower the price for equity and get equity than take debt equity raise not on that one you are taking debt from a weak stand from a weakness point if you take debt then that's even worse I think walk me through what goes on in your head when it's near death situation so let's pick up specific covid time when you had to call at night you had to raise 5 million dollars to do this right two two one one something tell this story we're just like so we have cost and suddenly the food delivery business got just like wiped out shut down black out right so and we still have that cost so first we have 4-5 months of money like bank in and suddenly we're down to siruf 15 days payse bache it was that revenue almost revenue will cool wipe out so

42:34that's when I was like yeah one and a half months is and I had never come that close I had always been at four months five months and that is a okay I can fight this zone for me one and a half months is scary right one and a half months is like if you make one wrong call you're not able to meet payroll and I've never been in a situation ever where I've not met payroll. So, always paid salaries on time. It scares me to not pay salaries on time. So, and I was like, 1-2 million, I'll be able to meet the next payroll. So, what did you do? Who did you do? All investors, all the capital. How was the conversation?

43:18This is the situation. Reality, very, very factual. This is the reality. like would appreciate it if you can like buy 1, 2, 5 million dollars whatever right I was like 4 people will get 1 1 to 4 will get same thing right so and how much money raised in the time zero nobody had the time or everybody was struggling with their own issues right and nobody it was feeling like the end of the world for everyone so they were like dude I have not 1 million I have no time I have to do all this please figure this out how did you come back from that so what we did was um we asked for salary cuts we didn't ask that we had a goal in mind that we have 30 % salary bill but we voluntarily asked for salary cuts that you have a choice as much as you can do for the salary cuts take the amount of money and in that way you will give 2x ESOPS 2x or 3x I don't remember the numbers but significant number of ESOPS compared to the cash that you let go by the way we didn't tell people that will give you ESOPS.

44:50Okay. So, okay, we asked for salary cuts. Okay. Then that's bait. I don't like that. So, I thought in my mind, but I didn't say that. Yes. Okay. Okay. We said, what salary cuts do? And, we met the target and more. Voluntarily. Like, people, some people said 100 % salary cut. Some said 50. Some said, I can't do it. Right? Because they have to support family. and we're like, this makes sense because if people can afford all, they have done all and if somebody couldn't, they didn't.

45:31and over 80 % people took a cut out of an organization of about 4 ,000 people. Wow. Voluntarily and they got ESOPs and then the day we got listed, so I think if they let go of 100 rupees of cash, they made 30x in that IPO for that equity that they got. Equity was given to them as a thank you so much. Here's here's the equity. You had the company in the bad time so now the company's good time is here so we help you. We gave them ESOPs like two days after. Achha. Immediately you said. Immediately they gave but it was not an exchange. Interesting. And then did you ever think at any point that the company will be closed and this is over?

46:18It can be. It can be. But it can be.

46:32I've always felt like we have still one more day. Have you ever doubted that it will not be possible? What will it not be possible? Is it the matter? we didn't even have a vision of what to do we don't even have a vision of what to do we don't know what to do but we don't know what to do or it will be done or it will be done like we never thought about this is the amount of money we want to make we're just doing things because we want to do things how do we talk about investors investors do bolte honga na ki prediction do kuch batao. We never gave predictions to investors. Koi financial model kuch ni.

47:20Nothing. We told people this is how it's going until now. And this is what we have. We don't know the future at all. And that's all. And even today the organization works in such a way. We don't have quarterly goals, annual goals, nothing. So we trust people to do the best job that they can. And they do. I have two questions now. First is, when you talk to investors, you will paint a picture or a vision. What was that vision? That vision is generally a market size vision. See, this market is going to be huge. And we are playing for that. Now, whether we get there, we don't get there, it's going to be an outcome of the 10 ,000 steps that we take over the next few years.

48:10And we could get them wrong. so you were just like this market big and we have a fair shot at playing fair shot at playing and look at execution look at the record so there is no reason to believe that it will be bad so that's what you should bet on and second is because now you are a publicly traded company now you will have quarterly goals you will have to present something to do zero what do you see in AGM what do you see in AGM there is no goals in AGM in AGM maybe mindset it's not until now until now until now no matter no matter no matter we don't even talk to our like I don't talk to our like CEOs about next quarter how many goals have to do so it's always like do better do more do better do more that's about it and where do you think from this thinking because this is a very different sort of thinking if I must say yeah I believe that if I give somebody a goal they're going to fall 20 % short of it correct first of all how do I know that this goal is the right goal I don't know nobody knows yeah so first of all I don't negotiate with people that this goal is the right goal or not so I was like if you are really a good person leader who cares you will do your best correct and if I give you a goal, you will actually calibrate your effort towards that goal and that may not be the best effort.

49:49True. So your best effort could be higher or lower than the goal. But all I want is your best effort. But how do you judge that this person is beating the best effort? How do you even judge that if I take this person, that will be the best for my company? Because in your mind, there is no goal to achieve something. thing when you're like tuned in when you know how people are like responding to like a customer care complaints how people are responding to crisis how people are responding to competition whatever they're doing how much they actually innovate how much risks they take how any risks they take.

50:32You get to get a sense of whether, it's a very subjective, soft sense of whether they are doing their best work or not. So tell me an instant turn off, instant, if you're taking a interview for some position, or you're watching a CV, and you're like, these are like two, three red flags. Immediately you know that you don't want to do this. And when people sell themselves too much, we just completely switch off because we know that nobody is awesome amazing even in our team even me like no perfect so when people are more than you that's when we switch off this is going to get like messy political this person is going to get very much so

51:23that basically means that you are saying I did all the work my team wasn't a part of it right fair so and nothing happens with one single person a team pulls off whatever it needs to be and what's something that you like in an interview which you feel keep this is right vulnerability humility and how do you judge that put people in a tough spot i mean you know how to judge that when you do podcasts but you put people in a tough spot you ask hard questions and you see how they actually respond to those questions so give me an example of a hard question interview i just talk to people and then i get to know more about them and the hard question is about them right so it's it's not from a laundry list of topics it's very personal something that they must have shared immediately let's say if i was in front of you you had to ask me a personal hard question what would you ask do you get tired doing all of this there are days when I do like absolutely and what really goes on in your head when you get tired that like why do I do this like why the am I doing this what temporary feeling because how many times come you many times when our team has seen feels like

53:05I'm so women I'm crazy I'm sorry I'm doing I'm doing so much, I'm doing so much, I'm doing everything, and I'm doing my best. And I'm tired, I don't see this, I'm tired. And like, fuck it, why to do this at all? Okay, I'm living normally, I'm so ambitious, okay, if I get it. And that is what I get. But it's a feeling that it goes away once I sleep and then get up. Sometimes it goes away like in an hour. But it's never been like that you've been staying for 10 days. Max, 1-2 days. So on these lines, I can go deeper and deeper and deeper, right? I'll just like peel the onion until it hurts. Why?

53:55What was it thinking that way? Why do you think that underlying inhibitions or feelings, aspirations are what you want to quit? There's some emotional insecurity which makes you feel bad when the bad podcast hits or the team says why are you doing it what is it you don't become a leader you don't have all this time you can't be tired you figure out your energy are you a leader or are you part of the team you are part of the team of course but you have to lead you can't be tired yeah yeah so I would then dig in fair fair interesting

54:47but the answer to me in that situation is but I am human and it's all about you I don't want to show you on the team I probably have seen my 3-4 top team members and I will show you on the team majority team will not do it in 70 people absolutely I can't be the low version of me even during your best days you have to walk into your office and smile so best days worst days all of this like so it's a question for you as well now contradictory leadership style there is one one type of mindset which you think I also think that your day is going good anything you have to have an athlete mindset and you have to show up and you have to go hit a century you can't show that you are sad because if you are sad then the rest of the people are all demotivated right so you have to just like buckle up and show that we are going to throw regardless of anything and then there is one type of leadership which Gen Z Gen Alpha says vulnerable leadership that you have to show that yes my day is today I am stressed today I am anxious today I am sad feeling it's human to show that I am sorry this is wrong all of that right which leadership do you do you think it's good?

56:13Do you ever think about it? I why do they have to be different boxes? I think they can be the same box. But then you you say that we can't show weakness and sadness. You have to go and cheer up. No, I would the way I do things or would do things is listen guys we're like running out of money. let's say example they know whenever we used to run out of money i'd put i'd put 50 100 top people in the room and say listen we're running out of money life is going to be bad okay i'm stressed cool but that doesn't mean that we can't make it breathe in breathe out let's go so you address this is the feeling but then but then you give the team the confidence that I am not going to let this situation like get the better of me and I won't I'll make sure in my best capacity permanent situation we will win we will you manifest your wins beyond a point right so you started Zomato with Pankaj together and then eventually Pankaj quit in I think 2018 kya hua why did he quit I think our leadership styles were very very different to he was more rational I would say you're more emotional yeah I was more adventurous Punjabi mindset so I was like karke tekhte hain yeh bhi karte hain wo bhi karte hain and he was more rational and in hindsight i also became rational okay so uh but yeah during those days our leadership strides just diverged when did you first realize that we're changing in the middle of the change because we were 10 years old yeah i don't think like none of us were those people where we realized these things until the realization was just like hit hard right so there were no phases or there were no conversations for either him or me.

58:39Even self-talk bhi nahi thi. Unless it just hit. And then it's like, shit. That's true. Was there a fight? No. And then you just walked away. It's just like, this is not going to make sense. And an introspective moment for me as well when I said, yes, this is not going to make sense. But then who decided that, kya ap ni jauge ho jayenge? It was just, I had more equity. like I started Zomato and he joined six months later so so you kept the baby but what was the I was like he was like you have to do whatever you want to do with it so what was the conversation last between you and don't remember but it was very pleasant very I understand how do you bring that up how do you bring that up with a co-founder now co-founder you have 10 years what do you say that you won't be able you go I think we're just like one day chatting over a drink he just like mentioned it to me that he mentioned that I'm feeling this and I think over the next half an hour of trying to fight that but also knowing that yes this is true acknowledging beyond a point yes cool this makes sense and it was reflection more for me that because I knew this was on me it's not on him and i realized it over the next few years that it was really more or less only on me than on him what was on you i mean behaving differently working differently like so do you guys still talk yeah you're in good terms i mean decent terms so we just say me and i'll be right so we go on different paths we diverge because like people who run startups they generally don't have time to connect with anybody else yeah then work right so that's a good and the bad part but then see you and i'll be aapka relationship bhoot alag hoa kyunki dost hai saath mein the same with punkaj but even must have seen ki he must he lost in some way ki he lost a big or maybe he lost an opportunity to truly become something really he had his equity and he also started a new startup so he's doing his own thing but his identity also has to be attached to his own like the way you take limelight today maybe I'm sure he must be thinking about it I don't know you should ask him those questions but no he never told you about this he started a mental wellness startup do you think that has something to do with working alongside you i hope not

1:01:32cost of working alongside you is very very high do you think so yes why

1:01:43um i think i demand um as much from our people or our senior team as much as i demand from myself building zomato or any other thing explain the kind of commitment and uh you have to be obsessive about building something right so i don't want them to think of this as job like if people around me in my senior team think of this as job i am out they have to think of this as life they have to think of this as their own baby and care about it and get hurt as much as i would if something goes goes goes wrong and that's and that's hard for people to do just because we're wired differently and what are the signs as a sign dekhto logo mein johan ko lagtai ka rie ab owner jaysay nhi souch raha hai job jaysay souch raha hai jab kuch baut simple examples is like you know okay this is a big flaw system mein it'll take two hours to fix it and you're on Friday 6 p.m.

1:03:06and you say Monday I would not go home on Friday 6 p.m. right so I would finish that job but people's life also have personal life family commitment absolutely you can also go to that and still make sure the job gets done there are ways to get things done it's about the attitude that you show complacency it can be seen there if you work it can be done if you work I don't need to be there I can find somebody to get that who is available that day right so give the effort give the message can somebody pick this up I have to go and our team is good like that we like have each other's back whenever they want to go we don't track people can take as many leaves as they want so we're very friendly that way.

1:03:59But then the commitment of like urgency has to be there. Startups don't get built on a 9 to 5 attitude. They can be built on 9 to 5 hour clocks but they can't be built on 9 to 5 attitude. They're different things. What do you feel about when you're talking about the new bill and proposal right to disconnect? You read about it? That after working hours employee, if you message message or work, they will not see. And it's their right. Absolutely. Cool. Then what's the owner mentality mindset? I'm not going to ask people to stay connected. People who want to stay connected and care will stay connected.

1:04:48And I'm not even going to judge them. Of course you're judging them. You just said that my top core team is going to be so crazy. if they are off, then in my mind, there will be a little change and maybe I'll go to them in life time. But I'll go to them because they're obsessed. Employees or CEOs? CEOs' right to disconnect should be here. Employees' right. From top to bottom. Then, you can't order food on the weekend. All the houses go to the house. Some businesses are 24 by 7. You just can't avoid these things. What do you feel? If someone does, I'm both a top level management kept the right to disconnect you can't email me I am not going to reply cool will give you a role where you can have a right to disconnect but then base so that's what the law says like the bill says I haven't thought about it I think it just why do you think it's important to go absolutely mad and obsessed for everyone in the company ki tabhi company because it cannot be Monday to Friday in the day it will be I'm saying that it's Monday to Friday hours it doesn't work Monday to Friday mindset there could be like twice a year that thing that needs to be solved on Friday night okay doesn't happen everyday but when that hits like what would you say okay I'm ready to lose 10 ,000 customers over the weekend and I will not put in those 2 hours what choice are you gonna make

1:06:26people will call it toxic that's their call people call have you heard people call you toxic that toxic boss is he focuses and glamorizes that you work all the time obsessive disciplined I don't think people say that about me no Reddit people say that Reddit I'll say it's an old one I think before 2013 there are some things but they might say it right now as well but i don't think that's the way people who work with me think about it do you do you push people beyond their limits no we are i'm telling you i don't even have goals for them i was like but in your head you judge them na ki korn kitti urgency se kitne aggressive depends on the situation so if the situation if if this is a huge bug if if there is a bug which is going to always delay your orders by 15 minutes over the like weekend i would put a night out and fix it like so entire company should put a night out on and basically fix it you can't let your customers down see a lot of people say ki aap founder ho to aap ke liye aap ke liye jayaz hai aisa attitude rakhna aap nahi expect kar sakte har koji attitude rakhye we pay we pay people a lot we give them a lot of a lot of like equity if they actually show this kind of attitude they grow faster as well if they don't show this attitude they will stay where they are and you're okay with this i'm cool yeah and and and i don't judge people i'm just saying it's your choice and if you don't want to do this do this don't do this if you don't want to do this do this if you are the one who can manage your family work-life balance your sense of calm your sense of peace and also obsess at the same time it's an and

1:08:21i don't want anybody to be mad obsession can happen with peace and those kind of people who can manage and balance everything and still drive drive the right kind of like outcomes still be able to push for solving things overnight when they need to and call their family listen i'll make up for it the next day i'll stay at home on monday but i will i have to do this today right and see these companies like big startups or companies or missions don't get built if your family is not supporting you from the behind so it's all like a like a the sort of the community builds an organization it's not just the people who work in an organization peace and obsession manage at the same time it takes effort as it should right nothing comes easy I'm not able to do it I'm pretty obsessed and for me that's I'm trying to find out a way how to manage both I think the way it sort of manifests for me is that it's just hard for me to sleep so it's like my head just doesn't switch off so how I've managed it and I think it's just like since the last month I've sort of become better at it is that I start tuning out of everything about an hour before I want to sleep.

1:09:56So then brain self inner chatter and then I fall asleep. What's your routine? Tell me your nighttime routine to sleep. For a founder it's very difficult to sleep. I would start winding down by 8.30 9 max. Winding, what do you mean? Just like you don't do it, you'll think in one hour. I don't think. Literally, I put my phone on the side on the drawer that I won't see the phone. because the phone is the one constantly tick tick tick information and if you stop looking at your phone there's not too much new information and new ideas to just like keep popping up in front of you to think of so phone I think that's that's my magic trick just like keep my phone away and then just sit not sit just lay down go shower brush your teeth like stand your routine so put some nice calming music and then your brain just eventually like shuts off ki okay stimulation khatm ho ghi hai so stop the stop the stimuli and stimulation is mostly from our phones nowadays so you're trying to get better now yeah you were not before i was terrible what were tell me the worst phase i mean just like super hard to sleep like five hours a day six hours a day was like a bonus nowadays i am able to pull off seven and a half it.

1:11:22Do you take any brain supplements or alpha GPC or focus for neutropics? Neutropics, no. Because I'm a founder, I need to think clearly, sharply, all of that. Okay, fine. I'll experiment with things, but I've never felt like, okay, this is useful. Like, okay, this is more or less the same or even if i stop it i don't miss it so but melatonin is necessary i don't know good or bad how good or bad is it for me but i think the upside of sleeping is better than the downside of not i agree not being able to sleep that is true but if you are a founder you lose sleep and there is i don't i've not met single founder like i probably must have done thousand of these podcasts and I don't know one of them, I'm saying I'm not saying that I'm really wanting to meet somebody who's saying I've been doing all my dreams or achieved or doing and I'm so happy.

1:12:34I don't know how. I think that's just the wiring. So you're always thinking about more things, new things. And you know, something's always troubling you. I was also reading that five co-founders left for four years after IPO. Right? Almost everybody quit. Why? So as I told you right ki I actually expect a lot from her team so we call this ki founder's mindset se hi ha my team mein right so and we actually reward people really generously if they have founder mindset agar wo founder mindset hai to I started this this experiment of calling people who joined much later ki are now you have the founder's mindset towards the organization so you can call yourself founder so that's true they had the founders mindset right but so when you say yeah those people those co-founders left I would just like dissociate these two things okay they were co-founders because they were really good and they had the mindset to be able to call that but when they left other things crept into the picture so that had nothing to do with them being founders and co-founders it's almost the same thing as like Pankaj that our leadership styles diverge but one founder co-founder said that it was a burnout that's also happening but people come back and come back I think like over our lifetime there will be more than a hundred people who have left and come back but don't you think that those who have built you so many years everyone who built with you is gone that's not true that's not true I'm talking about co-founders let's say they're all long term employees they've I think most of the most of the most of the organization right now is actually people who have been at Zomato for over a decade so but the core top level senior management that was changed the CEO left 6 months Pankaj left Gunjan left Gunjan was there for like 13-14 years they all left at some point cool do you think it has something to do with you like you are the common denominator yeah I think everybody has their energy cycle and life happens priorities change and but Zomato's organizational priority would not change for a person right so when there is a divergence in terms of somebody's priorities are changing and the organization priority needs to be something else then exit is the right thing and maybe if it matches back someday they'll come back but kabhi kisi bura laga kisi ka jane ka hmm I mean I've always felt sad but I've also always known that this is the right thing for them as well not just for the organization because it doesn't just like I'm struggling to them they also know that they are also causing trouble to the organization that's what the divergence means it's a very mutually respectable well accepted nice warm conversation we are such close friends all of us see it's never mutual it has to start with some person starts the conversation that I leave or I have to leave you this is not about how we are working right now and what's happening right now is not working that's the conversation and then how do you decide the exit is a 3 month long process after that once we sort of identify that this is not working then we try to think of okay feedback for this person feedback for this person we try to fix it we try to change i try to change i try doing things what they are asking me to do they try doing things which i am asking them to do not being able to get a get to a common like end point and during this process everybody learns as well right so and then we come to a new point where we say that this is not gonna work right so for all the conversations that you have seen for all the people that you have seen leave there have been five times more where we've gone through this process and they haven't left but you have but you never hear about them yeah tell me one conversation which is which is hard for you and we're like it's a love ho gaya exit conversations are always hard do you do that or do you find a way through maybe HR or some way we don't have HR our HR team is like recruitment team only okay that only recruitment nothing else so do you navigate that conversation through somebody else no through people officer directly go and say that you're not able to do it I do it has it been a situation where you regret that this person maybe I would have been softer or change in Jyoti I think I've lost my cool with a couple of people what happened you know I mean you can do things with grace gracefully conversations basically like get pissed get irritated tritely so okay got really angry and just like walked up to them and said get out of here like that kind of aggressive kind of move so for someone someone top as well our top is fat 200 people is top right so I work with a very large number of people so it's like couple of those people over a few years so what happened that pissed you so much that you said to the person who is top level lying to my face like what something like so we were problem solving something and I suggested something how do we solve it and then that person agreed in that meeting and right after the meeting they said dpi is saying stupid things this is not how this will work and this doesn't happen usually so when i'm saying stupid things people say it right so they say because the subject matter expert is that person i am just an outside in trying to poke in give new fresh ideas so they can't walk away saying dpi ne bola hai toh because that will more or less always lead to the wrong answers I'm not the person to have a high likelihood of the right answers in somebody else's job like they should be the right people they should know and I was like bro you are like the top three senior people in the team product team and you are spreading this culture that he said something and it doesn't make sense and you're going to do it and on top of that you will tell them that he was saying something stupid you not say it to me and then do and then do this you don't belong here get out of here and then you said it in a yeah I could have said it the way I said this right now what a difference if it was level 2 more 10 like full max full max mad do you regret sometimes going home like after you go home that's the same time that's the same time yeah I regret like the same minute and then do you say or not that your ego doesn't allow you to say that to you I think 9 out of 10 times whenever I have regretted this I have called up and apologized one out of ten I have it why?

1:21:29just fuck it like this I don't do it I don't do it with it and then like maybe if that event stayed with me for longer I would do it as well but then the next morning happens then you don't even have the memory of that you move on 9 ,000 things do you think in building of Zomato you have hurt people close people By just purely being an... Yes, absolutely. And why did you say yes, absolutely? I mean, sometimes I consciously do it. You consciously hurt people. Yes.

1:22:15Because, you know, all of us have this armor, right? So, and sometimes we're not getting it. like and

1:22:27you know this phrase right and all of us are guilty of that there are there are things like so when when that patient coaching sort of like runs out I would then penetrate the armor or the skull and just try to not try to be it's not so actually i think and i could be actually trying to bullshit myself here i think me being in that like moment is also an act of care why would I care to be angry to someone if I didn't care about them so feedback to us to give what you love or what you care otherwise why would you give feedback why would you even try to do those things maybe a justification is to give yourself I'm saying I've done start with this I'm probably bullshit but i think that and over time i think the success rate of me is called rock bottom right so i heard people here i put them to rock bottom like their self-confidence completely goes for it toss right so hit them so bad and I do this with people who I think have insane like potential I don't do this with people who don't think I have potential insane potential but something in their head is coming in their way that's when I would make them hit bottom 4 out of 5 people come out of it 1 out of 5 don't and I carry the guilt of those one out of five people but statistically I see that all of that process also made these four out of five people superbly great.

1:24:48So they are the ones leading the organization nowadays. But I mean even LB Kisath Biasa Kiyada. Kya Kiyada? I mean right after we acquired Blinket I asked him to leave

1:25:06you are not going to be able to cut it and then then he said okay makes sense cool I will leave actually this happened twice during that time frame so what happened next and then we took over cool transition the next day happens but then then that person lives with that conversation right then the conversation happens was i that bad right and they also see the change right so i think lb goes through well went through this month or two of helping me change the organization also because he was like okay and also seeing the outcomes of how I would do things alongside him right and then it's sort of low confidence when you are high confidence people don't listen nobody does when you're rock bottom that's when you're learning portals open but what in you said that you can't take it I said why why I think there was this is not just about LB all of us are victims of this is how we have done this so it will be like this And we don't understand that customers change, markets change.

1:26:54I mean, even the meanings of words change. How you would sort of interpret, 200 years ago, love meant pure love or true love. But now we have to qualify love with true love or pure love. But just love was meant to be that word. yeah right so even like language changes so we have to always as leaders like look at like trying to shed the baggage of the past and look at everything from a new lens every now and then and that was truly necessary for the transition from grofers to blanket but what specific in him you doubted because there was so much of groupers i was like can we see please stop mentioning that right you can say

1:28:01this is what we know okay but let's understand our new business and see what what do we need to make this business work rather than saying this is what worked for us and this can be copy pasted here maybe yes but maybe not can we think backwards from what this new thing needs to be so it just bothered you that this happens every time more or less yes and when you test or hurt what are you trying to test actually because you said purposely purposely so you do that because you are waiting for them to come out of it I am waiting for them to introspect basically put their introspection hat on learn what they need to learn and bounce back and on the sides I also send enough people with try to support them help them

1:29:08you have to play bad cop good cop sort of and you fire people who are complacent they are asking me too many things these are like secrets now next time I put people on rock this process will not work anymore they'll know that this is going and then it doesn't work once you once you know that this is what's being done it doesn't work anymore but some thought you are going to fire you are going to test and you are going to fire are you detached by firing people no it's always very hard

1:29:50it's the same as the first one it has never become easier why I don't know let's say life that you're there's a life in front of you it's not just a like person employee there are people and the people i i would fire or i would ask to leave are the people that i have worked with right so and we've had we've shared space we've shared ups and downs so it's so i there is almost zero reason for me to ask anybody i haven't met to go so there's always like personal attachment because you have you have sort of enjoyed working with them you have built things with them and at what point it goes ki yarr personal attachment take taraf this is less I have to bring a new person to this place or take it to another one I think the most important thing that everything or that we really really need is that a person's ability to learn or their pace of learning should never stop right so it should always become better they should be better learners today than they were last week they are not learning anymore someone who is someone who is a learner asks more questions than they give answers to correct I think so fair somewhat so this is I don't have a written answer for this it's instinct instinctively aasi cheez it's an instinct based out of observation that you do so you've also I was reading somewhere after IPO many people complacent so you have to make a call that you have to let them go because some people have lost money or some people have thought that marathon is over whatever how did you realize that similar things they were just chilling now they were in that zone they were not so aggressive I think there is also this thing one behavior peculiar this peculiar thing that any senior person can solve let's say they are running an organization meetings to meetings devil's advocate to play a lot it's very easy to play a problem and to take a solution you can do poke holes and then you can say let's get the next week and get the better answer correct how is that valuable right this is what I call complacency where people don't know that they are being that okay I'm putting in the hours look at me 8am I was at 9am 6 days I'm doing my work but I'm doing my work what do you do meeting to meeting only whole spoke and next week next week next week I'm going to do all the meetings next week better answer I'm going to do the company made zero progress over the last week or the last month but you have been busy bro so how long before you give before you sack them it's a very long process 6 to 12 months 6 months

1:34:09this is not working let's try to fix it so then the company takes people along

1:34:20feedback conversation we are a team it's not a boss relationship it's a team relationship everybody is helping each other out to grow I have to become the boss that final day when the teamwork stops happening but here's what I don't understand that everyone comes together working for 10-15 years working on the startup IPO to take it then IPO is publicly listed and all the money is lost it's a very joyous somehow at some point no matter who you are a family type feeling that's what we have put all of it it's a very shared mutual feeling I'm sure when you have publicly trade list and you will have a lot of employees and ESOPs will have been closed and it's not that you will feel it I have done it's a very shared feeling right and that's that's that's come to bring company it's very rare almost I have never heard that someone made it to the top and then he thinks that the founder is that the my friends are complacent are complacent I'm observing I am doing those who have helped me today.

1:35:38Now, I have to take them to bring others who are hungry. There is no such thing that those who have helped me today. I have helped them too. We all did this as a team. Absolutely. There is no, nobody owes anybody anything. Fair. Okay. Everybody got their due of it. Fair? Fair. So, this is not yours either. Okay. We all got to a point. Okay. Now, I am actually responsible for this organization to make sure that it still succeeds. Okay. and if somebody is not working including myself okay I should be the one calling myself out Dippy you are being toxic you should get out of here Did someone say that you are a performer once or twice in which way and in which area I mean that strategic decisions when Pankaj was leaving right so I mean Zomato was in a bad place back then What did people say that you won't be able to you should bring CEO.

1:36:36So, we went through that process. What was that phase? I was like, cool, if that's what it takes. So, I was very, I think for two, three years, I was ready to be here. I'm not going to be CEO. This is a very large organization. How are you talking about it? Chief Product Officer is my game. Give me a product. Take care of it. It's not going to be me. so but then we sort of became a team where i'm just like ceo for the namesake for the title but i'm generally the chief product officer akshant is cfo by title but he runs all like investors I don't even know them for the last 7 years so our even when we were private the last 2 fundraisers it was done just by him I didn't even meet those folks so we became a team which shared responsibilities so we don't fit people into titles if you have a title then you have to do all this because this title says this all this is a job so titles are what they are but we fit roles to people you are good at these things so let's tailor a role for you so we're very unstructured organization that way even today even today did you genuinely try to find a ceo yeah mg was mohit gupta was brought in to be ceo and then people were like don't give this a shock don't give this shock to the organization why?

1:38:30because people like you they follow you so let's not say leadership change okay let's you're making group CEO MG and I was like cool food delivery is most of the business anyway so he's food delivery CEO I am total group CEO but I will let me do the chief product officer firm. So, I actually like followed him. He led the organization for like two, three years and then I learned from him on how to scale. And what didn't work? What didn't work with him? Eventually? He had to let go. I think

1:39:17I just in terms of aggression, in terms of how we need to move forward beyond a point was a place of where we diverged.

1:39:30Not even hunger. I think hungry was not where he, hunger was not where there was an issue. The issue was more on how do you manifest that hunger. he he was like um we are at a good place in an organization right now let me coach and grow leaders and then that's how we will grow and i was like yes and we need to coach and grow but let's also get things done so he's like but no i think long term it's better for us to coach and grow and then let make things happen i was like no no no we need to get things done right now so and then we will also coach and grow so i think just this it was just a how of how to do things like absolute urgency to do things urgency and i was like and and kill urgency should never go off your head as soon as you take the gun off your head you're dead Ironically Even today you believe that Tell me top Three bad things

1:40:54Three bad things About working at Zomato Three bad things about working at Zomato And you can't tell that Keeping up with a boss like you I know. I can't even say good things and say these are bad things. Yeah. Don't do that. We do it in an interview. It's a lot of irritating. Irritating. Irritating. What are your weaknesses? This is my strength. This is my strength. Bad things about working at Zomato.

1:41:34So, there is like zero structure. we don't have hierarchies we don't have reporting managers we don't have goals we don't have appraisals which are given to you that what will be what will be what will be what will be absolutely nothing we have this is what you're doing right now nothing else unsettling this is me if I am an employee this is good as a sugar-coated bad this is unsettling this is a very chaos this is not this is inner chaos this is not organizational chaos so this is your inner chaos am I at the right place what is my career will I grow will I not grow like you don't have answers to those questions right you have to trust and believe and and then it happens so

1:42:51in boss we trust not just in boss like I am not telling those people people are not even like they don't even interact with me at this scale it's just the entire system is built like that right so they would talk to their manager and their manager would tell them stories i used to feel like that everything was fine chill like so that mindset and mentality just like it just like goes down like layer by layer and so if you are new to be able to if if somebody in an organization comes and tells you you'd be like what bullshit

1:43:54and then we insist no we're not going to give you the path this this like discomfort that you have let's solve it just look around there's so many people who have been here for years are we not looking we are happy? do you think something is missing in our life? everything is okay it will happen too it will happen too how will it happen? I don't know I don't know anyone else anyone else anyone else anyone else but it will happen if you are good life will happen problem a good problem we have so much talent okay and this talent is very like used to this way of working without goals putting in their best effort being like trusted with our lives right so high trust environment we operate they can't just like leave and go somewhere else because there's suffocation feel on them people come back and come back and come back sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes people come back because this is and it's not because of me it's because of the culture right and the culture is we trust you we're not going to let's just talk about the topic get things moving you do it at your own pace after somebody falls in school the organization takes a pause on the work stream sometimes if somebody leaves or goes on a break it's going to go up and down this is a very good thing and people don't want to leave so now we have talent like CEO quality talent and now we're like what do we do with this like we have to we have cash in the bank we have talent now we have to think of new businesses to do and these are like incredible people who have been here for a decade or more they don't even know anything else they know only this way to work and what will happen and what will happen and what bad thing is our businesses are weekend heavy weekend heavy holiday heavy 40 % business is on Friday, Saturday, Sunday New Year's is in full time on war room no holiday hospitality business you're not off on holidays so we are what do you tell your employees that brother do work on New Year or Diwali it's a gift when you go to the restaurant they do work so why do we kill you so when they see you that my CEO founder is doing holy party I don't do it CEO founder holy party we are in office we have to be there

1:47:03when everybody can go home when the peak time is over right so new year maybe let's say when we do something we'll come back by 12 31 a.m from office and it'll be a quiet have a drink together go to sleep right so new year is not there's no party unlike we are here to make sure everybody else's parties happen that comes at a cost of that ours will not happen so you will be talking about a new party and so this takes a toll on families right so that your family wants to do this right so and then you're like sorry but I have to be there so that's part and parcel of Zomato Blinket whatever we do what do you think about expensive talent

1:47:56even though business doesn't make sense at this point what do you mean business doesn't make sense like there are times when x role on an average let's say market standard is 2 lakh rupee per month

1:48:16and your business can afford only 4 lakhs Would you push it to get that person exceptional? How do you test that? That's what you should know. It's intuition. Intuition is how business works. If there was a formula, then every person who went through an MBA would be able to build a business. So if it's intuition that this person is exceptional, then? I would do it. Regardless of business sense. not make it. Why? What's the philosophy behind it? Something like that.

1:48:57That person is able to drive more outcomes and somehow things add up. Maybe 6 months, 12 months later but he will show you. I would never overpay talent just because they want more money. You know? I'm a job up and I need to 100 % raise to you no damn chance okay i would always make sure that whoever is coming in is being paid fairly compared to people inside the organization even if i have to give them 4x their current salary right so i have to i have to maintain fairness inside the organization and then i would but not look for people who are just hopping for the money so if they're not hopping for the money then I would pay.

1:49:48But how do you decide promotion? Tell me that this person has got X now he should have 3X his salary to give him. Because in the market, someone has 3X to give him ready. So usually employment will come and we like that. We don't talk about market. In the market, there's no market. Nobody comes in saying that I have a job offer. That conversation is not entertained. If someone comes in you don't care even if the talent is good no if the conversation has gotten to that point where they care about discovering the market we have failed to either benchmark them to a higher okay they have already lost trust they didn't feel like coming and telling us okay cool I am not being paid fairly which generally never happens I think it's mostly we failed that we didn't recognize that that person is doing better and we should give them a salary.

1:50:49We have already failed. So us giving them a 2x salary at that time in a negotiation is not going to build trust. Nothing is going to get solved. Things are going to get even worse. So that's already a point of failure. So let's go. So now let's go. This hasn't come. Someone has come that I have a salary to raise my salary. So in your head you're like he's a very important person what is the metric like how do you judge to grow that who knows they don't come to ask this question they're already being rewarded generously generously I would say close to zero chances that they'll be able to find more somewhere else.

1:51:42But then, in such a big organization, I'm sure, some high performers will be staying on the way that you don't have attention to. Probably, or someone's attention to. But see, the entire team is built like that. So, it's not just giving me attention. Everyone will miss someone. someone who will come and say, what is the way to promote? Is there a formula that you put out? No, everybody takes care of each other. So, spread out. So, which way you probably probably you deal with your top 20. They've all grown up here. They know the ethos of how we pay. So in the beginning, how did you decide to pay?

1:52:21Just generously. I've always been generous. I was like, if you want so much, take so much. Cool. We're not going to talk about money ever. That's just only focus on work. Netflix has a culture. We're forgetting what we're talking about. they fire people under performance like they random test do you know about it there's Zappos Netflix they ask is this the one you're talking about I'll give you 3x 3 months of salary right now if you want to leave you can leave no questions asked this is Zappos Zappos founder Tony Hish he used to do it And then what he said, he was on the spot. Interesting. I'm loosely reframing.

1:53:15Famously built on radical candor, high performance and the keepers. Managers must be willing to fight to keep an employee. If not, then employee receives a generous severance around four to nine months of pay and they let go. It's a performance-based decision. They'll ask the manager, will you fight to keep this employee? and if the manager says no then we're fired I don't know do you like this test? we don't play roadies

1:53:47you remember roadies you used to watch roadies? yeah I used to watch roadies you used to like it? at that time there was nothing else to watch that was entertainment what a lot of roadies or splitsvilla splitsvilla came way after I don't think that was the same era so you didn't watch I think I stopped watching TV after I left home but what do you used to like about roadies because you just mentioned roadies

1:54:22I don't know not like there was nothing else to watch you know one thing which came out which I really like roadies flipfilla some of them their title songs Like I really used to wait for another season's song. I don't remember if I watched any season's whole. Just, I used to wait for that song. One of the songs of Agni, one of the roadies. I loved them. Do you like music? I like music, but I don't remember they had songs. Do you watch movies now, shows now? Very rarely when somebody, like when two, three people recommend. What do you recommend? What do you recommend?

1:55:04I don't, I never remember the names. Plot, tell me something. Describe it like an alien.

1:55:16there's this movie where Ralph Fiennes was the Pope he's not the Pope the Pope had died and they needed to replace him I don't know yeah that was nice that was fun the ending was slightly disappointing the whole movie was good coming back to the conversations where we'll before we get into some stuff tell me about Swiggy okay what my favorite topic

1:55:52at one point they were clearly more loved what do you think what you didn't do I think food delivery logistics was the last mile they actually started it and I for a couple of years was resisting it thinking that this model can never make money why? economics were very off so it was very hard to justify back then that this would make money and I am sure even Swiggy founder he also didn't know whether it would make money but the customer love was real so at some point there was no choice but to do it for us even if we didn't know whether it would make money ever and how did customer love very strong retention yes I was knowing that when you are your friends I don't do any more order I'll do even in spite of the love if they do this then you know that you have a problem at your hand and then you wanted to just do this then you have to figure it had to figure it out and then Swiggy recently had one condition in Shark Tank that you have to take off as a Shark Tank judge was that a condition was it true I heard that from the shark tank team that that that's why because i was they were they were actually talking to me for the next season uh and i was like eight weekend last time also eight weekend i could do it and um and this second time also i was like okay i can do one weekend only and then we're still talking and then suddenly they backed out and one day later they called us listen we can't do this i said cool but why and it's like swiggy sponsored us and and they like told us that we can't have you i said cool get a lot of lot of cash out of them please at least make them pay no it's cool why?

1:58:05you do this I do this I do this but I don't like it why do you not do this when you promote the competitor if you are doing your money and sponsor you then you probably you will take out the founders do this I would have not done it why? I think I'd be more graceful than that sponsor too I'd be like come on no problem why? what do you think you would have like yeah it's okay I mean it's a it's a nice thing why am I fighting don't need to but is there something that makes you like this because a lot of people they would be they would cut that off they would do the same thing what Swigee did I think this is a scarcity mindset hai thoda sa correct and trying to like cut into a seemingly very limited small pile I don't think it matters like so just do the right thing continue growing chill sleep well sleep with a conscience which is clear more clear conscience more than sleep well sleep well we are doomed to not be able to sleep well but conscience should be clear.

1:59:32My conscience would not allow me to do that. So, I would rather not sponsor than, I would actually not even sponsor. I would let it be. I was like, okay, you're doing, you have owned this part, you've done well, do it. I do something else. I would change my turf and then beat, compete, then try to negate something. And, does it help you? In the shock tank, to be judged, to be a shock,

2:00:05yes and no context specific is so i didn't so i'm generally not the person as you know to go to these things so it's not my not my thing um but right before shark tank maybe for a year or I started meeting restaurant owners by myself I never used to go do the b2b side of food delivery or any or any other business and people used to be like you are a decently okay nice guy why do we have this kind of an image of you I was like I don't know maybe because i've always wanted to stay in the shadows because i have this social anxiety i don't want to talk so that that had branded me as arrogant kind of a person so people were like yeah maybe you should get out more okay people will just understand and trust you guys more so and then shark tank always every year used to ask me and some monday i was like well i think this could be a nicer quicker faster way for people to get to know me because that nobody knew me so i was like cool i'll do a weekend so just three days of shoot and then that's it should be enough the costs that i paid for going to shark tank was huge was not something i expected what cost privacy totally gone to the dogs just i just like can't step out and go to restaurants in india anymore so why do you know people now yeah yeah yeah selfies from under the table privacy like reels it's just like not cool do you do you get annoyed when you go to cars or hotel

2:02:17I don't get annoyed. I just try to avoid it as much as I can. I don't get annoyed. I mean, because I mean, all of us are people, humans. Humans will do human things. Why should I lose my peace over humans doing human things? Okay, let it be. I mean, it is what it is. not even let it be right so it's like it is what it is like peace out try to not get into situations where this happens as much as possible and that's it but would you rather get back to a situation jahan pe ab private life jeer hai i would love that i would love like going out to restaurants chilling opening my laptop change of scene i would love normal unknown life you don't like publicly known like a celebrity public figure I never signed up for that and that was not what I wanted for myself why?

2:03:27I don't know

2:03:31like there's only cost on the other side what's the upside? I don't know there's zero upside there might be some upside that's why people are mad towards getting fame i think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence because they don't have it so they feel like probably so you said that you went to shark tank because you thought it was a business call business call a good platform will be people will know brand recognition trust zomato more brand recognition there was it was not a sales job for me it was not about getting more orders it was about like okay trust but this is the person okay so when we do something you can see okay this is a person saying this so you look at it from that lens rather than say obviously right so but there is this um there is this mindset right that oh all companies will lie back borrow steel for profit or for money right so and we are not those people so we just do things for what we think right or wrong what we think is the right thing to do and we'll get to that the right and the wrong thing we will get to that but shark tank you also said that people think arrogant so it's a good way to show people why really I am so where I am going to go and I can see something special like you have like you were I remember the one thing which blew out of the proportion was that the details that the number was wrong and it was that the fact is a fact but then the thing the purpose that you went there for that people don't think I am arrogant or like that you did exactly what I don't think pointing out something factual is arrogance at all arrogance is opinion versus opinion you think this is how things work and I was like I could be right or wrong and I don't have any data right now to change my point of view so therefore I don't want to do this so it was never that it's like this.

2:05:58It's like this. It's like this. I don't know. Nor do I expect my team to be like that because things change. And why did you feel so bad that the detail was wrong in Shark Tank? What in you? It was just disappointing. It's just like I have this like appreciation for craft and art. Right. that it's like you you have to care you're here you're on national TV you really don't care that's just like disappointing it's like culturally disappointing for me right so for anybody it's like why maybe miss nervousness I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared You are on national TV. Okay. You spend 20 extra days. You do a damn good job at this.

2:07:04Okay. There's no excuse for getting those kind of things wrong. Like once in a lifetime shot you're getting. Do you get that pissed with your team members and your people? I get. I make a. My team knows this. Okay. I make a typo on Twitter or LinkedIn or something. something goes wrong, they know I would be cursing myself for the next seven days. I have sympathy messages after sending me. I hope you're kind to yourself.

2:07:43What pisses you off today? I was very angry.

2:07:49Just like like, complacent mediocrity, like, in general. Like, it's not even like, okay, you are, you are that, mediocre ho, aur, tum na mediocrity dhikha raha raha ho, toh, I'm cool with that, because tum na potential pe perform gar raha ho. I'm, that's amazing, because everybody should try to do that but potential plus minus 10 percent right but when somebody's potential is 100 and they're playing at 10 correct and they're chill about it and they expect life outcomes to happen to them like they were playing at their 100 that just feels like why? Entitlement like the world owes nothing to you.

2:08:45The world owes nothing to me. Right? So all of us earn things by creating value for others. Right? So how much value are you creating for others? First of all, talk about that. Then you'll get everything. It will come. It's always coming. So that pisses you off. It just disappoints me in general. What makes you lose your cool? Groucho? maybe in personal life I think I've been okay for the last couple of years you've been okay before you were not before tell me before these things could irritate me repeatedly done they would irritate me even more from the same person like in your personal life you know that your wife's potential is let's say 100 % and somewhere she's operating that you would get pissed with her also absolutely she would also get pissed at me when i'm doing that she's also like you maniacs don't know i think in a like relationship you rub off on each other and become the same kind of a person over time right so became the same kind of a person i became more peaceful with her she became more demanding while being with me and demanding not in a bad way in a good way right demanding good things and i feel if you really are in a good relationship where you have this is the person i want to make it work with forever whatever with that phases you think you are demanding and then you balance it out to each other so let's talk about blink it times you bought blink it Everyone said that you are crazy.

2:10:34Stock 75 % crashed down. What was in you? What was happening in your mind that we should have to buy? I had never personally experienced a service which was as addictive as Blinkit. And Blinkit was a little bit. We tried Quick Commerce in Growfers. We invested in Zomato Nebelios. $100 million. In Growfers? In Growfers. And then we tried Quick Commerce. in a store right next to us we opened 2-3 stores and tried to open our houses and we're like this is crazy the kind of convenience we are getting anything that we run out of there's nothing to plan like life has just like become easy right so and it was just I knew this could become a business like so and people would love it as well so again coming back to the point I've always done things for myself I've never really thought this makes business sense no, if this makes sense for me if I like doing this only then I'll have the passion to drive it otherwise I'll not have the passion to drive it so that's why it made just sense it just made sense so how did investors convince them when it looked purely bogus idea we could said it wasn't bogus customer cohorts in small to 2-3 stores were insane so investors were like okay we trust your gut go ahead so someone will tell you who are business sense people they are like this is irrational but if you want to do this go ahead we trust you and like your neck on the line so your neck on the line cool I was like done sir so 75 % stock crash it was actually mix of things market crash it was also not just Blinkit and Blinkit happened to be a company growers happened to be a company of someone who was a friend of your 15th closest friend one of the closest friends right her wife was a co-founder so people said bail out and saved friends people said absolutely how would you respond to that we were objective in what we were doing I was even at a point of asking LB to leave because he was not the right leader for the organization at our end we knew that we didn't do anything we didn't do anything our conscience is clear and because this is my friend's company it's not a feature it's not a bug in the system because i know that i am betting my company on this future so i would not bet this on any unknown founder right who i would not be able to trust my life with because here i'm saying bro zomato's future is going to be decided on this bet so we have to make this work if it takes a decade or two whatever i don't know i are you in this conversation is not about

2:14:20none of that was even a conversation point this was a emotional spiritual a sort of a agreement a nod between us that we're going to going to do this this is like almost going to war hand in hand right so so you can't do this with anybody you don't trust with your life there was not never a conversation in your head that what will your company look at conscience clear but it will be seen and it was at a billion dollar valuation which you got it at like a 500 something million half was it 700 something something 750 so that discount was for that you are saving the company this is why it was not a discount it was as much as I remember I could be wrong I think the the valuation was decided to be a billion or something but the stock swap had been decided that we will have so much percentage stock swap but when it was deal until our 25 % stock is gone so but the news is the number is never the oh it was decided to be a billion only it was not even decided to be a billion it was basically decided to be that much percentage of Zomato whatever that value is we looked at made some rational sense of it and then there was news ki Akriti na apne teen saal ka compensation waived kiya tha was that a part of condition no she waived three years of compensation right that's just general habit of people at Zomato.

2:16:07Why? Once they make money, they just want to get into this space that I want to serve, I don't want to get paid. But to do a compensation wave off? It's a stock. Cash salaries wave off doesn't move the needle. That had nothing to do with this. and was it a condition ki kyunki conflict of interest Akriti was not even a part of these conversations we just kept her out through and through she was even oblivious to the fact that we are going to do a deal and once the deal happened was it a conversation ki maybe you have conflict of interest so Akriti you have to go no those two guys are pro professionals they don't talk about work in the house relationship is super solid super strong so I had never had any inkling of this person knows this this person knows this, nothing I was always compartmentalized what do you think about Zepto?

2:17:23another competitor beyond that what do you think? I mean quick commerce is a interesting dense high growth space. Zepto is also part of the few players. I don't know much to say. There's no difference. I mean we don't think everything. We do our own work. But you said somewhere that they burn 500 crores per quarter. And Adit, the founder of Zepto, he said it's verifiably untrue I said where did I say it? I said something I said something I said something in a newspaper interview I said something I didn't say it some misinterpretation somewhere something happened and it went like that there was some confusion I don't remember but I didn't say that it was a big buzz you said that you said that you said that you said for example i i think it was something like kisi ne muc se poochha achcha tu me pata hai burn rate kitna hai oska as much as i know dhai hizar hai to i think wo was not part of the question that was asked for me it was a side question toh mein ne bata diya mention gara diya woh udar chala ga and then and then i was like let me just like let it pass toh did you think that you made a mistake doing what by saying this mistakes happen cool learn from this move on but was it a mistake you thought that this was not to say in the beach maybe yes it's true you never know but the number was true I don't know you just said it no I mean as much as I know truth you never know what is the truth right so we all have our versions of truth you know Adit somewhere said that I was 5 when Dupinder started Zomato does it make you feel strange that you are competing with someone that young?

2:19:30I think how does it matter? I don't know. It doesn't matter. You met him? Yeah. Do you like him? Yes. As many times I met him, I have actually liked him. What about him you really like? I think smart guy talks well, earnest, wants to build a business. but yeah but I've not known him for the last couple of years though like two years it's been I haven't met him I know the early stage version of Adit I don't know the current version of Adit and people change quite a lot you think he must have changed? I don't know I haven't met him but people do change quite a lot especially at these stages yeah what changes in people usually?

2:20:25I mean these are high high learning pace of learning is very high in all things good or bad both so I don't know what's going on out there but and if he wouldn't change if he didn't change so Zepto wouldn't even have gotten this far as well so I'm sure he's learning and changing and what do you think Zepto is doing right just from a competitor lens I don't know yet there must be something you must be tracking on competitors. We don't do it. No. But if from just a lens because you check from testing way, you've said it before. You've said it. Last few years, no. I think we've come down to our own ways of doing things the right way.

2:21:23But is there something which you think if you had to pick up what would it be? I think

2:21:39Swiggy is still a formidable food delivery competitor for us. So always tough to fight them. Always. So one inch extra room free men he gets there.

2:22:03Zepto? I don't know. I think their marketing is quirky and nice but Zomato team runs it. Ex-Zomato people are all so they are all good for them. Does it does it make sometimes when you watch your people in the other place and you work on the other side and you work on the other side how do you think that you think that you are here why did you go you are just like you get a little happy about see we are the factory of creatives I feel happy and proud even if competition are doing good on competition I look and it's like nice good job never that shit is going on that's life that happened so there is no such thing where you go so here it's going enough of your human things now let's talk about what people call the inhuman side in you I have that side there's a lot there's a lot bye okay it's very nice I have to cut it down which part I'll talk about maybe I'll give you paper after this please please so in April 2025 500-600 employees you have fired up.

2:23:21April 2025? Customer support employees. Okay. It's described as cold termination and inhuman treatment. This news was wrong. This news was wrong? Yeah. Slack's account randomly deactivated and accessed and denied. This news was wrong. So, how did this news and what happened? This was about 20 people performance-based were released. Purely. After months of feedback and somebody went on reddit and posted this drama and 2600 people didn't get out of it but we just let it be, we don't justify we were like screw it but there was somebody who fired 28 minute lateness no, it doesn't happen 28 minute lateness not only one day you're always late 28 minutes late, how does that work when you are on a when you are on a actually clock to clock job right so that's not cool yeah so 3 months exactly 3 months 20 minutes ago later that's why something like that long term 3 months he exact pointed that's why I mean you are late is this cool I don't think cool but what's the difference you said culture is a way this is a job which is that customer care right we can't have that capacity planning just planning us per it goes all the time you have ordered you have trouble you have not how does that work some functions are clock to clock capacity planning and if if we don't ask this person to leave who is 28 minutes late and everybody starts being 28 minutes late for those 28 minutes we have absolutely no one on the job how can we how can we like accept that and it's not like us ko warnings nahi mili hai people just abuse social media like and we just let it be what is the ai karma ai karma kuch hai ke scoring system bana rakh hai ap logo ne ai score karega logo ko there's no ai karma there's again credit there is karma system karma system karma system but there's not ai karma this is basically we know that these customers abuse customer support quite a lot.

2:25:46So, we have this karma score for them that these customers abuse. So, be careful with them. Do people not for employees? Not for employees? Iron and gold? No for employees? These are all customers. This is only customer segmentation. So, it's not for any employee of customer support. Employee not for anyone. People say that you feel zero problem in firing randomly. That you have seen people underperforming for 3-6 months after doing something, and then you fire them. You're like, just leave. The tragedy of this statement is that the people who are saying this, they don't get the message when we are telling them that this is not cool, you need to change it.

2:26:38Meaning? if you have to listen let's say 18 minutes listen you're late this is late this is not going to go because the president is bad set if you have to listen if you have to listen then you're going to please time this is conversation is not going to go now if you have to listen if you have to listen and you have to listen

2:27:12So the tragedy of all of this is that When we ask people to leave Even in spite of taking them through feedback loops The reason why they are still there Is because they didn't get the feedback Or understand or change or sort of Or like internalize the feedback that is being given to them So when they go and say what happened They are like what I did brother come on there is always like that whenever you get to that point after months but what do I do only for 20 minutes I told you 6 times this is not gonna work this is not okay for these and these reasons I don't think it's a big deal but we think it's a big deal okay cool you guys are like this like that like that I'll go and then the post on social media somebody like this has called you you treat people as disposable I think that's people's own issues where they say these things we don't we don't like do that at all and something I'm laughing I was like inhuman side

2:29:05it's cool bring them on promised us that if you work hard you'll grow in the company and then my slack was deactivated randomly as if I'm somebody disposable I don't think it never happens people are making up things of out of vengeance just because they can does it bother you? it hurts because we never did those things but then well like people's own issues Have you noticed what is sold? No. You're defaming and dealing this. Not worth fighting. Not worth. Let's talk about gig workers. How many people are employed on and every month based on delivery workers? Cross, Zomato, Blinkit. Everything.

2:29:567 ,5 million monthly active. And how many people are fired every month and how many people are hired every month? fire toh koji nahi chhodke jate honge ya fire thodi hotte nah karte bhi hooga na koji bad actors terminations kisi terminations terminations temporary hotte toh koji permanent termination nhi hotte or warning systems hotte ha first of all we'll give a warning bro listen there's a coach and educate period first listen this is not cool you are new to this but not delivering the order and thinking that you can have this order is not cool

2:30:42it's just like they don't know that it's not okay like and we're like okay this is not oh okay this is not cool I won't do it and then I won't do it 90 % like it's just like that right so it's like you know funny thing let me actually take a step back this is like many years ago Zomato me na we found a salesperson a salesperson who systems me restaurant commission come anybody from the sales team used to be able to up or down so So, we knew that someone accepted personal cash. And some restaurant's commission gave it 10 % to 15%. The sales people. They took personal cash. And our exception list came out that it was less.

2:31:50While it's okay to sometimes support and do, but we need to know why. And the person didn't have any good answer. and then we smelled something fishy and then we went to the restaurant owner and said your commission was 15-10 we didn't understand what happened you didn't explain what happened

2:32:17and that person told us the restaurant manager he got 15 ,000 so so now this is where the story starts this was just the background of the story so I'm annoyed and like like you have 45 ,000 salary why are you doing this for 15 ,000? I mean ethics, conscience what's going on? there are some pressure on the house there are some medical issues nothing, all good okay and now everything is clear so why did this it's like you know the response I get what's wrong with it

2:33:13everything exactly and you will not it's you will not like Like believe me, every time we've come across, like 99 % of the times, whenever we come across this petty stupid fraud, the question that is asked back to us, Okay, this is wrong.

2:33:40Really? Okay. My father was doing this too, but... And then it hit me. Corruption travels through the family. Okay. This is how you're brought up. Okay. So people justify to themselves to live with themselves. Okay.

2:34:13And that's how it was happening inside our own organization. And then we had to do ethics classes.

2:34:27What are the things that are good? What are the things that are good? It's good, but people don't understand. Ethics is a very hard concept to teach. Explain. Because from childhood, everyone does this. So it's like, this is okay, right? What is wrong? And I was, it's like, how can I even answer this question? What is wrong? like obviously it's wrong so how many cases are here where people think that you can take a little money from side I don't know I don't know how many now we don't know systems are very electronic and tight this is a very long time but you know how many people are doing how many people are doing the Zomato riders delivery partners all of them you can say 5000 per month out of 7.5 lakhs and how much do you hire?

2:35:32how much do you add in the system? 1.2 lakh 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs and 5 ,000 people 5 lakhs we terminate 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs 1.2 lakhs in interview I know Temporary work I was doing this driver and I was getting this thing and I got this lot of transient population most of it is transient 2 months 3 months like so their factory is closed winter so there's like that it's actually purely gig and there will be like 20 % of the base which is sort of thinks of it as a more permanent long term stable thing but 80 % is gig we come and go we work part time when we get money we don't do it when we need money we come back so it's very we have predictability only to a certain extent that today we will get how many people will get beyond our predictability 5 ,000 people who turn minute why do you do?

2:36:48What are the top 3 reasons? Multiple reasons of fraud basic frauds are there? Top 2, 3 top 3 frauds are there that food is not delivered not done but food is not delivered cases cash on delivery let's say you have 400 rupees you have 1000 rupees so you give it 1000 rupee note and say change and then they don't show up okay so this is where the customer karma score and the rider karma score sort of blends in and we can never be fully right okay here we say okay if a customer has a reputation which is good and they complain about such a thing then they would most likely be right who knows what is true nobody knows I was going to ask that customer could be right rider could be right sir I didn't do this I gave 400 rupees this is why you're saying this because they want 600 bucks out of you now we get stuck in this we don't know who is right okay so here's where our karma systems work if the rider's customer's reputation is better then we tell customer sorry this is on you if the customer's reputation is more than the rider's reputation we tell rider you're sorry and we don't know 50-70 % of the times we take the hit we'll do the customer and we'll say rider's reputation let's go but when the mismatch is just very stark then you punish one then jab same rider ko do bar let go kar dhi hai same cheese pe jab us ke par tisri bar ho gya na ye tisri bar same issue a gaya tumhaara saath ye to pattern hai dhekho ھیک hai ye ye na coincidence nii hai pure play pattern haa aapne pahle hi do bar aapko let go kiya to aapne tisri bar kiya to ye paka pattern hai then third time we will terminate them and customer kya fraud karete hai customer kya fraud Hier is insane fraud here.

2:39:12There is A white So

2:39:27People like like

2:39:34some insect some hair some foreign object like a nail okay these things like nowadays AI has even made it easier to convert your fully okay cake into a smashed smashed cake as well my cake smashed I was like suddenly 5 % cake smashes how did it get up so how do you go which search which search karma score pure there is almost no way to determine I'll give you a situation so tell me what happened in this situation I'm an avid Zomato customer so I order a lot and I do it with company account that's by the way one of the best features just wanted to say that because I didn't pay but it's my EA locked that for me and I'm like I bless him every time I want OTP like hey it's just a great blessing okay so now so I order and I order a lot and sometimes it's bad sometimes I'm like it's not so much time so what's your mind and why and let it be one day like at 2am I was like mad, tired and no sleep I ordered and I waited and I waited and there was a mistake and one thing was missing and then I was pissed I told the customer that this is missing so they replied me that sorry in this case we can't refund something okay or something like i can't do anything about it because it shows that it's been delivered nicely and stuff and then i think two minutes later sorry we can't help this is it and i felt bad keep by my top bottom check customer room my poor company bought order to company account as a bini ki uh chota my personal account and then I wrote guys I'm a regular Zomato customer you can go check my history I won't do stuff like this within 2 minutes sir your refund is okay we're doing it 8 to 10 days do you want it in Zomato or something human error okay now that in the night customer care person is busy on their insta okay cool default is say no okay they don't they're not even looking at the right side of the screen where karma is written that this is a good customer but just sorry okay it's just like that human error so our business is like prone to errors there is perfection is impossible I was wondering what happened immediately that person just said nothing will change he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said all the dashboard is written.

2:42:46All decisions. But we don't automate this to the extent that AI can do this because we're like, now we don't have confidence in our experience. And I have a technical question. But your, and not just yours, like India's Swiggy is a matter, your customer care is a lot better than U.S. Uber Eats. I agree. Like it's, I was in Austin recently. 10 times better than Austin. Very better. Why? I think Zomato's, we are the best food delivery apps in the world. Even better than Uber Eats. In US. 10 times more. So why are there customers, like their customer service sucks. Like customer support was, if I just have to compare Apple to Apple, I had horrible experience.

2:43:43Go to the technicals. I will go to Uber Eats and DoorDash are on their own restaurants. The market is sharded. These restaurants are DoorDash and these restaurants are Uber Eats. If you have to order this restaurant, then you can order this restaurant. If you order this restaurant, then you can order it. Good. Monopolys are going to work. Okay. There are different different options. out of the monopolis and because restaurant you have a choice. I have to eat this from this. Okay. Sometimes. So, this is why they don't compete. They don't compete. India doesn't have such a thing. Most of the restaurants are not enough.

2:44:33There are a lot of handful. It's rare. And And, I have a restaurant here today, but you have to come to an exclusive deal with you. Give a little deal. Give a good deal. I'm telling you, sir, why are you losing it? Let me be honest with you. So, I'm just telling you, don't do this. Please list on both. Because, business will come from both. Why are you doing the work? So, I'll send you back to us. We don't want to do this because we want to be good partners for you right so if you do if we do this your business will get you will get stress you will get stress we will get stress we have already taken stress to give you a good deal this is going to tank so this is not going to so if you have more money then it's a lot it's a lot if I give you a lot business then it's a lot it's not going to happen okay so this is the best thing for you so this makes the competition very very intense in terms of doing the best jobs that we can so and luckily for both of us and it's not intense to a point where we are doing the wrong things to bring each other down so bad competition healthy, intense which makes us keep nudging better and better fair you are saying that Uber Eats there they are more loyal to the restaurant and you guys are more loyal towards customers and that's why the difference is in customer support you have a true choice India if I don't do it, I can go to the restaurant there are not true choices

2:46:33and coming back to gig workers you said there was an incident I'll read it as it is for you that Telangana gig workers union said you invested in a future foundation so that's better gig workers situation all their situation and their living minimum wages they increase their conditions they increase 700 crore it's less but you did PR stunt rather than helping people what do you think about that look I have a problem with distributing money for free okay because it doesn't last I would rather use the money to create systems which can generate more wealth and long term beneficiary for people so this argument it just doesn't make sense okay no company should make profit also charity right that's not how life works life works when profit gets investing invested into other systems and businesses which create even more employment even more wealth okay so now to come back to kia gig workers key condition i think that this argument is a david versus goliath's pr argument okay it's just very easy to pull us down okay we pay well we pay way more than the minimum wages okay cool there are so many unorganized and even organized sectors which flout laws and pay less give me an example most of our most of the people who let's say complain about on twitter or insta saying raus to taking in K &R, you cannot play the PR, you out pay more and kind of πει grows to your riders.

2:48:43I thought you don't pay your drivers.

2:48:50It's your drivers, your perluards and the Всё of those homies are you leaving off your street. Why? because they find this job to be better than what they used to do okay they left something which they did not find dignified enough and those businesses were also owned by people people like us and you which they left here okay respite has them here independence has them paas financial freedom not to the point of

2:49:39car lulling or something but they can at least have the security of feeding their kids well they can send their kids to school they have this too before that continuously I will do my children in school or not do it what we have done is made sure that these people don't worry about that they are always able to continuously send their kids to school so we just are so short-sighted when we think of first of all we can only pay that much right beyond that economics don't work business also has to work the business has to make money to be able to do more things otherwise the system just stops here.

2:50:30Right. And these people over the next 25-30 years will do great things. Those opportunities we are creating, they are not doing it for them. It's just for their children. Like my dad didn't think of what I'm doing. He was like let me just make the bare minimum amount of money to be able to send my kids to school. He did that. And then I did what I did. Over generations country is changing. It doesn't change in one generation or in one year. We're saying that millions of people will change their future generationally. Right? And I don't think there's any other company which has done that in India ever so far.

2:51:25Right? So, and I don't understand and the flag that we get for it. Whereas, we are the only company which has created so many jobs. So many jobs. Tell me any other company which has been able to do that. How much do you pay on an average? 1.5 lakh gig workers are. Delivery boys are 1.5 lakhs. So, how much do you earn monthly? If you think that, let's say I do regular hours. If I do 6 days work, 8 to 10 hours a day, toh 25 ,000 plus buntah hai and people say that you exploit them why do they say so I'll tell you my theory on this why do you say people exploit we are Zomato Svegi we created a very peculiar social phenomena so there is this rich class manit class who actually now कभी भी worker class या less money class के साथ face to face आई ही नहीं है कभी भी नहीं है हाँ हम हमारे पास एक driver होता है हमारे पास एक mad होती है ठीक है एक nanny होती है पर नहीं हम उनको ना ऐसे outside side in worker class we are not our people we are always thinking we are keeping them correct but this is the first time we got these two classes face to face so now the reality of India visible and people think that we have made this reality no, we have not made आई है यह अप इंडिया की रियालिटी का बेटर वर्जन देख रहे हो हमारे कारण ठीक है यह आप यहाँ पे delusional हो जो आपको लगता है कि यह खराब है खराब इससे पहले था यह उसको ठीक करके यह बनाए

2:53:39but we never saw that oblivious है हम उन चीज़ों को कि actually it look like we don't know these things true it's a 10x upgrade for these folks they're able to send their kids to school yeah okay and then but this is the first time our money class just came to came came face to face with the reality of the country and then they're like wow this is so bad these guys exploit. No, we are empowering a generation of people to educate their children to have a better future which would have otherwise not been possible. There are no jobs out there. But people then say that you don't even create good conditions for them to do jobs.

2:54:37We have shelters. We treat them nicely. We pay them on time. we pay them we pay them fairly we have we they can switch off whenever they want to switch off they can switch back on whenever they want to switch back what kind of conditions social security we don't have we give we do we do we provide all the benefits that social security we do privately privately because we care accident insurance health insurance all of those things we do probably and we like administer them so well recently an MP said parliament that you should stop 10 minute delivery because riders have been death with extreme pressure that they have reached 10 minutes and they have red light breaking breaking rules follow not doing it and then we're constant pressure and stress and because they're losing their life they're losing their mind and we're exploit are don't you think it's true?

2:55:49I don't think so. Why? First of all, our delivery partners, our Blinkit Zomato we're not going to any rider's timeline that you have to eat so many hours and go there. There's no time for 10 minutes? No. Blinkit. we've never seen it in the Blinkit. We've never seen it in the Blinkit mode. That's why 10 minutes is not enabled through asking people to drive fast. 10 minutes is enabled by density of stores. They're just so close to you. Okay. Delhi NCR has about 400 plus stores, Blinkit stores. That means there's a store in every corner. Okay. so my packing time is 1 minute 40 seconds average okay 1 kilometer 8 minute to get up it's hard to get up so there is no human pressure being created to make this work but the timer I see that 6 minutes that's only you I don't see that that's 7 minutes that customer I don't know I don't know How much time is it?

2:57:06After that, the job comes to leave it there. He leaves it back. That's it. It's a shuffling job. They have no pressure on timing. When they get very, very late, then we call them. Listen, are you okay? What's happening? Do this, right? Then we figure out if something is wrong, we help them. Otherwise, sometimes they're chilling, having a smoke, and then say, listen, otherwise there is zero time pressure but aisa pressure to hota hooga that in a day I have 15 deliveries to do because I will make how much money I will make comfortable hootay hain aisa pressure wali baat ni hai her delivery peh payse bantah hai minimum 10-12 karni padegi toh payse bantah hai no no her delivery pehse bantah hai so if my delivery boy hoon my decide karta ho my deliver karna and I say, today is my one time.

2:58:04So, I will get one time. One time. Not that you have to give a minimum.

2:58:10People come to work for one hour. People come to work for one hour. Students come to work for one hour. Students what they do is that they are on a bike. Okay. Let's say school from home. So, they come to do two orders. They will give you. How sweet. Extra pocket money. I got an email yesterday. from someone design team joined us in our Zomato and he said sir 4 years rider education support Zomato I was like cool shit man so see there is that happening but red light jump okay you have just seen Zomato riders us coi dc a red light jump marter ya aapne dunia ko generally bhi dc a red light jump marter ya sab loo karter na india me toh ektai ka sport hai ye sabo na

2:59:13toh agar wwo zumaato ki t-shirt nahi bhi piana ho ga in-san na ya blingkit ki nahi piana ho ga na I'm guarantee you tb bhi karta red light jump because humari human nature mein hai wo things if they are doing the Mato and Blinkit riders in India then I would take the blame but why are we taking the blame when all of us who are not even actually employed by us who don't even have time pressure they're still jumping lights you have any time pressure has been Koi banduk rakhie no But it's a sport Fair So I don't know why we Why we get pulled down for these things What do you think according to you Kya Kahan pe Conditions udhari ja sakti Jaha bekaar hai Be delivery boy khe ligg Ek cheese Mujhe

3:00:20Chodi si Dangerously hurt kerti hai Hame ki Tiar na cities delivery boys don't actually complain about it much because they are from those areas and they understand the vibe but kuchna unsafe areas like they just like get robbed but like

3:00:48there is that rowdism in some areas now customers live there what do we do so what do we do with them we are like good if we take this if you have to go or not they say they go some people share there are also people like I am not going to run away from this I will go because at some point you need to fight the crime

3:01:21but tell us that these possibilities possibilities red zone here you can see red zone you can see everyone the word spreads red zone delivery do you get extra pay you get you get you get you get you get you get what chances are you how much percentage will be 100 days will be day 1000 cases will be now day deliveries will be put that in context red zones 25 ,000 decent number volume it's like a gang that people do it that they do it that they don't loot and then we try to do local police like there's a lot of work on the ground to be able to something happens sometimes do you have head of security or something sincere why would our offices have problems so many people are in the day someone who does a term minute or doesn't do it you have 5 ,000 people you have 50-30-50 in office to do it it happened with no broker why we will terminate I heard Uber for the longest time in India they were hiding so sometimes it happens people terminate they also know that they are guilty they create trouble they don't commit crime so what type of trouble create 20 people are cutting I don't want to do this in the locality but sir but we've been able to now manage it manage and be pleasant with everybody and get to good terms because people didn't know how this business also works now everybody's learning and we also learned our systems were weak now they become better so flaws unfair terminations first happen now three times right so those systems became better there was a scene and scenario I think has it happened one time or multiple times death of a delivery boy that when he was delivering that time when he died why and what happened yet these are these are road accidents and as unfortunate as they are and we support the families and we do all the work

3:04:11they're just mishaps basically I'm from Indore and Indore was it just purely an accident? they're all pure accidents what happens if someone gets a death? What is the protocol? What is the policy of company? There is insurance and then we also like there is a team which reaches out to the family and understands what's the situation and how much dependence and what's the difference. And depending on that situation we'll tune up and down. And sometimes we extend job offers to families. Situation depends on the situation. If there was a child, there was nobody else earning would sponsor the child's education for long term.

3:05:11So, it's a lot of case-to-case tailored. And there is no way we can solve for the impact of a loss of a family member. But we try to cushion the long-term impact of that. But what do you pay for family? Do you give some remuneration? you give the insurance and the family how much insurance I think 10 lakh if not more last time I knew it was 10 lakhs minimum is 10 lakhs do you know personally names of people who died I don't want you to take those names but I know 3-4 people I know families some of those

3:05:56couple of those kids I am actually personally funding them okay so this is a very touchy topic for all of us we know the hidden cost of the entire thing guilty feel guilty guilty guilt guilt it's just like anything can happen so guilt because we know we are also creating a lot of good so there is a lot of there are a lot of lives being saved while we do what we do but this is the cost that we pay for it so we just try to soften it as much as we can there was there was a political leader in the country who said that this is not innovation our Indian companies are doing this deep tech we should have been in technology we should have been in that startup how do you think about that when we talk about a lot of second time founders who have created money who have been able to create wealth a lot of kids of rich founders who have or could take more risk I think they could take more risk they could have done more

3:07:38we didn't have the privilege of oh I have capital let me see I can do what we were like here we started off with I'm a scanning company I'll make 2 lakh rupees okay that was our starting point and then we just survived and built this and what we did for us we are not the people to be targeted here right so and if i do a second startup or a third startup i would do deep tech i would do crazy deep tech right because it'd be fun i would have the risk appetite to do it I'm already doing deep tech startups right so and at the time when he made the comment minister made the comment I was already doing these things so I was like it's cool it's okay let's continue doing our job I will tell you soon what I will do not tell you I will tell you I will tell you I will tell you I will tell you I will tell you so we have been talking about allegations for so long we just get so much I mean it's just like sometimes tiring to there's another allegation that the allegation is that deserving people have taken out of this condition and it's elitist people who can join for 20 lakhs This is a very elitist way of finding talent.

3:09:23So this trick I had to play for me. I had an idea for this thing for 5 years. I thought I have to do this. And I was like, I have to hit my personal reputation. So I have to do it when the reputation is at a point which is enough to take that hit.

3:09:48okay so and the idea was that I wanted people who could see through what I am saying who could see through that this bullshit is doing okay and this is not looking for like that doesn't make sense but there is a point to this chat what is the point to this chat Learners who don't care about money while they'll still get the cash. And we got 17 ,000 of those people. Our recruitment pipeline is running in that interview application bank. It's been about half a year. One and a half years. Time has gone. So, purpose all. I knew it was it was designed to be a PR stunt. Not a PR stunt. it was not for PR I actually genuinely wanted applications we hired so many people I'm saying that's when hiring is happening in that pipeline 20-20 ,000 ,000 we pay people 20 ,000 ,000 was not the point so it was just to segregate the money minded versus the learning ones filtration system solid how many people have written this sir I am very talented I am not money absolutely amazing and they are also considered for the job even today absolutely who became chief of staff then actually people who put money first we didn't call them

3:11:38because that's not the point then you misread the message then you're buying a job this is not about buying a job this was something else like so we filter out both sides extremes so we've filtered out so people in the center those are the people we wanted fair they're like I think that month itself we hired 18 people almost everybody we gave them 50 % raises on top of what they were making because that's a fair salary at Zomato but who was the COS after that we don't have it's COS It was designed to create applications. You don't have COS? No one. Do you think COS is an important position? COS can go very wrong.

3:12:28It's a very dangerous position to get right. It's a very tricky one. Why? There are a lot of people. It's a deputy CEO type role. level yeah and so that person has to be very clear that they're not the ceo right so and that boundary is very very very blurry to manage and it blurs out sooner than yes you think yes and and then your communication with the team sort of like ceo snake which bold ya team ko and they forgot to mention that this is their point of view this is not mine and the team thinks it's my point of view and two months later I find out but I never said that and then oh shit that person told that to me you assumed I said that yes we assumed but it's fair for you to assume so it's a mess so first hire and learn before COS was always who taught you this lesson Yes.

3:13:36But things never went very very bad but I just like figured out that it's doomed to fail positions. Fair. Fair. And there's one last thing I want to ask and then we go to Temple and continue and lat Aerospace and bunch of deep tech job. Is one point where you were expanding in nine different countries sub shut down us make startup 50 million 50 million and then closed 5 months what do you understand about expanding globally and what time should it and why should it or not should it when should it I want to get your opinion on that I think back then when we started international expansion in 2012 we never thought India would become this larger market okay so I would say India has positively surprised us surprised us with the size and the pace of growth so first we thought that India will not make much bigger in India okay we will do it we will go out because we will not make India and we will make a global company we will make a whole good food.

3:15:07And in that food we failed to realize and truly see that our business in India is going to go and how are other markets different from India. We thought that we are going to go to India. We will find restaurants and find people somewhere. But it didn't work. There were nuances in markets that didn't go. To the point of that India success has not been in any market. Okay. Fail not much in there. But India success has not been in Dubai. I was in Dubai. I was in Philippines. And so on and so on. But most of the time we were mediocre. And in any business or any expansion mediocrity is the toughest place to be in.

3:15:56When you go medium in the first. jau. Ya to tum fold do ya to tum ghar chale jau ho jau bant ho jau you don't even know is kya karno is terrible place to be in so we got stuck there in so many of these markets and they like all fight mar some cost fallacy or up are good so we got stuck there we have heard this story, our culture has changed the international expansion, we have painted the map red, so how do we go back from this one, no we cannot go go go, do more, do more so then the food delivery battle in India started and then I was like okay we need money and people to go here so that's when we like like like and I was my rational was if I lose home there's no global home market to sacrosanct no matter what true that's fine now Dubai UAE or Philippines in markets there's so much to do here it's bigger too you can go to another place you can go to food delivery business let's go it's cool something is going to be nuanced which you are not telling no government nuance like UAE is very closely if you work India is massive like Blinkit is I think Zomato, Blinkit they are actually early stage businesses it will look like I am trying to like bullshit you but they are early stage businesses like Indians still eat out 4 times per month compared to Singapore which is 50 times a month, the US which is 25 times a month or even more it's like crazy numbers so our journey of avoiding home cooked food is just starting right now and this will grow very massively and I don't want to lose this I don't want to like get sort of distracted with something else and say, this opportunity missed.

3:18:16This is ours to lose, not even ours to win. But now you're distracted in this. What do you distract? Early stage? No, no. Early stage food delivery business and now Zomato, Blinkit, all are very big in early stage. Then you're not distracted. You're running in aerospace, you're running in continue research,

3:18:45So, I don't have a full hands-on executive role in any organization. Okay. okay so not in temple nor in continue continue is a research it's a geek out hobby right thing so it's like a mission for humanity thing which is this just happened to me it's not even like that I wanted to do it and it was my duty to take it to a certain point so it continues it's like 2 hours a month temple we have CEO lat we have CEO tomato blinkered so my job is to work with CEOs and coach them and work with them to grow these organizations so that way I am not loaded I still like how investors don't ask this question that you are getting into the eternal focus and you are doing all these things so So, maybe they'll lose some trust on you that you've been a little bit of a deal.

3:20:11Directly, you don't have to ask them. But if they're still asking them, my answer would be, listen, 99 % or 100 % of my financial future or the right to do anything else continues to be eternal. If eternal stops working or failing, then I'll end everything with you. I'll do this. thing I'm doing. This is where future and destiny lies. And this is the original large this is like a labor of love for 20 years almost now. But at a point you must be thinking like you have machinery well-oiled and so many people put it in the system and you are going to be on your own. I can add a little more attention.

3:20:58It's not like that the system is on your own. The system is on your own. succession planning is the main thing in any business so eternal topic peyate hai eternal ka naam what does it mean and how do you make an organization such ki woh eternally last kare I used to create systems ki achha HR systems aise honne chahehiyeh, humara culture aisa honna chahehiyeh bla bla bla bla bla orchestra banao choki company ko chalata raha eventually I figured out that that none of that can last. Everything will degrade over time. The only thing that will last is succession planning. You should have solid leaders' pipeline.

3:21:46Capable enough, as good as me or better than me, to be able to continue growing the business. That's what eternal means. Why do you keep your name? my mission of building an organization which can become that so it's actually a mission statement more than a claim that we are it's not that we are not like eternal at all we can die today okay something can happen and we are done i mean if if we get banned for example right so we're done so there is no eternal that way eternal is about okay even if we get banned okay we will find a way to rise we'll find a way to do something else we'll create something leadership pipeline cultural pipeline innovation pipeline spirit culture which like that that needs to be put in place that it can continue rolling over over and over and why is it called Blinkit because you're talking about Blames because Groufers was associated with a certain kind of business Blinkit rebranding creates fresh energy but it's also a lot of money in the run money well spent won't a day in the heights agreed agreed I also like Blinkit I like both the names.

3:23:21I like Zepto and Blinkit. I like both the names of quick commerce. Zepto's sense is that it's the smallest part or second and Blinkit's name is Blinkit. It's amazing. Okay. I think Zepto's name sounds cool but you have to know the meaning of it to understand that it's really cool. Yeah. Blinkit is like plain and simple vanilla cool. No, Blinkit is not the same. Blinkit is a little bit cool. I'm more into layman cool stuff than Zomato is no layman cool I don't know how Zomato is just cool You made it cool by doing certain things It was a nice name when we actually first heard of it I was like this is a cool name It has a good Zing to it Zing was the word we used when we heard When I was near death experience I thought it was like$10 ,000 dollar is paid for it.

3:24:16He was in the name of the folk. Past is past, man. I didn't think at that time. There was other name in the thing, 4-5 thousand dollars. Always focused on the now and the next week. Like we don't, you don't care about at all. Past is gone. So let's, let's talk about each of your new passion, obsession, what are you doing, how are you doing? Which one do you want to pick up first? Continue to lat, I think lat, because it will get over quickly then continue temple LAMBA Ghani LAT Aerospace why? it's a very ambitious long term research project okay I would say so Sourabhi who is the founder with me on LAT both of us used to work at ZomatoSense forever right so and we used to travel quite a lot okay you know here domestic mistake bhi karte raha te raya it always used to be painful for us ki ar achcha yahan se hum puna jara hai puna to chalo min zada bol raha ho chandi kar jara hai to where we agar hum flight le raha hai toh it takes 6 hours to go there right and gaadi le raha toh it takes 6 hours to go there pahli baat toh mein airport itni door ja raha ho dh 8 ganta door airport ja raha ho pah dh 8 ganta ma wait kar raha ho and i'm taking a flight like so this is just like senseless why can't i have a small airport right next to me okay where there is a six-seater eight-seater maybe 15 20-seater some-seater small flight little plane little plane take off from 20-50 meters and that's the east-west north-south where I have to go rather than airport to airport connectivity like I want there was we just like 10 years ago we spoke about this distributed air air stops vision and which is like shooting the breeze okay and nobody knows how to make planes nobody even has none of us had made even any money to even think about these things so 10 years 10 years so shooting the breeze air stops if you I have to go anywhere.

3:26:34Your frequent flights to the side of the city where you want to go to. To the side of the city where you want to go from. And small flights are cheap. They should replace trains. Okay. And then the other thing that came to us our mind which actually excited us quite a lot. Is that our, listen, cities are here. decongested decongested decongest so why it's like if this is possible then I will not believe me why would I live in the city at all I would live 100 kilometers away somewhere quiet peace okay I would have an air stop in that small town and I would ask Zomato or any other larger office close by or a cluster close by to build a air stop there and we will go and we will go traffic if I feel 45 minutes I think I will go to office I will go to that time where I will go economy will distribute wealth will distribute factories cities have this because management cities have pollute traffic if we can make this happen India would just become a beautiful place to live in everywhere right and wealth would distribute and logistics it was just like I can just keep going on and on about how wonderful would it be if we make this happen and Survi after IPO Blinkhead she was like gone taken a break sabbatical one day both of us are talking I was like and at that time one of my investor friends mom see was also there and he was like cool i will fund you mom sees by capital so like he's early investors at zomato from 11 12 years ago and he was also there and he's like cool i will fund you guys do it do it and I was like cool so you do it I'll also put some money in so it was just that like moment where she was like really aerospace company me asked like we figured Zomato out not like we knew how to build anything here you'll you'll like figure this out and she's like cool let's go you're like you're like a board member you're like do sometimes sometimes I said, okay, I'll come in a week.

3:29:24I'll have half a day. That's it. So literally, light aerospace is just that we're trying to make small planes and make a small plane. We're going to land anywhere in the city. We're going to land anywhere in the city. So that you don't have to have to have to have elaborate infrastructure. Never been done in this world. This is radical in terms of aviation. And it designed in a way that if it fails so no one doesn't have any value and try it absolutely company try to like if we don't try this shit who else will now you guys have money so you can do all this shit this is where deep tech comes in this is your crazy idea this is our moon shots we will do it we will have 5 years maybe 10 years but we have the patience and the capital and I think the ability to attract talent to work on the problem for long enough wild How much money started?

3:30:22How much did you invest in it? I have committed to$40 million. When I take it, I will take it. Over the years? Between you, investors and everybody. How much did you put in? $20 million total. I have already got$30 million. So you have said$10 million? My time is running. In total, I have made$20 million total. Sorry. total 50 million they will get 20 million and how much money and overall 50 % of the funding is buying this year and 50 % is and this 25 % no fund what are you going to do with the money buy more cards which I am not going to use I like it it's a good way to deal and there's nothing to do beyond a point.

3:31:21So fund ambitious project. Absolutely. Like I don't want to like, see charity has its own place. I'm going to ask you, charity? I do. That's it. 25 million people give charity. That's it. I have done more charity. But this would completely revolutionize things. Charity is not going to create the kind of outcomes that LAT Aerospace will create. if it works country's lands if it works so these are the system design system level shots that money should be used to take you know people a lot of people will cut this clip and be like founders are crazy why do we need delivery in 10 minutes now why do we need small planes from this point 35 million dollars which is eventually like hundreds of crores you can help people in the country in the country hunger for the country in the country in the country in the country hunger for the country these companies will be made without money this is a very short term mindset that I have to make money and we are feeding India we are making so many children play the food only that

3:32:55and I'm here and I'm here for the country there are always choices to go away but I love being here give me a layman explanation basic explanation so that my mom and dad can understand or my mom and dad can understand millions of people go go some I think charity say it not change from businesses by enterprises by businesses by it is good thought that a lot of entrepreneurs say that around the world charity source of money is limited it is finished so feeding India bhi karte hai na hum schools ko support karte hai to feed kids one of our biggest fears is if we run out of money okay then suddenly kids like kal khana tha aaj nahi hai charity has this nature to it ki aaj hai kal nahi hai because true pichhe paisa to finity hai infinite capital generation nahi hai kahi ba bhi true because profit may se founder wealth may se kahi nah kahi se but when businesses become they start employment and there are empowerment schools and there are progress and we have to balance these two things out charity needs to make sure that the current pain sort of subsides cannot subside fully right so bare minimum charity to make sure that people survive today's main basic roti kapda makaan basic problem as much as you can educate teach as much as you can so they should I'm not saying charity is bad I'm saying charity is amazing necessary it should be done but it should but just this comparison why are you doing this why are you doing this why are you doing this and that rational doesn't apply I think I think both things need to do balance where you think that okay if I create this business this will completely radically change everything right good thought so this lat aerospace now continue so continue continue continue

3:35:34before I tell you continue continue what is it? I will listen to you a continue or temple story okay I will for.coms good .coms okay cool so when I get a cool .com forget the money I will take it because .coms are .coms nothing works for me I want.com okay if there is if there is.com I think it's legit business I don't have a legit business I don't have a legit business I'm that for.coms so continue and temple were.coms that I had bought because I love the names temple.com continue.com yes because I love the names eternal.com I have eternal I took it 3 years ago. I was like .com I was like .com I was like .com I was like

3:36:50.com So eventually things happened which in hindsight as Steve Jobs used to say you actually sort of connect the dots in hindsight so the hindsight happened on these names I have more dot coms as well from which one? let them drop when they connect I have this belief that life happens for a reason like things happen for a reason so anyway so what was it like so I have I have been focusing on my health trying to stay healthy i have genetic disposition predisposition towards cardiac diseases cardio cardiovascular diseases and i also have a predisposition towards parkinson's okay my mom has parkinson's and my dad has cardio cardiovascular issues so i was like yeah i need to beat this message about when I was at this age?

3:38:085-7 years ago so you are 42, 37 36-37 COVID is just about I need to be this, I need to be healthy so health has been my obsession and also always trying to make mom better make her feel better I've been researching about vein, about Parkinson's So I've been a biology, aging, longevity, health span geek for a while. Okay. Like this has been my area of interest, like a very passionate area of interest because I want to make sure that I function for 25, 30, 40 more years the way I'm doing right now or the way I used to do. Okay. and I'm not too much into long-term care but there is you know health span or life span people say different things but I don't understand how different if your health span is bigger your life span will also okay if you're healthy long-term life automatically life automatically you're healthy and your system says, yes, your time is up.

3:39:31No. The unhealthy periods will be there. It's about how far you can push them. Okay? They might become 10 years instead of 20 years. Some of those things. But they will be. But health spend push on it, life spend push on it, roughly the same thing. So I'm not in this camp that you don't say health spend, don't say life spend. Bro, same thing. Political correctness on the side of it. So that's what I've been like studying. And I've done so many things to optimize my health and life. Like what? Supplements countless. Cryo, oxygen chambers. Right. And rapamycin, metformin, blah, blah, blah. Like tried every goddamn thing on like which is known to mankind to be healthy.

3:40:25Okay.

3:40:29and this was couple of years ago i was i was actually walking around without my phone i was just thinking about yeah this healthy business is just pay too much time just like kya I mean, in the morning, tell me what's the routine that is supposedly healthy. In the morning, don't see a phone at the morning. Natural light low. Mindfully, slow, slow morning. Ease into your day. Cool. Grounding. Go to the gym. After the gym, sauna. After the sauna, ice bath. I'm going to the laundry list. of prescriptions okay cool 11 toh baj gai yaar okay siraf strength training you honi chayye kabhi kabhi alternate with cardio okay yoga bhi karne chayye stretching karni chayye yaan sham ko alternate days per yoga bhi kar leete hai sham ko ye sab karo then early wind down mindful eating okay put put put put I was like bro this is like 6 hours a day it's a full time job and I was like but I have a job this is 6 hours a day is a full time job that's 25 % of my life and 25 % of my life there is no evidence to for me right now or in front of me which tells me that if I spend my life then I will get more life or not I was like nobody knows this and I don't think all these things will get more life maybe 25 % 25 % 25 % 25 % 25 % 25 % but 25 % of my life I am going to spend maybe I am going to spend I am going to get 25 % of my life back the math doesn't add up I was like man something leverage point always happens where you move a little bit the ripple effect is bigger there are systems we are also a system and we should also be a leverage point where if I change something the effect is huge I was like you are crazy humanity has been looking for this forever like eternity people have been looking for it so so it's like how can you even think of finding this so there's like two sides of my brain talking to each other and the other side of my brain says humanity does miss things and you know the only way humanity could have missed this potential leverage point according to me was if the answer was so goddamn obvious so right in our face so so in our face that we just looked right past it the other side of my brain says hmm believable all of us do these things like obvious things like we miss a lot in our face and it's like okay what could this be and it's like shuffling through my brain the word gravity popped into my head okay and right at that moment I was like I haven't read about gravity and aging ever okay like there's this constant force which we all live under I never heard all this in biology Okay Gravity, our aging Our biology affect the earth Astronauts Zero gravity Biology, we have studied this So people say We have studied gravity and aging No, we haven't We have studied lack of gravity And aging Okay That's why we haven't studied how gravity it is okay i googled i searched i knew that there was nothing i searched i spent a month looking for something i found clues okay somebody is saying there is a book called sitting kills which emphasizes how chronic inactivity amplifies the effects of gravity on our bodies and why head down tilts could be good for you okay okay so this person is not saying gravity but there are these little clues okay there are little research papers which go close but not say the thing okay okay listen is gravity by vh i'm not saying that it is the only reason why vh it is is it one of the overlooked reasons that could be potentially a thing potentially a thing and i was like dhpi listen you can't go say these things to people okay

3:46:21because you have a reputation of Zomato, eternal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, but listen, if this is true, it is my moral responsibility to make sure that the world knows this. Like I can't, I will not be able to take this to my grave

3:46:46but if this is true I didn't know I was like but you will study that it is not right I did what I did I did I did I did a team I did disprove let's try to disprove this contradict because that's the easiest way to refute anything confirmation bias I didn't have let's try to disprove this i'm going to walk away in peace and say there is nothing to it

3:47:21months after months of work our contra teams became pro teams okay we find another contra team they became pro we found another contra team happened four times man okay They didn't get any evidence that they disprove. Zero. Zero contradictions found. Okay. The entire body of science couldn't look for this. And let me actually take a step back and tell you what exactly did we look for. I mean, what is your hypothesis and what were you looking for? We said gravity. The thought came to me. Is gravity one of the underlooked reasons? Yes. Like reasons why we age and we don't know how much of a factor it is.

3:48:10Okay. It could be a factor. Study what is going on. Okay. And before we even figure out, we have to choose a mechanistic explanation. We think this is why gravity could be aging us. What was it? I came up with theories. We are just whiteboarding. are very outsider in point of view and I think our strength was nothing we didn't get and we come to physics we come to biology we come to chemistry we come to math we come to logical reasoning and all of those things combined we were thinking of okay how could this even be true if this were true so we came up with this thing called this story that our heads are above our hearts and because of gravity our heart takes a little bit of extra effort to push blood to the brain or a little bit less blood goes to the brain than it should because our heads sit above our hearts okay and if there is less blood going to the brain there has to be some little bit of damage to the brain because it's not getting enough blood okay and if there is this enough little bit of damage this should accumulate over time and if this accumulates over time and is brain the master sort of controller of the body let's say it is and we know that it is is this the reason why first brain aging happens and then the body ages because the brain can't keep the body healthy so these are all questions this is all if if everything is proven we have no research this is our first two weeks of idea this is just rabbit hole think in one direction think in one direction before we made 3-4 other theories which we did ourselves that this is not possible explanation I don't even remember they were so stupid but this one made sense I put together a team just for myself and that was my personal fitness team here I want to measure my brain flow and that's what we started building we started building a device which we benchmark with MRIs, with TCDs, okay?

3:50:49And works beautifully now. And we're further benchmarking it. Third-party validations are also before we take it to the market. I don't need third-party validation because I know it's the data. But if and when we are going to market it, we'll have third-party validations. So, we built this device and the kind of learnings that we have while we are wearing temples the first temple was like this big it was going to be this big there was a battery here there was a lot of things so you were wearing it we were wearing it we were wearing it we used to see what happens in sleep what happens in deep sleep what happens in the brain flow and there's so much math so much like this was a research topic for us for one year and tuning the device and making it better and still we are tuning and making it better and better and better in different cases we figured out that everything which is known to mankind to be healthy increases blood flow to the brain and everything that's known to us that's not healthy decreases blood flow to the brain which then stacked up as one more clue slash evidence point in the gravity aging hypothesis that listen this CBF thingy could be upstream of a lot of things yeah it may not just be a downstream effect of entropy or aging okay it could be upstream i'm not claiming it's upstream i'm saying i just can't i just cannot unsee the body of evidence yeah okay we will prove it right or wrong eventually but it's hard to unsee the body of evidence a story like this has never come together beautifully in biology at all like like this okay so like that makes me feel there's something here which we need to dig like further so we started gravity aging we started talking to researchers scientists we're like funding studies so there's a lot of work going on there and either then we started building this experimenting mental brain flow device and and we're just finding it so useful we're like we're like

3:53:17when this is going well in a day I'm feeling so good when this is down in a day I'm feeling so shit this is a biomarker which I need in my life right so and that relatability is not well known this is not this is not something that's ever been measured on a like continuous basis so for us I was like yeah this product we will make it good and let's take it to people who would value this and for us this was like a science research project category creation a new thing and I don't expect it to be massive massive but i really expect it to be really the go-to device for people who care people who are scientific enough and who are geeky enough to understand that that my heart rate only tells me part of the story my vo2 max only tells me part of the story my resting heart rate only tells me part of the story but here's this new matrix which could tell me the entire story which could be the master biomarker for everything for everything input and output good or bad that's what how we are feeling okay and it's not just how we are feeling then we dug deeper into research so that's why we're like variable bana this was a very hard hardware r d project to do we had to miniaturize this to this level we got stuck here stuck here in a way because we made the first device so we made it for this place so it was not like we designed to make it for this place capillaries are very thin and dense and they're very like close to the skin.

3:55:18So any sensor we put reads the signal very nicely. Like much more than your finger, your wrist or anywhere else. So we are like, we proxy here that the flow of the head will be the external carotid artery and internal carotid artery approximate math. We will calibrate it. So we will remove the brain flow. Our calibration was here. we just cannot do it again it was a lot of cost then we got stuck here I would have made a device for this for somewhere else but all the science and all the effort was done for here we tried it doing somewhere else but we're not getting the accuracy like if we didn't get it then we're like cool and at that time somebody also said we should call it call it that temple you are putting it we are putting it in the name but what is it what is it is there under injection blood test sensor non-invasive sticker sticker double sided tape tape applicator tape stick to it and you're done and the tape is super solid you have to get out of 7 days 5-7 days go swimming, go swimming go iron man sea surfing, the tape won't come and I took it super easily and it will come out but if you're not going to pluck it out this device will not come out it's super easy and it measures blood flow to your brain but then when you're assuming that it falls someone like you in such a big public stature and go to the public and write and write I think people will be wrong without having some extreme to the T evidence I am not from this background and for me I needed to put this hypothesis out to call for global research to call for researchers to reach out to us and research this on their own.

3:57:40I wanted to spark a new branch of science. Okay, this is not just about this hypothesis. This is not just about this. Okay, even if this hypothesis turns out to be right or wrong, it will spark off a lot of new branches of science, which will by themselves change a lot about how we treat aging and brain and biology. So it was just my thing,

3:58:10my job here as a researcher is limited and i can't do i don't have the ability or the resources to do this beyond a point and resources is not just money right so you need to have the labs you need to have the infrastructure and blah blah you need to have the right doctors and the scientists to be able to do this since we made this public over a hundred scientists and researchers from all over the world have reached out to us saying we think you guys are on to something we will run this experiment on our own okay we will share data with you please share anything that you also find so that we can improve our experiment design some researchers like yeah listen we want to do this we have some of this data can you give us a little bit of funding because our funding from the u.s government has dried up so we can prove or disprove part of this pretty fast we're like cool you guys go ahead right some some researchers are like listen we never we have a lot of this data or we can for example people see whether we have like uh mris for thousands of people we can see whether perfusion in the brain for shorter people is less than perfusion in the brain for taller people that's a significant piece of evidence if they like if they're able to crack it it's like but now we need to take permissions from the person who funded that study so we're now following the process to be able to but did you reach out to any prominent bodies who is already established maybe some institute some educational institute some hospital institute some body of neurologist neuroscientist I don't know gravity maybe ISRO and NASA we did we have reached out to so many people here um i'll tell you the whole story when we started researching on this we reached out to some scientists some researchers and uh and then we told them okay this is what we are thinking they're like are you mad and auto regulation

4:00:49space deteriorate how do you explain that and we didn't have answers to those we were like okay we must be wrong we draw clear after one and a half years of work now we had answers to all these things astronauts this way because gravity is necessary we don't say that gravity will be long we will live in gravity but gravity we do age paradoxical now you stay in gravity in gravity negative effects intervene to whatever extent possible people are like hmm that's what you're saying this was one month before we before we released the gravity aging hype gravity aging hypothesis we spoke to the most eminent most well-known people in this field people have written books on brains okay and we told we ran them through our entire body of work which was like 80 pages long not something I can post on twitter at all so

4:02:03so when we took them through the document the comment that we used to get from a lot of these people like from Harvard Medical Medical Medical School of Medical School of the Like some super well-respected scientists in Canada, globally renowned people. And luckily, because of me being like Gusomato founder, I used to be able to get them on half an hour Zoom calls with me. Nobody used to say, I won't go on Zoom call for 15-30 minutes. And then those Zoom calls used to last for two hours. because they all saw merit in it or they're all like they're like tell me more tell me more tell me more the kind of comment that we should we used to get after all of this was yeah i think you guys know more about the brain than almost anybody in the world right now like that's the kind of comment we used to get from like eminent scientists across the world because they were like everybody does one part of the brain and they go deep in there okay but you guys have gone broad as well as deep while trying to connect all of the dots and the kind of knowledge and the kind of research you have done which spans decades is something we don't we haven't seen anybody else do so that's the kind of uh you're getting feedback we got but tell me just say then jav apne twitter pe dala so people like liver doc you said it's dangerous it's pseudoscience let's just put an end to that absolutely everybody is in everybody is entitled to their opinion or rant liver doc like people listen to only say okay I have not message them and saying this purely for the sake of science respect for whatever he does and whatever he is good at I have told one thing you say pseudo science please come on zoom I will explain you and then you can decide and if you think and if you actually tell us we are wrong I am happy to admit it in public sorry guys this is wrong I am wrong I have zero shame in admitting this that I am wrong my identity is not tied to this not at all not yet never I have done bigger things and this is just one of the things so I was like sir zoom call I will tell you I have no time I was like cool you have to rant but you have to science team evidence he has to say he has to say 6 more posts I said you don't bullshit so I lost respect for him at that time I was like first whatever and but what if this is wrong what if gravity hypothesis wrong is your reputation stick no no why not think so I'm wrong I'm wrong I'll tell people I will be the first one to tell people because I will be the person converging evidence I will tell people guys listen hypothesis turned out to be wrong I got nothing okay with it no public cost no what is the public cost of being like curious and asking questions.

4:05:48There is no public cost. It's not for me. It's not for me. I'm very shameless in asking questions which matter. These questions do matter. Somebody should be asking them. But what do you think neuroscientists all around the world, so many researchers all around the world, what have they missed that you are able to find?

4:06:13I i don't know first of all i think i have this like outsider in point of view where i can think from physics i can think system design i can think biology like i'm half 50 percent good at multiple things so i think that was my like strong suit outside in view when this happened the other thing is I don't think I am the first person who has the idea first I think I am the first person who has his reputation no given who has the idea

4:07:07because these ideas they must come to people they will come right so and when I have these wacky ideas I don't discard them without confirmation bias without emotional attachment I have nothing to prove because we can see if I don't pay attention to such random world changing ideas who else do you expect should or will so it's my moral obligation that if some wacky possibility of changing future of humanity mankind comes to me and I think that's true for you as well so if that happens to you you would put everything on the line and say I'll tell you this the karma types that we'll figure this shit out right so and that was my plan but a lot of people will say that you have a mask you have to buy more money now you have to buy a new device you have to buy it for this to make a mind make a old tcd hypothesis make a business do you think people will say that people are already saying that probably of course people are so smart I would say listen if I want to buy a device make a business then I would like to 4-5 crore 3 celebrities sponsorship why would I by the way have you ever seen such elaborate marketing plan what are you you think I went through 8 decades of research to sell a device like come on like this is not something that this even doesn't make business sense this is like conspiracy theorists who are just in the conspiracy theory bubble and who are just in the conspiracy bubble and who are just people say that all things but this purely greed obsession it's not that you can make a new thing you can make money maybe it's a matter what else it's just pure money which is driving this entire thing I don't think I don't think about money I think this is a bloody cool thing to do right so and money is an outcome 4 % resumato I have that That's a lot What does it mean?

4:09:39It doesn't have money In the life What am I going to do With the money I'm going to Donate it to charity Build new companies Which will Create more jobs But tell me What is this Brain flow Is this What is this Biomarker Measure Is it What is this Existing device Already Measure Is it Existing devices All of them Are First of all NIRS Which is a device Which make sure that they are very bulky so NIR scan measure there are multiple large bulky things MRI scan but we just miniaturized it so I thought I was in a miniature version and why do I have to test my brain flow if you do activities to keep your brain flow up you will feel better over time you will understand okay this is the kind of behavioral pattern that actually takes it down.

4:10:37This is the kind of behavioral pattern that takes it up. Goals de lo apne aapko. Yeah, I will hit so many goals. If you continue hitting those goals, you'll stay healthier for a longer period of time. This is all science packed. We're saying that brain flow up to be a good thing. This is all that's all. This is all that's all. This is an established fact. I'm saying keep up. You set yourself. goal set now

4:11:14we just basically put a software layer on top of actual science which helps you set a goal and achieve those goals and this is basically over the long term we think that this will lead to better healthier see if you don't talk about all of this until you have proven something I think my responsibility is to say the truth with the total caveats this is like this responsibly behave please don't run away how do adults treat how do adults ko okay if you're saying the world is crazy what are you doing you're doing responsibly behaving come on let's all treat each other as adults and figure this stuff out right I'm telling you the truth I want more research okay cool I want people to know I also this is not just about the gravity aging hypothesis for me I also want this building science in public culture to happen in like India okay this is like I'm sure this is the first time in the last two decades where science has gone mainstream.

4:12:36Okay. This was me, for me, this was like, culturally, we don't change. We will talk about random things, but we won't talk about random things. These are the kind of topics which will raise our average IQ on how to interpret these things responsibility if we are working on the whole country and the whole world to understand the truth so that will become more and become more let's not do this fair but then you run Zomato majority of people use this so that they can eat junk not 3 hours like overall junk come right so at one side you became billionaire by actually giving people what they want guilt and at one side you are promoting healthy ho jaho lamba ji ho 100 years 130 years all that so aren't you contradicting yourself that at one time you are saying junk food at one time you are saying healthy i don't think so at all that i'm contradicting why i'm I have a order for a week for 10 times.

4:13:57I am perfectly fine. Again, this is about, this platform is a platform. You will get indulgence.

4:14:09If you have unhealthy food, you will eat. Zomato and no zomato. Zomato is a small fraction of India's population. What do you think that the rest of the people have diabetes? Are we doing something? No, we are just another retail outlet of food. What you choose to pick from that retail outlet is your choice. We are not spoiling people. People are doing whatever they are doing to themselves. If in the side-bali supermarket chips are big on the counter,

4:14:53but you are would you say that you are not promoting unhealthy culture at all or are you guilty of promoting to some extent so there was there used to be this is what we solved over the last month when we started we had some कुछ चीजें unconsciously mistakenly करी वी थी for example push notification में अगर आपने एक बार biriyani खाई है तो आपको फिर से बोल दे थे आर biriyani खाऊगे तो those reminders are borderline evil these promote unhealthy things we stop doing those things अब आपको reminder to biriyani ये समनी गरेंगे we will generally say you will have a push notification that you are hungry order please hungry order we never do targeted unhealthy dish push notifications like ice cream, motichu, ladduo, this is all I have done done we will all be drama already done in the process this needs massive code changes interesting and then do you feel you can't sit alone with yourself that's why you just keep building new things, you don't try to make something and you keep doing something and people also say that sometimes people get addicted in some sort to just keep building new things they can't sit with themselves because the game is not exciting enough I love the game the game I still review product mocks at Zomato Blinkit sometimes LP runs Blinkit for most of the time but Zomato product mocks I think I am just a

4:17:02just a curious person I can sit alone with myself I live in my beach beach but then I have never done things out of necessity of

4:17:16right i told you the journey of okay i've been looking to solve for my health gravity aging hypothesis let's measure a device or temple oh wow this is so useful the world would need it let's build it okay like this is like I'm just so excited to take Temple to the world that this is going to be so life changing for people who who like use it so it's not I'm not doing this for the money I have enough of it but I want to I want to do this for the joy of it and Temple is also the first time I am building something where it's me my team and the user there's nobody else in the process there's no restaurant who can send the wrong food there's no rider who can ruin the like experience we're like this is a product which will be made with absolute full love right and we'll get it perfect so that's what we're aiming for do you do you think that you're doing sometimes these things just for more influence more power more

4:18:45ego massage I got it more things right than wrong I don't care I'm just doing my thing do you care about power? I don't even get out I don't even if I cared about power I would do way more podcast I'd probably start a podcast

4:19:08if i cared what influence i would do these things i don't care i actually want to be able to do my work quietly but do you become friends with powerful people influential government officials and all of that i don't know anyone i don't know anyone i stay in my cocoon and do my work you don't care about being powerful at all no have you walked in the room and where you felt you're powerless

4:19:37I mean helpless for sure but even today yeah I mean sometimes you walk into situations where you're like helpless but helpless is a life thing it's not a situational thing I mean life happens to you and shit happens but yeah I don't care I'm very happy just with like me, my team and the world right so doing things building things geeking out I don't spend much money like it's going to be come on you spend a lot not really I mean companies all these jobs Not much. Compared to what I could spend, it's a small fraction. You don't spend a lot. And so, have you walked in any room where you felt inferior?

4:20:52It happens to me all the time almost. Okay, explain. I mean, so everything, every time I do something new, which is outside my comfort zone, it feels like that. For example, LAT, right? Those engineers, when I go to their own business, they ask, what are you talking about? Okay, CYL, LYD, it just feels like I'm so dumb, right? and I'm good at physics but I'm able to grasp but inferiority complex comes in there temple maybe this is the first time hardware so it started off with why are you doing hardware and why are you making anyone who will not make it for you I was like I'm not making a company I need to know what goes into it so that I can really know whether this is telling me the truth or not and this is for me what you're making this for you okay just for you and it's like yes it's like why who does things who are just for themselves I was like because I can curious to me right so and like then you hire people and then you feel inferior in front of them so it happens like anything new you touch like for example all the scientist conversations that we did before launching introducing the gravity aging hypothesis every conversation i used to feel like i used to start with thank you so much for your time appreciate it i know i'm probably the last person you want to get on a call with and you're like wondering why am i getting on a call with this food delivery guy from india and why is he asking me for time but thank you like so can i please go ahead so intellectually inferior you feel but as i compare based on money

4:23:04i think people who have a lot more money than me think they have less money they don't have enough money i think i have always felt i have enough money no matter how much money i have had i think the only thing money does is it saves you some time pretty much that nothing else so i mean you your home right you'll have some space you can work better efficiency will increase something. Okay, somebody else will do those things for you. Right? I think that's pretty much the value add of money. I think it also gives one more thing which I think you'll agree. Once you have enough money, whatever enough definition is, it also makes you delusional about your own beliefs and the things that you're doing.

4:24:00Like it makes you more delusional. Like you go stronger at something that you're doing. Because then you know that downside has been covered. doesn't apply to me why? I mean what's the downside in general in life let's say everything goes down to zero do you believe in yourself to be able to make a living next month yeah same year but this will go on or this will go on? what's the difference? I'll build this back in 3, 4, 5 years do you really really believe that there's no difference just before you go on? you say it to say it what do you say? I mean, if you're zero, then of course, then you really need to eat and all of those things, right?

4:24:42I mean, of course, I have friends and enough social equity to even borrow money. And I have. Okay. Like this was four years ago. I borrowed a lot of money from LB to run my own life. So, but then I recovered. Have you ever in your entire journey got an ego stick?

4:25:09waves phases what do you do when you feel egoistic but what did you do what was the worst thing you're not proud of I mean I think what ego manifests is in that you stop listening to the truth like so you're telling yourself and the world that my version of the truth is the right version of the truth so that leads to friction that leads to faces getting pissed at you and I'm and I can generally see faces getting pissed at me then I think ups and downs what's your biggest insecurity today

4:25:58my biggest insecurity is that

4:26:06I should not that I should not end up lying to myself in any way so intellectual honesty is my biggest fear because the kind of work I do if I'm not being intellectually honest oh it can go very fucking wrong so so it's a high risk manoeuvre sare ke sare to meri apni intellectual honesty and watching my own thoughts and feelings and egos and keeping them in check that is super important and whether i'm going to be able to do that or not is something that i constantly am aware of mindful of watchful of just scared of getting swayed away by your circumstances by about by whatever i don't know by something right so just like stay centered humble don't think about yourself focus on the work be honest don't care about outcomes you don't care about whether gravity aging is wrong lying or right or wrong follow the path of truth follow the tale you don't care about temple right or wrong do your best work okay release it only if you are actually convinced this is useful else tank it can it right so and I would not I would only like release temple and I'm even if I've said like coming soon I'm ready to say sorry guys not coming something failed right this is not this is not going to make sense but I really want to make sure that if this goes out this becomes this is not this is not just about temple there is also this I always have this India and being this like role model for India kind of a and like intention behind things, is this a world class hardware company?

4:28:24It doesn't have to be random good enough. I mean Steve Jobs should look at this and say good job. So like that standard. like and that quality of it works that quality of user love right so if i'm if i think we get there only then i'm not and then i'm putting this out fair and what what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about you biggest misunderstanding about me i think it's not just about me but i fall into that bucket right people india has a india has a bad relationship with wealth i don't explain india at large think that wealthy people are evil or paisa chori se banta it's true i don't think we've created value we've created jobs we've actually created the largest number of jobs in the history of india maybe if i can put this you could verify this fact i don't know but i think but like so okay we had some money fair should we deserve it are we going to put it to good use we are going to spend some of it on for us as well and the way we are spending that money is exactly what all of you dream about that you will spend your money like when you make that kind of money so when we are living the life of your dreams and this was the life of our dreams so why pull us down why say you are like this you are like this you are like this you are like this what is it?

4:30:27so do it now if I can do it then you can do it stop having this negative relationship with wealth that's when wealth will also come to you so I think that's slightly weird but I agree to this point because for the longest I've said this before on the podcast and multiple times that for the longest time I thought that money can only be made by money, people can only be made by money, so it's not like that. In fact, when you think about money, you start to lose more money. Exactly. Exactly. I've never cared about saving money. I've never counted money. like I have something that I have to give someone I want to give it even like people around when they have troubles, issues, some family I'm like very very take it and never ask for it back so and somehow I think that karma comes back right so and the more you try to protect it your very scarcity mindset again scarcity mindset doesn't create abundance outcomes abundance outcomes create abundance mindset creates abundance outcomes true in my office my wall is center that money is like orgasms the more you try to chase it the less chances you have like stop thinking about it a lot yeah absolutely here's the last question for you you know you have a daughter what do you want your daughter to think about you in 10 years from now

4:32:22imagine you're directly talking to your daughter like right now she's watching this what would i want her to think about me 10 years from now

4:32:33i i would i don't have an answer to this i just want to make sure that i don't do or end up doing anything that she is shameful of ashamed of i don't care whether i do something that she's proud of or not she might have different things that she wants to be proud of or not but the things that humans are generally ashamed of are fairly common so i would i would want to make sure i don't end up doing any of those things do you think you're capable of doing something shameful everybody is so and there is no such thing as there is no such thing as that it's been broken and it's not. No such thing.

4:33:26It's about how much can you observe your negative side and how much can you keep it in check. Everybody has that side. Are you good at keeping in check? Reasonably, I think.

4:33:48but you know if I become too confident about the statement that I'm making to you right now I will screw this up fair so I have to stay on the border of but it may not be true you might still be screwing up something right so that that that constant niggling self-doubt that I might actually be fucking things up keeps me in check good thank you so much thank you for spending such a long time with me it's pleasure hosting you this was fun exhausting but at the same time you know this was the first interaction so i had to come prepared based on all the researches but there were so many things i pointed out i wrote down it's like i made some notes and mental notes at one point whenever next time six months one year later we'll have a conversation where there'll be no papers just you and me randomly talking about things and we'll deep dive.

4:34:56We'll do it.

4:35:02I was trying to do this from 2021 that I'll be able to podcast. Like last year, we've had a hope that when it will happen, it will happen. So, I'll try it. But this morning, when I was going through everything, I was so happy that it's going to happen. Because I do a podcast I was very confused. I was very confused. I was so mature and I was talking about the same time. Where do you sell pizza? You know that the first initial days of curiosity. The thanks that is happening now. I think so too. Those conversations, how many pizza and biryani have been had a hundred times. What's something that you hate?

4:35:51that they ask them twice a while. People say, I'm tired of giving this answer. What is that? Is that anything? Zomato, how did it start? How did it keep the name of Zomato? Those questions. Vanilla. So, they ask everyone. Even today? Even today, I get those questions. And I was like, Google my lawyer. If you have to ask something, ask something new which you can't find somewhere else. Thank you so much for watching this episode. Now we have three things to do. First of all, subscribe to this channel. Because as much as you subscribe, the best and valuable guests we will get to you. Number two, tell us what you like and bad about this episode, so that we can repeat mistakes.

4:36:37And which guests you want to see, are we going to our podcast, so that we can bring them to you and give you more value. And number three, this episode must be shared with someone, because one conversation can change someone's life. I'll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.