Ep. #2: Secrets of Social Media Success, Mental Health & Distribution Hacks - 3 OGs Reveal All

Umang Bedi 0:00 when you're looking into TikTok, TikTok's looking straight back into you.

Tanmay Bhat 0:05 Dude, e- envy is the fuel for social media, and it acts out in different ways, right?

Umang Bedi 0:09 Time spent in China on short video is two and a half hours a day.

Host 0:15 We weren't ever programmed to go through so much, either happiness or sadness, [laughing] so much.

Nikhil Kamath 0:22 Are you in a relationship, Tanmay?

Tanmay Bhat 0:24 Why are all of you so interested in my dating life? [laughing] It's fascinating to me.

Nikhil Kamath 0:32 So we're talking about people pissing on the plane. [laughing] What do you think about it? [laughing] Is it something that should be encouraged, discouraged? [laughing]

Host 0:45 Why do you think they're doing it? Like, what, what, what's in it, like-

Nikhil Kamath 0:49 My first thought was somebody was piss drunk, and he-

Host 0:52 And he didn't know where the bathroom was?

Nikhil Kamath 0:53 Yeah.

Host 0:54 He just wanted to-

Umang Bedi 0:54 That's what I thought.

Nikhil Kamath 0:54 Yeah.

Host 0:55 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 0:56 That's what I thought.

Nikhil Kamath 0:56 But-

Umang Bedi 0:57 I mean, unless you're a major attention seeker, uh, there's no other explanation. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:01 I'm a major attention seeker, and I've gotten away with not pissing on people. [laughing] I took a... I took, uh-

Host 1:08 It only happens on [censored] .

Nikhil Kamath 1:10 Yeah, why is that?

Umang Bedi 1:11 Yeah, it's funny.

Tanmay Bhat 1:12 I mean, it's happened... It doesn't happen, it happened once.

Host 1:15 It comes-

Tanmay Bhat 1:16 It happened twice.

Host 1:16 All the planes are from US.

Tanmay Bhat 1:18 Oh, it happened twice?

Umang Bedi 1:18 Yeah, it's happened twice.

Tanmay Bhat 1:20 Oh, wow!

Host 1:20 Twice, dude.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20 Do you think it could also be 'cause there is one loo, and it's a long-haul flight, and people are not able to wait?

Tanmay Bhat 1:27 I don't think it's that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:28 No?

Tanmay Bhat 1:29 I don't think it's that.

Host 1:30 Is it a problem with the-

Tanmay Bhat 1:30 I think, I think if, if, if it was that, then you piss yourself, right? You don't piss on somebody. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:36 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37 And you're also intoxicated for some reason at that point. So it's a culmination of everything together.

Tanmay Bhat 1:42 So I was on that flight, the brand which we will not name, otherwise we'll get flaired out. [laughing] And I was sitting on that flight, and usually I sleep on flights, but I was awake, okay? And I was sitting with a comedian friend of mine. And anytime someone would get up, we'd be like, "Hey, hey!" Oh, okay, okay. [laughing] Thankfully. Anyway...

Host 2:01 Well-

Tanmay Bhat 2:02 Is that, is that the topic of discussion today? [chuckles]

Host 2:03 Yeah, but why is it happening only in the business section and not in the economy section?

Umang Bedi 2:09 Oh, that's an interesting observation.

Host 2:11 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 2:12 That's a very interesting observation. Yeah, that's right.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14 Because rich people are a little entitled?

Umang Bedi 2:16 Yeah, I think rich people are entitled or... But it, it challenges your argument on the ratio, right? Because there are lesser number of people and there are more number of loos there, right, in terms of for in the business section. So it's not that.

Tanmay Bhat 2:28 [laughing] But you see, you see what we are discussing, saying, business mein utne mein zyada maza aata hai. [laughing] It's not fun to pee on economy passengers, man. Business wale pe mazaa hi aata hai.

Nikhil Kamath 2:36 But I read that guy's, uh, defense, or he said that he did not actually do it and stuff like that. So I think there are, like, two sides to the story too.

Tanmay Bhat 2:44 There are two sides. Like all things that we read on, on the news and social media-

Umang Bedi 2:49 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:49 ... there's always two sides.

Nikhil Kamath 2:50 I

Nikhil Kamath 2:51 think people are so disenfranchised by media per se, overall, that the go-to emotion of late is becoming whatever is coming on TV is probably false. I don't know if you guys feel that, but-

Host 3:05 It's either biased-

Nikhil Kamath 3:06 Yeah

Host 3:06 ... or false.

Nikhil Kamath 3:07 Yeah.

Host 3:08 These are the two main emotions.

Tanmay Bhat 3:10 Agenda, agenda-driven-

Umang Bedi 3:12 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 3:12 ... something. I think, yeah, uh,

Tanmay Bhat 3:14 the problem... I remember when I made an observation during AIB, which is we went from, we went from people being able to comment on something, to the comments getting likes, right?

Host 3:30 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 3:30 Similarly, on Twitter, we went from quote RT-ing something. Early days of Twitter, there was no retweet button.

Host 3:36 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 3:36 There was a quote RT. You, you would copy someone's tweet, and you would put RT in front of it, and you would paste the tweet. But the second they added retweets, and the second Facebook added likes to comments-

Host 3:49 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 3:50 ... that changed the game because all of a sudden, likes were everyone's, everyone's game, not just the person who's, who's posting. So-

Nikhil Kamath 3:58 Why do you think that is? Why do we feel... Why do we feel so happy when we get acknowledgement or somebody likes something that we have posted, from a psychological standpoint? I think that's inherently-

Umang Bedi 4:10 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 4:10 ... the use case of social media today, right?

Umang Bedi 4:12 So if you think about it, it's all designed around the human brain, right? And if you think about, uh, and we'll get into the details of social media, but it's built on, one, a lot of insight about you, two, a lot of insight about your likes and dislikes, and your network, right? Um, even before you follow one person or friend someone, or follow a source, what 99% or 90%-plus, at least, of people on social media do, is give the platform access to their phonebook. Uh, and what that does is the platform now knows, uh, in the billions of people on planet Earth, who's friends with whom, by making those connections, right? Now, with that naivety, uh, which is where it begins, uh, there comes the gratification, because at the end of the day, man is a social being. And, uh, what at least neuroscience has shown is that they love getting acknowledgement, right?

Tanmay Bhat 5:13 Of course. Yeah.

Umang Bedi 5:14 Um, and I'll give you a fun experiment, and this is a true story. I walked into a room at the hotel next door, um, and I met someone, uh, and we were a thousand of us.

Nikhil Kamath 5:24 Mm.

Umang Bedi 5:25 Okay? So we went into the room, and, uh, we then sat on tables, right? He's a foreigner. We are thousand Indians, uh, from north, west, south, east, different names, different pronunciations, different accents in the way we frame our name. But let's... You know what he did, which was shocking, is he stood up on stage, and everyone sat randomly, right? They came in all between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. The event started at 9:00 PM. He named each person by name. Now, that's insane. Um-

Nikhil Kamath 5:59 A thousand people?

Umang Bedi 6:00 A thousand people. Now, let's say you and I meet for the first time, right?

Nikhil Kamath 6:03 Mm.

Umang Bedi 6:03 And we shake hands, and you say, "Hey, I'm Umang."

Nikhil Kamath 6:05 Mm.

Umang Bedi 6:06 And you say, "Hey, I'm Nikhil."

Nikhil Kamath 6:07 Mm.

Umang Bedi 6:07 Right?... I didn't even freaking hear Nikhil.

Tanmay Bhat 6:10 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 6:11 Because the human brain is, we're so much in love with our own voice, that I just heard, "Hey, I'm Umang," and I love the sound of my own voice, right?

Tanmay Bhat 6:21 It is a nice voice.

Umang Bedi 6:22 It- thank you. I appreciate it. [laughing] But the thing is that most of us don't, uh, actively listen. We're, we're kind of in our own bubble, uh, and that's the beginning of that dopamine hit.

Tanmay Bhat 6:35 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 6:36 So the fact that if somebody compliments Nikhil-

Tanmay Bhat 6:39 Hmm

Umang Bedi 6:39 ... uh, and I'm just picking on you right now, uh, or says, "Hey, you have this really charming smile," or that boyish good looks, or, "Hey, Nikhil, you're looking fitter now. Like, what are you doing? What are you up to?" Right? It's a dopamine hit. So every like, every share, every comment, every, uh, every action of that nature brings Nikhil back out of this innate human curiosity as to what are people saying about him. If you go back now into the deeper science of it, right? Let's just say social media platform X, and Nikhil is the only person on it, right? Nikhil comes to the platform, spends 10 minutes, right? In whatever form or fashion, maybe five times a day, but two minutes each, or 10 minutes in a day.

Tanmay Bhat 7:24 Ah, say OnlyFans. Hmm.

Umang Bedi 7:25 Right. [laughing] OnlyFans. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 7:27 [laughing] You keep doing this, you will give me a choice.

Umang Bedi 7:30 [laughing] Keep getting cut.

Tanmay Bhat 7:33 Uh, so-

Nikhil Kamath 7:35 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 7:35 Oh, this one is, yeah.

Umang Bedi 7:36 So one, the dopamine hit gave Nikhil all the gratification to keep coming back. But hypothetically, if there only existed Nikhil on that platform, and he spent 10 minutes, let's say he browsed a feed, right? And let's say the length of the feed, hypothetically, was 10 feet, the size of this table, right? Let's say this feed is 10 feet long. In 10 minutes, if I take the phone screens that he scrolled, it's about 10 feet. And after every foot, I inserted a sponsored post or an ad, right? And let's say hypothetically, I made a dollar on the ad. So I made $10 because Nikhil came back maybe five times a day and spent two minutes, totaling 10 minutes.

Nikhil Kamath 8:15 How did this guy do this?

Umang Bedi 8:17 Uh, how did which guy do this?

Nikhil Kamath 8:18 The guy who said everybody's names.

Umang Bedi 8:20 So the way he... Of course, that's a different-

Nikhil Kamath 8:23 Hmm

Umang Bedi 8:23 ... uh, topic. I'll just finish this point, right?

Nikhil Kamath 8:25 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 8:25 So essentially, you got the dopamine hit with all the likes, et cetera.

Nikhil Kamath 8:28 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 8:28 The platform loved it because you came back and spent 10 minutes on the platform, made $10. Now, imagine if a billion Nikils came in and spent 10 minutes, it just made, you know, a billion dollars. If a billion Nikils came in and spent 30 minutes, they just made $3 billion. So the platform benefits, right? So it's kind of this vicious cycle of a dopamine hit at both ends, one on the platform side, one on Nikhil's side. Uh, the fun fact that this gentleman, on how he remembered the names, it was quite amazing, okay? So let's say, uh, I have to remember Aprameya's name, right? So he could have introduced himself as Aprameya.

Tanmay Bhat 9:07 Nobody remembers me.

Umang Bedi 9:08 Or Apu, [laughing] right?

Nikhil Kamath 9:09 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 9:10 Or, or Apu. So let's just say Aprameya is a tough one, right? It's not a common name, right? Now, if I'm just hearing the sound of my voice, I've... You know, screw Aprameya-

Tanmay Bhat 9:18 Hmm

Umang Bedi 9:18 ... I'm only hearing Umang, right? But what he said is, he forgets himself saying, "I'm Nikhil," or, "I'm Umang." He just listens to Aprameya, and then what he does visually, is he breaks up that word into something he can remember, right? So for me, if I had to break up Aprameya, and I'm just doing this on the fly, for me, one of the oldest companies I know was Apar, okay? It was a very old company. So Apar, the first part of his name, I relate with Apar Lighting, let's just say, right? And then Meiya.

Tanmay Bhat 9:51 He's the mayor of Apar.

Umang Bedi 9:52 He's the mayor of Apar. There you go, right? So every time I see-

Nikhil Kamath 9:54 So it's like a memory, memory thing.

Umang Bedi 9:55 It's like a memory thing, right?

Nikhil Kamath 9:56 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 9:57 And it's about active listening, breaking up the name, making it synonymous with something that you remember, but of course, unrelated to, uh, social media. Uh, but that's a- it's a, it's a really cool skill. Let's try it out next time you go to an event.

Nikhil Kamath 10:10 No, I've, I've read a couple of stuff around this, like put a visual in your mind-

Umang Bedi 10:14 Yes, exactly

Nikhil Kamath 10:14 ... because you remember pictures more than words.

Umang Bedi 10:16 Exactly.

Nikhil Kamath 10:17 Uh, sounded great in theory, but I've never been able to-

Umang Bedi 10:20 But this is a very easy-

Nikhil Kamath 10:21 ... implement it

Umang Bedi 10:21 ... one to do, right? I mean, pick any example and- [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 10:24 What would I put with Tanmay?

Tanmay Bhat 10:26 You've been calling me Tanvi for the last year.

Umang Bedi 10:28 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 10:29 What is that?

Nikhil Kamath 10:30 Nimbu pani.

Tanmay Bhat 10:30 Cold lemon water.

Nikhil Kamath 10:31 Hmm. Anything that tastes that good can't be good for you-

Tanmay Bhat 10:34 That's fair

Nikhil Kamath 10:34 ... my opinion.

Umang Bedi 10:35 [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 10:35 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 10:36 That's fair.

Umang Bedi 10:36 No, no, so I-

Tanmay Bhat 10:36 The chicken was really good, by the way. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 10:38 I was coming, coming back to your initial question.

Nikhil Kamath 10:41 Uh.

Umang Bedi 10:42 So, [exhales] on social media, you actually have... You, you've said something, you've said one line-

Nikhil Kamath 10:49 Hmm

Umang Bedi 10:49 ... and you've got an opportunity to wait for people to like, dislike, comment, blah, everything. So Umang said quite a few things. In the offline world, we're not able to do that. Like, I'm not able to send likes to him.

Nikhil Kamath 11:02 Sadly. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 11:04 [laughing] Right?

Nikhil Kamath 11:05 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 11:05 So saying it online and having a conversation there is a lot more, uh, fruitful for me, for the dopamine hit that I will get.

Nikhil Kamath 11:15 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 11:15 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 11:16 Right.

Umang Bedi 11:16 Right? And hence, like, even the comments. My comment in the offline world or otherwise, was never-

Nikhil Kamath 11:23 Captured

Umang Bedi 11:23 ... ever, you know, acknowledged.

Nikhil Kamath 11:25 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 11:26 Nobody even said, "Oh, okay, you said that," as a comment to that guy. Now, it suddenly got acknowledged, and hence, the discussions, everything else. You know, those guys started getting a dopamine hit, and hence-

Nikhil Kamath 11:38 Right

Umang Bedi 11:39 ... and that's the difference.

Tanmay Bhat 11:40 We're always trying to... Like, in the old days, when before we were all hyper-connected, we were born in a tribe, right? And all your validation came from your tribe. But since we got- everybody got connected, multiple tribes interact and/or we are part of many tribes. So in every comment section, you're trying to find your tribe.

Umang Bedi 12:01 Hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 12:01 Um, on every platform, you're trying to find your tribe.

Umang Bedi 12:04 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 12:04 You always wanna find people who think like you and, and like you.

Umang Bedi 12:08 Hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 12:08 So that's the reason why, [clear throat] you're always hunting for likes, retweets, views.

Nikhil Kamath 12:13 If you had to go one step higher and say-

12:17 ... why do humans care so much about validation from whatever peer group, either offline or online? Why do you think we're innately programmed like that?

Tanmay Bhat 12:27 I think we always want your own tribe, for this is, uh- it's, it's a primal need for safety, which is, um, which is knowing that you're part of a group makes you feel safer. That is, I think, the most primal need, which is-

Speaker 12:47 I also think-

Tanmay Bhat 12:47 feeling safe

Speaker 12:48 ... you know, at a very deep

Speaker 12:49 level, man is a, and I use this word carefully, a selfish being, right?

Tanmay Bhat 12:54 Yeah.

Speaker 12:55 Um, and, I mean, don't take selfish and, you know, selfish all the time there-

Nikhil Kamath 13:00 Self-preservatory.

Speaker 13:01 Self-preservatory, right?

Tanmay Bhat 13:02 Yeah.

Speaker 13:02 And so any validation-

Nikhil Kamath 13:05 I would say more selfish than self-preservatory. 'Cause if you go back in time and-

Speaker 13:09 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 13:09 ... there were a bunch of people and you hunted for food, I think you would innately want to be the strongest hunter in that community.

Tanmay Bhat 13:17 It's for self-preservation, right? Otherwise, if you-

Speaker 13:20 You could probably-

Tanmay Bhat 13:20 If you won't, you die.

Speaker 13:21 You are getting technical on a very non-technical [laughing] -

Nikhil Kamath 13:23 Anyway, yeah, yeah, go on. Huh.

Speaker 13:25 But essentially, if you are that selfish being, you want that gratification.

Nikhil Kamath 13:29 Yeah.

Speaker 13:29 You want to be told how good you are, you want to be... You want that positive side. And when there's that negative s- onslaught that comes onto you, you don't like it, right? Because social media has both sides. Uh, you get the good and the bad, right? Uh, and there are also good actors in society, and there are bad actors in society, in the physical world, and they manifest themselves in the, in that platform world or the digital world as well. So that's another peril, and of course, we can go deeper there. Um, but it's, it's crazy.

Nikhil Kamath 13:57 So first, to kind of figure out why social media was created-

Speaker 14:01 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 14:01 ... since you guys are essentially in this line of work, uh, A, what did you personally use first, and what existed before that to connect to a community?

Speaker 14:13 Yeah. So my first ever use of the Internet, late- mid to late 1990s, right? Uh, that's when I first started using the dial-up internet. I remember, you know, a friend of mine saying, "Send me an email." I went to this site called graffiti.net or something like that, and then opened up an email address and then sent him an email. As in I could talk to him on the phone, but this seemed something new, some cool thing that I could do. Uh, send him an attachment of something and, you know, he could open it there and see. So that itself was very, very cool, and then that got me interested to see what else is there. And then, a friend of mine who was browsing with me in the internet cafe, uh, he was logging into chat rooms, ICQ and-

Tanmay Bhat 15:01 Yahoo!

Speaker 15:01 ... you know, Yahoo! Chat room. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 15:05 So was that the need

Nikhil Kamath 15:06 first? [clears throat] Do you think communication led to social media-

Speaker 15:09 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 15:09 ... the need to communicate?

Speaker 15:11 The need to connect. The, the interesting part is, somebody sitting across the world, I could connect with, and it's not part of my friends and family network.

Nikhil Kamath 15:22 So if we were to assume today's social media is about alleviating insecurities, uh, creating a social ladder, uh, when do you think it changed from connection to what we have today? And why do you think it changed?

Speaker 15:41 So I, I have a broad philosophy on, you know, each network being for a reason, right? So initially, just connecting with people we know was cool, was cool enough. Like Facebook is a friends and family network, and when you post there, you will get positive comments, mostly, unless you're a public celebrity, like you guys. Uh, and of course, Tanmay.

Nikhil Kamath 16:07 Like you. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 16:07 There's no reason to point at me twice. [laughing]

Speaker 16:11 So Facebook is a friends and family network-

Nikhil Kamath 16:14 Right

Speaker 16:14 ... and you will post holiday pictures, "I got married," "I had a kid," I-

Nikhil Kamath 16:18 But why, why are you posting your holiday pictures? Why do you want other people to see where your holiday?

Speaker 16:23 It's the quickest way to update a person.

Nikhil Kamath 16:26 But do you think it's to update somebody? Is... Or is it to say that in a very subconscious way-

Speaker 16:33 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 16:33 ... that I am doing this cool thing-

Speaker 16:36 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 16:36 ... which you are not-

Speaker 16:37 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 16:37 ... and create some kind of a social hierarchy?

Tanmay Bhat 16:40 Yeah.

Speaker 16:40 It is. Absolutely.

Tanmay Bhat 16:40 It's-

Nikhil Kamath 16:40 More that, right?

Speaker 16:41 Yeah, of course.

Nikhil Kamath 16:42 Let's just... Let's all agree that nothing to do-

Speaker 16:44 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 16:44 ... with updating. Yeah.

Speaker 16:46 Update to get back a reaction saying, "Oh, you went on a holiday to Spain? I've never been there. You're cooler than me."

Tanmay Bhat 16:54 It's of- offline behavior taken online, right? Offline also-

Speaker 16:57 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 16:57 ... people, people, people do this: "Look at my new dress," "Look what I bought," "Look at the painting on my wall." It's that, but taken, taken online.

Speaker 17:04 And you, you had to go meet them at a wedding or some other place to update all of this-

Tanmay Bhat 17:10 Right

Speaker 17:10 ... and get those reactions.

Nikhil Kamath 17:11 Is that why people are less social today than they were historically? Like-

Speaker 17:14 Because they've already got the reaction.

Nikhil Kamath 17:16 The incentive to go to public gatherings or belong to a community is lesser now?

Tanmay Bhat 17:20 Yeah, it, it is-

Nikhil Kamath 17:22 Physically.

Speaker 17:23 Physically.

Tanmay Bhat 17:24 Physically, physically, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot lesser. Um, because you can be part of 15 communities online, you can have 15 different identities online, and-

Speaker 17:34 You know, that's a very interesting point that you just brought up, and I was reflecting on what made

Speaker 17:40 some of the most powerful social media platforms this big, this large, and this powerful, right? So if you talked about the old days, right, I had a Hotmail account, you had whatever-

Nikhil Kamath 17:49 Yahoo Mail.

Speaker 17:50 Yahoo Mail and whatever, right?

Nikhil Kamath 17:51 USA.

Speaker 17:52 USA.net. But if you reflect back, I can probably bet, I don't know, I'm tempted to say a, a million dollars that I don't have right now, but I'm tempted to say that you were not nikhil.kamath@ [beep] , right? You were not-

Nikhil Kamath 18:07 I think I was nikhil5868 [beep] . Yeah.

Speaker 18:10 Right. Uh, I was Umang Bedi O2.

Nikhil Kamath 18:12 Yeah.

Speaker 18:12 Uh, because O2 was my first smartphone, uh, you know, the O2, uh, ThinkPad, and I was Umang Bedi O2, and somebody was hot guy, cool gal, right? Then you-

Umang Bedi 18:23 ... hot guy. Hot guy, right? I was tans_crazy. [laughing] Okay, [laughing] there you go. So then you graduated into these messenger rooms, where again, you further obfuscated your identity. Correct. Okay. Correct. So, and you talked about multiple identities, but the interesting fun fact, if I reflect back, the first platform where, you know, Tanmay Bhat was Tanmay Bhat, and Umang Bedi was Umang Bedi, and, you know, Nikhil Kamath was Nikhil Kamath, was Facebook. It potentially had, uh, real people with real identity. Correct. That's what made it very powerful, um, to bring in real identity data, right? So, um, and compliments to Mark and the entire team on how they built that out. But to get people to tell- to be open to share... Because I remember we all went through this phase where we don't want to reveal who we are on the internet, but suddenly we felt comfortable doing it on social media.

Nikhil Kamath 19:15 Why was that?

Umang Bedi 19:16 It was, it was kind of a- I think it linked it to colleges first- Yeah, so it's kind of- ... which is a network within your own college. Yeah. So there was built-in trust- Yes ... that the people on the platform are people on my campus. Yes.

Nikhil Kamath 19:29 So the, the-

Umang Bedi 19:30 You could only log in with your .harvard.edu-

Nikhil Kamath 19:32 Right

Umang Bedi 19:33 ... net. Yeah, that's right.

Nikhil Kamath 19:34 No, the use case was to bring your offline network online.

Umang Bedi 19:38 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 19:38 Right.

Nikhil Kamath 19:39 Also, just to digress a little bit-

Umang Bedi 19:40 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 19:40 ... do you think that will be the next revolution in social media, where all the fakes are removed and there is-

Umang Bedi 19:48 Well, Elon's trying. He's trying, but- So there are open networks, closed networks. Facebook, LinkedIn, uh, all closed networks, right? You, you have a offline professional network you're replicating online- Yeah ... is LinkedIn. Twitter, Instagram, half-half, because you can also make it closed.

Nikhil Kamath 20:06 But would you say they're too permeable right now? So even though it might be a closed network-

Umang Bedi 20:11 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 20:11 ... there are a lot of replicas, and fakes, and stuff like that, and-

Umang Bedi 20:14 No, they're... On LinkedIn, I will only add past, present, or somebody in the future I want to work with.

Nikhil Kamath 20:20 Right.

Umang Bedi 20:21 So there is a- Mm ... there is an intelligence of, is, do I know him from the past or will I know him in the future, right? But on a Twitter or an Instagram, which are open networks, like even on WhatsApp, you will not find a fake WhatsApp guy. It's all real people that you know.

Nikhil Kamath 20:40 Right.

Umang Bedi 20:40 So again, a closed network. But on open networks, this is the problem, where anybody can follow anybody, is a very Twitter and on our platform, Koo, right? Anybody can follow anybody. Now, they're curtailing fakes, curtailing, uh, showing real people. That is a unique problem of open networks. Yeah. So it, it's not necessary that this is a problem on... This is a major problem on a Facebook, LinkedIn, or WhatsApp, but it is definitely a problem on Instagram, and Koo, and Twitter. See,

Umang Bedi 21:16 I have a... I've been too close to it and have too many war stories here, but I have a philosophically different perspective on this. I feel that, and I don't know if I should be saying this in the open, but maybe I'll say it at an abstract level, right? Um, these platforms are built and are, uh, monetizing user data, right? At the end of the day. Uh, they're monetizing behavioral data, they're monetizing personal data.

Nikhil Kamath 21:48 If I were to ask, like, since you were the CEO of both Facebook and Insta India, what level does that monetization go to? Is it figuring out my preferences-

Umang Bedi 21:59 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 21:59 ... to show me an ad? Or how far does it really go?

Umang Bedi 22:02 [clears throat] Just take a knife and stab him. [laughing] Like, do you want to kill me? [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 22:09 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 22:10 All I can say is... Okay, I'll give you a real-world example, right? So, uh, we often thought that, um, Facebook and WhatsApp are two disparate platforms, right? And then WhatsApp released its, uh, update-

Nikhil Kamath 22:25 Mm

Umang Bedi 22:25 ... where it said they're going to share data.

Nikhil Kamath 22:27 Mm.

Umang Bedi 22:27 Right? So what does that mean?

Nikhil Kamath 22:29 Mm.

Umang Bedi 22:29 So I was getting into a meeting, sitting like this, in a hotel with a friend of mine who is from Jodhpur.

Nikhil Kamath 22:37 Mm-hmm.

Umang Bedi 22:38 Uh, and it was during the pandemic, uh, or the pandemic just came six... three months later. Um, I remember, sorry, this was early Jan 2020. Uh, my mom's, uh, birthday, her 70th birthday, was, uh, around the time when the pandemic began, uh, in 2020. And I was just wondering, saying, "Hey, where should I just go which is not too far? They're a little elderly, you know, it's her 70th birthday." And he said... I said, "You're from Jodhpur. I heard there's the most beautiful-

Nikhil Kamath 23:09 Mm

Umang Bedi 23:09 ... Taj Palace Hotel at Jodhpur," right?

Nikhil Kamath 23:11 Mm.

Umang Bedi 23:11 So we're just having this conversation, and, uh, he's like: "Yeah, I'll get it all done for you. But I message the GM of Taj, who I know, on WhatsApp, saying, 'Hey, uh, very keen to come to this hotel. Uh, can you send me the rates?' Right? 'Or can you help me with, uh, this package?'" And I'm entering this meeting, like, the next second, and the first ad that I get on Facebook is Taj Hotels marketing that hotel, Umaid Bhawan Palace at Jodhpur.

Nikhil Kamath 23:40 Mm.

Umang Bedi 23:40 Now, I'll let you infer from it. I'm not going to say anything, I'm just stating it with an example. These are facts. These are facts. [chuckles] Right? Uh, so data is being mined and used. I think the more, uh, drastic part of it came out when you see the way the world is getting bipolar, uh, completely, and how, uh, platforms are built to keep showing you something in a social loop, right? Yeah. So, for instance, if I tell you, uh, hypothetically, demonetization was the best thing that happened to the Indian economy. Uh, now you're in finance, and you're in, uh, everything that you do, but let's say you're not a finance guru-

Nikhil Kamath 24:23 Mm

Umang Bedi 24:24 ... right? And you're not the Zerodha founder, but you are, uh, the average, uh-... you know, middle-class Indian on, uh, in India. And if I show you that piece of content in seven different, uh, ways-

Nikhil Kamath 24:41 Hmm

Umang Bedi 24:41 ... at seven different times, because I know you've engaged on it, you're definitely gonna form an opinion, right?

Nikhil Kamath 24:47 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 24:47 Um, but if I tell you demonetisation is the worst thing that happened to this country, um, because you follow... So essentially, the way the world works is, people are following two sources of media, whether it's left or right-wing. Each has a, has a point of view. And I think these platforms and the algos, because they're built on social graphs, they're built on who you follow, uh, who are your friends-

Nikhil Kamath 25:08 Yeah

Umang Bedi 25:08 ... what are your interests, and what do you engage on more, and more, and more, right?

Nikhil Kamath 25:12 Do you think... This

Nikhil Kamath 25:13 is a little bit counterintuitive when I say it, but do you think the negative feedback loop is so much bigger than the positive feedback loop? So if I were to be right-wing, I would be showed pro left-wing data to get me to try and react?

Umang Bedi 25:31 It's a very deep question. Um, it could go either ways, but if you see what has been proven with Cambridge Analytica, it was basically this manipulation, right? They used combinations of this, uh, around that manipulation, and I am philosophically dead against any of that, right? I feel that, you know, you need to for- show both sides of the story. You need to let people form their own opinions. So in another very interesting anecdote, uh, that I'll share, is my driver... I think, I don't know if I said this the last time. Uh, did I share this example? I don't remember this. But my driver left to Dubai, uh, because he got a job there, and I couldn't afford to pay him what he was getting there.

Nikhil Kamath 26:11 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 26:11 And a young kid, 26 year old.

Nikhil Kamath 26:14 How much do drivers, just out of curiosity, get paid in Dubai?

Umang Bedi 26:17 Um, so he was making over a lac and a half there, and, you know, here it's 20 to 30K, right?

Nikhil Kamath 26:22 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 26:22 Uh, so actually that was, uh, unaffordable. I wished him luck, gave him a letter of recommendation, and he sent me a request on LinkedIn. Okay?

Nikhil Kamath 26:29 Oh.

Umang Bedi 26:30 Very interesting insight. So, uh, I was like, "Hey," you know, I called him up. This is just out of curiosity. I'm like: Why did you send me a request on LinkedIn? You're 26 years old. All kids are on Instagram, right? So he asked me, and this was in Hindi. "Sahab, aap kitna kamate hai?" Right? I said, "Theek thaak kama leta hoon," right? Um, he said, "Chalo, ye maan lo ki aap mahine ke ek lakh rupeye kamate ho, aur main aapko Leela Palace leke gaya ek party mein jahan pe hazar log hai. Aur wahan sabki tankhwa das crore mahine ki hai. Aapki ek lakh hai, unki das crore ki. Aapko kaise lagega?" So I said, "Yaar, mere ko ajeeb lagega. Mere ko lagega ye mere log nahi hai, ye meri mehfil nahi hai." You know, I'm, I'm a little out of place-

Nikhil Kamath 27:15 Hmm

Umang Bedi 27:15 ... I'll be a little awkward. He said, "That's how I feel on Instagram."

Nikhil Kamath 27:19 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 27:19 And that was an interesting insight, because what he said is, that platform is all about fancy food, fancy fashion, fancy holidays.

Nikhil Kamath 27:25 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 27:25 It's not just asp- it's not even aspirational, it's unattainable. So it's intimidating, right?

Nikhil Kamath 27:31 And it's unreal to a certain extent.

Umang Bedi 27:32 And it's unreal to an extent.

Nikhil Kamath 27:33 Nobody's living that lifestyle they're portraying.

Umang Bedi 27:35 Exactly, right.

Speaker 27:35 On a daily basis.

Umang Bedi 27:36 On a daily basis. And so we used two or three first principles when we went down this journey.

Nikhil Kamath 27:41 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 27:41 The first principle that we used is, we will never force a person to sign in.

Nikhil Kamath 27:47 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 27:47 He or she can be anonymous for all his life.

Nikhil Kamath 27:50 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 27:50 Two, we will never ask him for personal data. Three, we will never drive a personalization algorithm bases a social graph, uh, which is your friends and family in the network, so you follow. Rather, we will build it on a content graph.

Nikhil Kamath 28:07 And where is this? Which platform are you talking?

Umang Bedi 28:08 Uh,

Umang Bedi 28:09 this is with, uh, Josh and with Dailyhunt, right? Uh, Josh, of course, is short video. Dailyhunt is more news and infotainment. Uh, and so with both platforms-

Nikhil Kamath 28:17 Just, just, uh, just for context for everybody watching, how big is Josh and Dailyhunt now?

Umang Bedi 28:22 So Dailyhunt today serves about 240 million monthly active users on the app. We're preloaded onto every single Android device known to mankind.

Nikhil Kamath 28:31 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 28:31 Uh, and we find very interesting ways to activate it. Uh, Josh is about 180 million, uh, in terms of, uh, its reach.

Nikhil Kamath 28:40 How many are yours, Apurva? [laughing]

Speaker 28:42 [chuckles] I'm super small compared... Like-

Nikhil Kamath 28:44 Hmm

Speaker 28:44 ... at our peak, we were 10 million monthly active users.

Nikhil Kamath 28:47 Right.

Umang Bedi 28:48 Hmm.

Nikhil Kamath 28:48 But I'm guessing they're different gauges.

Speaker 28:49 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 28:49 Yeah, they're different gauges.

Speaker 28:50 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 28:50 And we've been, you know, uh, Koo has had a very, very interesting growth around growing organically and growing very rapidly.

Nikhil Kamath 28:57 Yeah. Yeah.

Umang Bedi 28:57 Uh, we admire what they're doing.

Nikhil Kamath 28:59 I think between-

Speaker 29:00 So we're-

Nikhil Kamath 29:00 ... you guys, are you the biggest social

Nikhil Kamath 29:02 media platforms, Indian ones?

Speaker 29:05 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 29:05 I would say yes. Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 29:07 Anyone else you can think of?

Speaker 29:09 ShareChat is a social platform, though.

Nikhil Kamath 29:11 Is it?

Umang Bedi 29:12 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 29:12 Is ShareChat truly a social platform, though?

Umang Bedi 29:16 It's more for, whatever we've seen in terms of the use case, uh, is sharing-

Nikhil Kamath 29:20 WhatsApp shares

Umang Bedi 29:21 ... sharing, WhatsApp shares.

Nikhil Kamath 29:22 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 29:22 So good morning, good nights, those messaging, um-

Speaker 29:26 That's how it began, then there was a lot, they, they started doing content as well.

Nikhil Kamath 29:29 Yeah.

Speaker 29:29 So, so in India, you basically divide India into A, B, C, D, right?

Umang Bedi 29:34 Yeah.

Speaker 29:34 A is your celebrities, B is English-speaking India.

Nikhil Kamath 29:38 Is the funnel top-down or bottom-up?

Speaker 29:40 See, if you do top-down, you monetize more. If you do bottom-up, you moni- you don't monetize at all.

Umang Bedi 29:46 Yeah.

Speaker 29:46 Right?

Nikhil Kamath 29:46 At Koo, you're doing top-down, so you go to the influencers first?

Umang Bedi 29:50 Yeah.

Speaker 29:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 29:50 Same?

Umang Bedi 29:51 Same.

Nikhil Kamath 29:51 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 29:51 So that's how-

Speaker 29:51 So you have to... Like, if you have the ministers, sportsmen, Bollywood guys-

Nikhil Kamath 29:56 And what is the incentive for them to come onto a new platform at the very beginning, at the cusp of you being born?

Speaker 30:01 So with, with Koo, we've, we've kind of like, uh, made them... So thoughts and opinions platform, there's only Twitter till we came in, and Twitter is primarily English.

Umang Bedi 30:13 Yeah.

Speaker 30:14 So celebrities and English-speaking India in a bubble is what Twitter is.

Nikhil Kamath 30:20 And just focusing

Nikhil Kamath 30:21 on India for one more second-

Speaker 30:22 Uh.

Nikhil Kamath 30:23 ... how big is the social media-consuming audience in English, and how big is it in Hindi?

Umang Bedi 30:28 So 240 million-... Indians-

Speaker 30:31 Mm-hmm. Yeah

Umang Bedi 30:32 -can read, speak, and understand English in some format, about 200, 250.

Speaker 30:38 Mm.

Umang Bedi 30:38 About 560 million Indians speak and communicate in Hindi.

Speaker 30:43 Mm.

Umang Bedi 30:43 About 250 million Indians is Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Right?

Speaker 30:48 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 30:48 And about 150 million is-

Speaker 30:51 Bengali, Marathi

Umang Bedi 30:51 ... Gujarati, Marathi, uh, that side, and Bangla, Odia is another 100 odd million.

Speaker 30:56 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 30:56 Right? So you add this math up, it comes to about 1.15, 1.2 billion, right?

Speaker 31:00 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 31:01 But if you really think about Bharat, which is the use case that we, you know, we solve for, we solve for local content. If you search for hashtag food on Instagram and hashtag food on Josh-

Speaker 31:08 Mm

Umang Bedi 31:08 ... it's chalk and cheese. Um, ours is very desi, very Indian, very basic, whereas that's very international, right?

Speaker 31:14 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 31:14 So I think the principles that we used is, you can... One, it supports all Indian languages. Two, you never sign in. Three, we'll never personalize with your pers- social graph. We'll build a content graph, which basically means we'll try and understand what kind of content you-

Speaker 31:28 Mm

Umang Bedi 31:28 ... uh, consume at what time of day. But then, you know, if I just keep- let's say you only consume fitness content.

Speaker 31:35 Mm.

Umang Bedi 31:35 Just take that as an example. If I just kept showing you fitness content, your feed's going to get really boring, right?

Speaker 31:39 Right.

Umang Bedi 31:39 Like, how many boys and girls will you look at working out?

Speaker 31:42 Right.

Umang Bedi 31:42 Uh, but maybe I'll show you an adjacency, right?

Speaker 31:45 Mm.

Umang Bedi 31:45 Maybe I'll show you something in dance or something in stunts.

Speaker 31:48 Healthy food.

Umang Bedi 31:48 Uh, or in healthy food, right? That's a great example. Uh, so I'll try and diversify and try and sample content to see, hey, is that working? Or today's Holi, let me show you something on Holi, right?

Speaker 31:59 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 31:59 Uh, does Nikhil engage with it? So that's how we build a content graph. And then the fourth thing that we did from an AI perspective is, when we see diverse perspectives, um, like, take the example, demonetisation is good. If you're following a, a, a medium or a media that says it's good, we're going to show you one that shows you a diverse perspective, and then you make the choice, right? Um, and so that's something that we've done very consciously to avoid this confirmation bias that social platforms are inherently incentivized to. Because don't forget, if you think about

Umang Bedi 32:33 what I said earlier, the incentive model is very simple.

Speaker 32:36 Mm.

Umang Bedi 32:36 More users, get them to spend more time. That's it.

Speaker 32:38 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 32:38 It results in ad revenue, right?

Speaker 32:40 So, Umang, on, on that, so don't you think in the future, let's say I use your data or Nikhil's data on your behaviour on my platform, and then I made $100 through the year. If I gave you back $40, right? That is not happening today on any platform. Yeah. But if I did give you back $40, you'll be okay with that sharing of data, because you're monetizing your own data, which you never knew that- Yeah. So if there is transparency around, and I give you a report at the end of the year saying, "I made this much money off you, [chuckles] I'm paying you this much," I think India will go nuts.

Umang Bedi 33:20 It's an interesting use case where you pay the user. I've not thought of that. Yeah.

Speaker 33:23 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 33:24 You pay the user.

Speaker 33:24 So we, we actually run a loyalty program on Koo.

Nikhil Kamath 33:26 Can I, can I just ask?

Speaker 33:27 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 33:27 Say, I am a user who spends [clears throat] 10 minutes on Koo a day.

Speaker 33:33 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 33:33 I click on 20 different things.

Speaker 33:35 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 33:36 How much would that amount be if you were to monetize me and if-

Speaker 33:39 The more, the more I can monetize, the more I will-

Nikhil Kamath 33:42 No, what would that amount be, though? The number. Would you earn 10 rupees from me, and you give back four? That... Is that the ballpark you're thinking?

Speaker 33:49 Yeah. So, I think finally, we want to get to a place where I will share at least 20, 30% of what I earn with you.

Umang Bedi 33:56 Mm. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 33:57 But I'm trying to figure out if the scale is exciting or enticing enough for somebody to, you know, kind of go in for that. Is it, like, 10 paisa a day that you would earn, or is it 100 rupees a day?

Umang Bedi 34:09 So I think there is-

Speaker 34:10 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 34:10 I would say that there is enough money in the game.

Nikhil Kamath 34:12 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 34:13 Look at it this way, none of the global platforms pay creators.

Nikhil Kamath 34:17 Except YouTube.

Umang Bedi 34:18 Except YouTube.

Nikhil Kamath 34:19 [clears throat]

Umang Bedi 34:19 But let's... Even if you take in comparison, if you were the, the same creator on YouTube in the US versus India-

Nikhil Kamath 34:25 Correct, correct, correct.

Speaker 34:25 Yeah

Umang Bedi 34:26 ... it's dimes, right? Uh, and YouTube is more of a consumption network, so not really a social media platform, right? I'm just talking about other social platforms-

Nikhil Kamath 34:34 Yeah, it's not.

Umang Bedi 34:34 Right? We've also started something similar wherein you pay someone for driving-

Nikhil Kamath 34:39 Mm

Umang Bedi 34:39 ... a certain behaviour: consume more, spend more time-

Nikhil Kamath 34:41 Yeah

Umang Bedi 34:41 ... like shares, et cetera. You'll be surprised that money can be fairly meaningful. It could range from, you know, it depends on the level of engagement, but it can start from 10, 20 rupees and go up to a couple of hundred, if not thousand.

Nikhil Kamath 34:52 Which is life-changing for many people.

Speaker 34:54 We've, we've-

Umang Bedi 34:54 Yeah, it is

Speaker 34:54 ... we've done various levels of giving back-

Nikhil Kamath 34:56 Mm

Speaker 34:57 ... and behaviour change is extreme.

Nikhil Kamath 35:00 So what would happen next is you start paying me to be on Koo.

Speaker 35:03 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 35:03 I make 100.

Speaker 35:04 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 35:05 I make 500 rupees.

Speaker 35:06 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 35:06 Then I get obsessed with clicking on Koo-

Speaker 35:08 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 35:09 ... till the point where-

Umang Bedi 35:10 You made it sound like [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 35:11 ... the amount of money I make from clicking on Koo-

Speaker 35:14 Ah

Nikhil Kamath 35:15 ... starts to diminish because a lot of people start doing it. Is- does that work like?

Speaker 35:19 Well, the big guys will never do it-

Umang Bedi 35:20 Yeah

Speaker 35:21 ... because they'll lose money, so-

Nikhil Kamath 35:23 So you, you're saying you'll create this ecosystem of people. We have this in the stock market.

Umang Bedi 35:27 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 35:27 We call them market makers or jobbers.

Umang Bedi 35:29 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 35:29 So they would sit on the, on the boundary-

Speaker 35:33 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 35:33 ... and do this as a vocation and make a wage from it?

Speaker 35:36 No, so this is for every user.

Umang Bedi 35:37 Mm.

Speaker 35:37 It's not just for the market makers.

Umang Bedi 35:39 Yeah.

Speaker 35:39 It is for every user to be incentivized for having used your data, if ever, if I ever use. If you don't want me to use your data, and you don't want the money from it, then you pay.

Umang Bedi 35:51 You buy a subscription.

Speaker 35:52 Right?

Umang Bedi 35:52 Yeah.

Speaker 35:52 Buy a subscription, do something else.

Umang Bedi 35:53 Right.

Speaker 35:53 This is the user side.

Nikhil Kamath 35:55 Right.

Speaker 35:55 Nobody in the world of social media has done it. We-

Nikhil Kamath 35:58 What if one were to argue that why will I pay a social media platform-

Speaker 36:02 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 36:02 ... take a subscription, then give them my data, which they didn't want to use?

Speaker 36:07 No, you either do this or that.

Umang Bedi 36:09 Or either that.

Nikhil Kamath 36:09 Ah, so then you don't-

Umang Bedi 36:10 So it's an ad-free experience

Nikhil Kamath 36:10 ... then you don't take.

Umang Bedi 36:11 It's an ad-free experience.

Speaker 36:12 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 36:13 Right.

Umang Bedi 36:13 It's a-

Speaker 36:13 So on the, on the other side, so user is very happy independently-

Nikhil Kamath 36:17 Mm

Speaker 36:17 ... right?

Nikhil Kamath 36:18 Mm.

Speaker 36:18 And then on the creator side, as Umang was saying, nobody pays the creator, right?

Umang Bedi 36:22 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 36:22 Right.

Speaker 36:23 So what, what needs to be done is ad share is definitely something, but, um, next month, as in this month, we're, uh, end of this month, we're creating something called Koo Premium, where you as a creator can run a premium channel.... Right. Anupam Kher has 4 million followers on Koo. Now, if he can convert 5% there-

Nikhil Kamath 36:43 That's true

Speaker 36:43 ... 5% of them into paid subscribers-

Nikhil Kamath 36:46 Mm

Speaker 36:46 ... he starts making meaningful money.

Nikhil Kamath 36:48 Right.

Speaker 36:49 And he will go and then tell all the followers on platforms where he doesn't make any money, like Twitter and on Instagram and everywhere else-

Nikhil Kamath 36:56 Right

Speaker 36:57 ... to come and follow him on Koo, because that funnel is now ready.

Nikhil Kamath 37:00 Right.

Speaker 37:01 So then go- grow his 4 million to 20 million, and 5% to 10%. That'll, that'll become his goal then.

Nikhil Kamath 37:12 Very interesting.

Speaker 37:12 So,

Speaker 37:13 yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 37:13 Can you also finish that journey you were talking about? We're all slightly different age groups.

Speaker 37:18 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 37:18 So it'll be interesting to know, like, you know, just a quick minute on you went from your email.

Speaker 37:23 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 37:23 You went to email even though you had a phone-

Speaker 37:26 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 37:26 ... because somebody asked you to.

Speaker 37:27 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 37:28 Then you went to Orkut or whatever. What happened next? What happened between that-

Speaker 37:31 So

Nikhil Kamath 37:31 ... and starting Koo?

Speaker 37:33 Oh, yeah. [chuckles] So Orkut, uh, was actually the first cool platform, right-

Nikhil Kamath 37:39 Mm

Speaker 37:39 ... uh, that everyone entered. It was a more open network-

Nikhil Kamath 37:44 [clears throat]

Speaker 37:44 ... where anybody could go on somebody's wall and say anything, right?

Nikhil Kamath 37:47 Mm.

Speaker 37:47 And the experience... So at least, you know, I know-

Nikhil Kamath 37:49 It was owned by Google, no?

Speaker 37:51 No, they bought it later.

Nikhil Kamath 37:53 Uh, bought it later.

Speaker 37:53 Google bought it. They bought it later. But-

Nikhil Kamath 37:55 Interesting.

Umang Bedi 37:55 Google has never built a successful social network.

Nikhil Kamath 37:57 Yeah, why not?

Umang Bedi 37:58 They tried. Google Wave, Google+

Speaker 38:00 Yeah, they tried.

Umang Bedi 38:01 They tried everything.

Nikhil Kamath 38:02 Google+

Umang Bedi 38:02 Google Plus.

Nikhil Kamath 38:02 Why did they, why did they kill Orkut, even though it was doing so well?

Speaker 38:06 It, it... Facebook took over.

Umang Bedi 38:08 Facebook took over.

Speaker 38:08 Yeah, for the same-

Nikhil Kamath 38:09 So what did Facebook have?

Umang Bedi 38:10 Orkut, then MySpace happened, and then Facebook took over.

Speaker 38:13 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 38:13 So what did Facebook have that Orkut did not?

Speaker 38:15 So, okay, so Facebook had more privacy. Like, there was a handshake that was required. Like, I send you a friend request-

Nikhil Kamath 38:25 Yes

Speaker 38:25 ... you accept it, and then both of us are connected, and we can-

Umang Bedi 38:29 Yeah

Speaker 38:29 ... communicate. Orkut didn't have that. Anybody could come to my wall and say anything.

Umang Bedi 38:34 Anything.

Nikhil Kamath 38:35 But wasn't that, like, a easy thing for them to fix?

Speaker 38:37 No, no, it w- that, that was, like, a feature. Yeah, they fixed that. I mean, you could send friend requests on-

Nikhil Kamath 38:42 On Orkut?

Speaker 38:42 On Orkut as well, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 38:43 Okay.

Umang Bedi 38:43 Yeah.

Speaker 38:43 But that was a later, after Facebook did it.

Umang Bedi 38:45 Ah, maybe.

Speaker 38:46 So Facebook just did a fantastic PR exercise across the world to just take over the world.

Umang Bedi 38:51 See, the value of a social network is, how many of my friends-

Speaker 38:56 Mm

Umang Bedi 38:57 ... are already on it, and how much of relevant content that I want to see is already on it, right?

Speaker 39:03 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 39:04 So Facebook did a really good job on three things: one, uh, making those connections which were-

Speaker 39:09 Yeah

Umang Bedi 39:10 ... secure, and ensuring that by the time you came on, there were at least 20 people in your social network.

Speaker 39:16 I think the magic number was seven.

Umang Bedi 39:18 Yeah.

Speaker 39:18 Right, seven friends you've added, you're done.

Umang Bedi 39:20 You're done.

Speaker 39:21 We'll be there for life.

Umang Bedi 39:21 Correct. So that was one.

Speaker 39:23 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 39:23 Two, this was something that they did well. They incentivized a lot of creators, uh, not by paying money, but just by saying, "Hey, we'll help you reach a larger audience." Right?

Nikhil Kamath 39:37 Mm.

Umang Bedi 39:37 Um, so publishers, creators, all of that came onto the platform, and they did that really well in English. But the problem with local language was, when I was a local language user... Let's say there were 250 million people on Facebook. If a Gujarati user came in, he didn't see too much of Gujarati content-

Nikhil Kamath 39:51 Mm

Umang Bedi 39:52 ... and he didn't have any of his friends. It was a chicken-and-egg problem, right? But the initial part, they did really, really well.

Speaker 39:57 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 39:57 Uh, but if you look at what's happening now, it's lost its relevance. It's my view, right? Uh, and I think content

Umang Bedi 40:03 graphs are taking over the world, and the biggest example of this is TikTok.

Speaker 40:06 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 40:07 TikTok is eating everyone's lunch in the US, right?

Speaker 40:10 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 40:10 Because-

Nikhil Kamath 40:10 Why, why is that? I think we spoke about this the other day, but we were not recording it, right?

Umang Bedi 40:15 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 40:15 You were saying the number of creators to the number of people.

Umang Bedi 40:18 So at least y- if I could be... You know, if I could ask you a question, what's your be- when was the last time you posted on Facebook?

Nikhil Kamath 40:26 I post f- quite often.

Umang Bedi 40:27 You do?

Nikhil Kamath 40:28 Yeah. Yeah, see, but what I do is I... I think once something goes on a certain platform, the person just replicates it on all platforms.

Umang Bedi 40:35 No, no, see, public figures-

Nikhil Kamath 40:37 Yeah

Umang Bedi 40:37 ... behave differently.

Nikhil Kamath 40:37 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 40:37 Yeah. Leave what you're doing for work.

Nikhil Kamath 40:39 Uh-huh.

Umang Bedi 40:39 Right? Like, you're posting, uh, an article or an award or a feature that you've launched, you'll put it everywhere, right? That... I would do that with Dailyhunt, and I did it this morning again for our Espresso feed on Instagram. Uh, but when was the last time you posted something truly social or personal on any of these platforms?

Nikhil Kamath 40:58 I do, actually.

Umang Bedi 40:59 You do.

Nikhil Kamath 40:59 Once in a while, yeah.

Umang Bedi 41:00 Once in a while.

Nikhil Kamath 41:00 But I think I'm an exception here, so not everyone.

Speaker 41:02 No, he has followers. See, the average Facebook user doesn't have followers.

Umang Bedi 41:06 They have friends.

Speaker 41:07 Follower is a concept that has come later on Facebook.

Umang Bedi 41:10 Yeah.

Speaker 41:11 Average person has friends.

Umang Bedi 41:12 Correct.

Speaker 41:13 And that, those posts are not happening.

Umang Bedi 41:15 Correct.

Nikhil Kamath 41:16 But I saw a number recently-

Speaker 41:17 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 41:18 ... that showed that Facebook is still, like, the most active social platform.

Umang Bedi 41:24 Right.

Nikhil Kamath 41:24 Like, my mom is hooked on it.

Umang Bedi 41:26 So it's older audiences.

Nikhil Kamath 41:26 Like, my dad spends three hours on it.

Umang Bedi 41:28 It's older audiences, right? So today, if you look at any of the kids in this building or in this vicinity-

Speaker 41:33 There are no kids in this building. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 41:35 Uh, maybe. [chuckles] Uh, but ask around.

Nikhil Kamath 41:36 Uh, can I, can I say a funny story?

Umang Bedi 41:38 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 41:38 So me and Nitin, my brother, and my mum, and my dad, we're all friends with each other on Facebook. So a couple of years ago, uh, we didn't go to a particular wedding. Like, me and Nitin did not turn up because we were stuck somewhere or whatever, of a relative of my mother. So she goes back... She goes on Facebook and puts on her wall, uh, "I have the worst kids in the world. Tags @Nikhil Kamath and Nitin." [laughing]

Speaker 42:08 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 42:08 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 42:09 That's how important Facebook is to her.

Umang Bedi 42:12 Got it.

Speaker 42:13 Wow!

Nikhil Kamath 42:13 You know, that is her world. That is her means of-

Speaker 42:17 Expressing-

Nikhil Kamath 42:18 Yeah

Speaker 42:18 ... to the world.

Nikhil Kamath 42:19 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 42:20 No, it is, but it...

Umang Bedi 42:21 Today, when I, when I look at it, globally, three things are happening. One, people don't find Facebook relevant anymore in terms of younger audiences.

Speaker 42:29 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 42:29 So that's a known fact. It's a absolutely known fact. It's there in India as well. Two, uh, they find the ephemeral nature-... of messaging and communication, a lot more powerful. It beats me why, but, you know, that's why, uh-

Tanmay Bhat 42:45 That's based on use case.

Umang Bedi 42:45 It's, it's a use case, right? [laughing] I understand. I won't go there. Uh, I won't go there, but it's-

Tanmay Bhat 42:50 Yeah

Umang Bedi 42:50 ... it's suddenly become popular. But three, I think, uh, why TikTok got so popular is the algorithm.

Tanmay Bhat 42:59 Mm.

Umang Bedi 43:00 Um, when you're looking into TikTok, TikTok's looking straight back into you.

Tanmay Bhat 43:06 Meaning?

Umang Bedi 43:07 Meaning, um, so, you know, it's just showing me random content, right? Uh, but I don't know if you used it.

Tanmay Bhat 43:13 Mm-hmm.

Nikhil Kamath 43:13 I have never.

Umang Bedi 43:14 Okay, so if you do, you'll find that you could wail away hours on it, because the feed is-

Tanmay Bhat 43:20 It's like flipping channels on the-

Umang Bedi 43:21 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 43:21 ... on the TV.

Umang Bedi 43:21 It's so-

Tanmay Bhat 43:22 Mm

Umang Bedi 43:22 ... it's so personalized.

Tanmay Bhat 43:24 Mm.

Umang Bedi 43:24 My feed is very different from your feed, is very different from your feed.

Tanmay Bhat 43:27 Right.

Umang Bedi 43:28 And my feed is dynamic. It's not in a boring old loop.

Nikhil Kamath 43:31 Why, why-

Umang Bedi 43:32 It shows me really interesting-

Nikhil Kamath 43:32 ... why is that so addictive, that whole switching from one thing to another-

Tanmay Bhat 43:35 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 43:35 ... constantly for so long? 'Cause I just remembered when you said this, I do it on Swiggy.

Umang Bedi 43:40 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 43:41 Like, I just keep scrolling restaurants and dishes for one hour.

Umang Bedi 43:43 Yeah. Even I do that.

Nikhil Kamath 43:44 You know?

Umang Bedi 43:44 I do that.

Nikhil Kamath 43:45 But why?

Umang Bedi 43:45 Curiosity, right? It's curiosity, it's about what your mood is. But let's say, let's say Nikhil Kamath comes in from urban Bangalore-

Nikhil Kamath 43:53 Mm

Umang Bedi 43:54 ... and I show him gaon wala content.

Nikhil Kamath 43:55 Mm.

Umang Bedi 43:56 Now, that's not going to be relevant-

Nikhil Kamath 43:58 Mm

Umang Bedi 43:58 ... for Nikhil Kamath.

Nikhil Kamath 43:59 Mm.

Umang Bedi 43:59 But let's imagine that I've not asked Nikhil Kamath to sign in. I've not asked him for any preferences. Uh, I'm just driving a few pieces of content. Um, and by the way, this content is untagged, right? It's 10-second content.

Nikhil Kamath 44:13 Mm.

Umang Bedi 44:13 Right? So basically, it's a supply and demand equation. On the supply, you bring in billions and billions of pieces of content.

Nikhil Kamath 44:21 Mm.

Umang Bedi 44:21 10-second, 20-second, 30-second. You use AI to understand what's in that content. Is it urban? Is it rural? Is it a song? Is it dance? Is it poetry? Is it poetry? Is it, you know, fun, skit, dance, et cetera, and you tag it with a machine. Uh, and on the right-hand side, I get Nikhil, uh, whose users, and I sample. And dynamically, the AI then marries what I believe is Nikhil's implied preferences by the amount of time he spends on a certain kind of content, by his likes, shares, comments-

Tanmay Bhat 44:54 But if, if-

Umang Bedi 44:54 ... dislikes

Tanmay Bhat 44:55 ... Instagram showed you, or TikTok, or whoever, Josh, showed you food videos-

Nikhil Kamath 45:02 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 45:02 ... of restaurants around-

Umang Bedi 45:03 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 45:04 ... you'd spend time there.

Nikhil Kamath 45:05 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 45:05 Yeah, there you go.

Nikhil Kamath 45:06 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 45:06 That's true.

Nikhil Kamath 45:07 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 45:07 You hopefully will see that personalization-

Nikhil Kamath 45:09 No, 100%

Umang Bedi 45:10 uh, on Josh.

Nikhil Kamath 45:10 One of the favorite things I like to do is to go to a supermarket. I just love that-

Tanmay Bhat 45:14 Ah

Nikhil Kamath 45:15 ... experience of walking down and looking at everything, you know?

Tanmay Bhat 45:18 What would we- what would it be like to consume this?

Umang Bedi 45:20 Hey, just on a fun fact-

Tanmay Bhat 45:21 What would be like to consume this?

Nikhil Kamath 45:22 Uh-

Umang Bedi 45:22 On a fun fact, I tried this app the other day called JustMyRoots.

Tanmay Bhat 45:27 Okay.

Umang Bedi 45:27 Um, and I loved it.

Tanmay Bhat 45:29 What is it?

Umang Bedi 45:30 So it's an app where... They've got limited choices, but let's say you are missing a dish or food from somewhere that you love-

Tanmay Bhat 45:41 Mm

Umang Bedi 45:41 ... okay? From a city that you love.

Tanmay Bhat 45:42 Mm.

Umang Bedi 45:43 So let's say, I've never lived in Punjab, but I've been to Amritsar a couple of times, and I love the food there, right?

Nikhil Kamath 45:49 Mm.

Umang Bedi 45:49 So the Amritsari kulcha is right up there in terms of-

Tanmay Bhat 45:52 And they send it here?

Umang Bedi 45:53 Yeah. So it is... So you go to the, you go to- they have five kulcha, the five best kulcha guys there. You order it, in 48 hours-

Tanmay Bhat 46:01 Oh

Umang Bedi 46:01 ... because it's Amritsar-

Tanmay Bhat 46:02 Wow!

Umang Bedi 46:03 ... it ships here, and it's so beautifully packaged.

Nikhil Kamath 46:05 And how expensive is this?

Umang Bedi 46:06 Nothing. It's the normal price with some shipping, right?

Nikhil Kamath 46:09 Really?

Umang Bedi 46:10 It's really reasonable.

Nikhil Kamath 46:11 So I can order biryani from Hyderabad-

Umang Bedi 46:12 Yes

Nikhil Kamath 46:12 ... anytime?

Umang Bedi 46:13 So I-

Tanmay Bhat 46:13 Swiggy Legends, right?

Umang Bedi 46:14 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 46:14 Swiggy also has this.

Nikhil Kamath 46:15 Yeah?

Tanmay Bhat 46:15 They're called Legends.

Umang Bedi 46:16 But they have a very-

Tanmay Bhat 46:17 Oh, yeah

Umang Bedi 46:17 ... limited choice.

Tanmay Bhat 46:18 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 46:18 These guys are slightly better. So, you know, if I grew up in Pune-

Tanmay Bhat 46:20 But Swiggy are somewhat, I think it's somewhat

Umang Bedi 46:21 ... Masarin Sandwiches, if you've ever been to Pune, right?

Tanmay Bhat 46:24 Mm.

Umang Bedi 46:24 So I ordered that the other day. Uh, but what I really loved is that they had this option called Maa Ke Haath Ka Khana, which was pretty cool. So my mom is in Delhi. Uh-

Nikhil Kamath 46:34 So they pick it up from your home and-

Umang Bedi 46:35 And so all you got to say is, how many liters of food or, you know, capacity-

Tanmay Bhat 46:40 Ah

Umang Bedi 46:40 ... is your mom gonna make? So, you know, I said... I asked my mom, "Hey, I'm sending this. [laughing] " And-

Tanmay Bhat 46:45 I thought they'd just box your mother and send her. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 46:48 [laughing] But they sent me-

Nikhil Kamath 46:48 Yeah

Umang Bedi 46:48 ... she cooked food, and-

Nikhil Kamath 46:50 Yeah

Umang Bedi 46:50 ... it was six liters.

Nikhil Kamath 46:51 And how do they do it, they fly it?

Umang Bedi 46:52 They fly it. So six liters from Gurgaon to Delhi- to Gurgaon to Bangalore came in 24 hours.

Nikhil Kamath 46:57 And how much did that cost you?

Umang Bedi 46:58 It cost me 1,600 rupees for six liters of food. I mean, six... Imagine a, imagine this is a, this box is-

Tanmay Bhat 47:06 This can accommodate-

Umang Bedi 47:07 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 47:07 ... a product market fit and a lot of marketing.

Umang Bedi 47:09 Right? [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 47:09 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 47:09 So I didn't want to do-

Nikhil Kamath 47:10 Yeah

Umang Bedi 47:10 ... marketing for another product.

Tanmay Bhat 47:11 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 47:13 I just loved it. Uh-

Nikhil Kamath 47:14 Yeah

Umang Bedi 47:14 ... I just loved it. It was like-

Tanmay Bhat 47:15 Well, yeah, it's a-

Umang Bedi 47:15 It was great, man.

Nikhil Kamath 47:16 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 47:16 Get your home food.

Tanmay Bhat 47:18 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 47:18 And all of us are suckers for our mothers' cooking, aren't

Umang Bedi 47:20 we?

Nikhil Kamath 47:20 So, Tanmay, you're probably the most popular social media person in the count- country.

Tanmay Bhat 47:28 Not in the country, but sure, on this table, yeah. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 47:31 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 47:32 I like how he knows it, and he's still, you know-

Tanmay Bhat 47:34 Um, yeah

Nikhil Kamath 47:34 ... like, trying to figure out if he should contest it or not.

Tanmay Bhat 47:36 I don't want to be the most popular person on social media. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 47:39 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 47:40 It's too much.

Nikhil Kamath 47:40 Okay, tell us about how you got into this, 'cause honestly, we've been friends for so long, I've never asked you where you grew up, what was your first experience with social media?

Tanmay Bhat 47:51 Mm, I think, uh, w- I mean, like everybody else, I did the Orkut journey. I, I had my MySpace phase, I had my Facebook phase, and then I got onto Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 48:06 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 48:06 And my first audience that I built was primarily on Twitter. Because at that point, like in 2009, I was on Twitter in 2009, I used to... I had just gotten into comedy then, so I used to wake up every day, look at my-

Nikhil Kamath 48:20 So was it comic content which got you your first audience?

Tanmay Bhat 48:22 Just jokes-

Nikhil Kamath 48:23 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 48:24 ... right?

Nikhil Kamath 48:24 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 48:24 I would spend six hours a day writing one-liners-

Nikhil Kamath 48:28 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 48:28 ... on Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 48:28 Give me an example.

Tanmay Bhat 48:30 Example of?

Nikhil Kamath 48:31 What you used to write back then.

Tanmay Bhat 48:32 Oh, in 2009, I remember there was a Commonwealth Games phase that was, like, really, really popular at that time. All kinds of it was happening in India, all kinds of stuff was happening.... so I would be, like, there were a bunch of, like, the early guys. It was me, Rohan, Ashish was on it. We all used to write in general. I was writing for magazines, I was writing jokes, I was writing funny articles for Mumbai Mirror, et cetera, et cetera. And here came a platform where I could flex my writing, so I would just tweet from morning to evening on anything newsworthy. And if, like, a cricket game was on, or if there's a big news event, that means maximum engagement on whatever you wrote. So I got my first 10,000

Tanmay Bhat 49:11 followers on Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 49:11 Is that a good tip for anybody trying to get bigger?

Tanmay Bhat 49:13 [clears throat]

Nikhil Kamath 49:13 Like, talk about-

Tanmay Bhat 49:15 Oh, there is a... I have a, I have, I have a full presentation on this, but I'll give you a basic-

Nikhil Kamath 49:20 Uh

Tanmay Bhat 49:20 ... idea on what can get-

Nikhil Kamath 49:21 How does somebody starting off today become as popular as-

Tanmay Bhat 49:24 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 49:24 or a fraction of as popular as you?

Tanmay Bhat 49:25 So it's just a general engagement tip, right?

Nikhil Kamath 49:27 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 49:29 One, anything topical is always gonna get engagement on any platform.

Nikhil Kamath 49:33 Describe topical.

Tanmay Bhat 49:35 Um, today the test match is going on-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 49:37 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 49:37 ... between India and Australia. So a tweet about the test match will get, will get massive engagement. A Reel about the test match will get decent engagement.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 49:43 Correct.

Tanmay Bhat 49:44 I uploaded a YouTube video today, which is called Indian- The Indian Team is Savage. [dog barks] Uh, [clears throat] if it was two weeks ago, then the Siddharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani wedding would've gotten you engagement. Whatever is the topic of the day-

Nikhil Kamath 49:57 Okay

Tanmay Bhat 49:58 ... uh, that'll get you huge engagement. In fact, at the AIB, I remember, uh, P. V. Sindhu was either gonna win gold medal or silver medal.

Nikhil Kamath 50:04 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 50:05 We had memes ready for both.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 50:06 Ah.

Tanmay Bhat 50:06 Right? 'Cause the, the, the trick was to put it out as soon as the event happens.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 50:11 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 50:11 Is that the trick, the, the latency-

Tanmay Bhat 50:14 [clears throat]

Nikhil Kamath 50:14 ... between when the event happens and when you post?

Tanmay Bhat 50:16 On Twitter. On Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 50:18 Or is it also how contrarian your view is?

Tanmay Bhat 50:20 So I'm, I'm getting to that, right?

Nikhil Kamath 50:23 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 50:23 So topicality, topicality is the number one thing-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 50:27 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 50:27 ... which if you, if you can be topical, you'll get maximum engagement.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 50:30 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 50:31 Anything that becomes a popular sentiment. So for example, your take, any take that becomes really popular creates a market for the contrarian take automatically. Because everybody wants, um, to be different.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 50:49 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 50:49 So if for a long time you keep saying dry Maggi is great, one day someone will get up and be like, "Actually, if you think about it, soupy Maggi is so much better, guys." And you will automatically have 10 people agree with it, saying-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 51:02 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 51:02 ... "Yeah, you know what? That's true." 'Cause people wanna be contrarian. People wanna be different. People don't wanna be, um... people don't wanna fit into what everybody else is agreeing. The internet is a funny place. People share relatable memes to be different. Like, it's-

Nikhil Kamath 51:17 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 51:17 ... it's such a paradox, if you, if you think about it. Um, so everybody's sharing stuff. Everything that's on your profile is you building your brand-

Nikhil Kamath 51:26 Mm-hmm

Tanmay Bhat 51:26 ... right? Including your opinions. So one is topicality will get you engagement. Uh, extreme opinion about anything will get you engagement. Uh, high positive sentiment usually should give you, give you engagement.

Nikhil Kamath 51:38 Does it?

Tanmay Bhat 51:39 Yeah, high positive sentiment, uh, you'll see a lot of, lot of folks, um... If, if you tweet out saying, "I had a baby"-

Nikhil Kamath 51:46 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 51:46 ... right, that's usually... If you tweet out a tweet thread about how amazing Rahlami is, probably get engagement, 'cause a lot of people would wanna agree with that. [clears throat] Nostalgia always gets a lot of engagement, 'cause-

Nikhil Kamath 51:55 I, I would assume people come together on the negative lot- a lot more than they would-

Tanmay Bhat 52:00 Yeah, of course

Nikhil Kamath 52:01 ... on the positive.

Tanmay Bhat 52:01 A lot more than the positive, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 52:02 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 52:02 Uh, but if something positive happens and you, and you join that bandwagon, um, you would naturally get engagement. Uh-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:10 Dogs, babies.

Tanmay Bhat 52:10 Dogs, babies, that kind of stuff-

Nikhil Kamath 52:11 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 52:11 ... gets engagement. Nostalgia-

Nikhil Kamath 52:13 Also, also on dating sites, right?

Tanmay Bhat 52:14 Also on dating sites. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:15 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 52:15 Dogs, babies, nostalgia-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:18 How many are you on?

Tanmay Bhat 52:19 I'm on all of them.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:20 Oh, really?

Tanmay Bhat 52:20 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 52:20 Which one works best?

Tanmay Bhat 52:22 Are we talking about social media platforms? [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 52:25 [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:25 Those are social media.

Tanmay Bhat 52:26 Oh, yeah. [chuckles] Those are.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:27 Those are. I- I've never been on a dating platform. I don't know what that means, so I just-

Nikhil Kamath 52:31 Okay, which one works best, and which one for somebody who's as popular as you? Umang Bedi: I mean, works... Well, for me, everything works really well. I can't believe- [laughing] ... you always somehow come-

Tanmay Bhat 52:38 [laughing] You're trying to bait me, and I'm falling for the bait.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:41 Tinder, Bumble, or is there something new?

Tanmay Bhat 52:45 There's nothing new, I think. I mean, Instagram is a new dating platform.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:48 Really?

Tanmay Bhat 52:49 Look, any social media platform, if it be- if with decent network effects-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:53 It started. Yeah, it started-

Tanmay Bhat 52:54 Like, sliding into your DMs became that phrase, right? Like...

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:57 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 52:57 So any social media.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 52:59 Dude, a couple hooked up on Brazil Koo.

Nikhil Kamath 53:04 And you were watching?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:05 No. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 53:05 [laughing] I mean, the conversation between them.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:09 It came back to us as, "Oh, I met this guy-"

Tanmay Bhat 53:11 Yeah, "We met this girl on Koo."

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:12 On Koo. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 53:14 [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:14 No, we went spying. We don't have access. [laughing] Extremely secure. Umang Bedi: But that's a very interesting-

Nikhil Kamath 53:18 Yeah Umang Bedi: - use case we should talk about live.

Tanmay Bhat 53:20 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 53:20 So if-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:21 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 53:22 ... a girl were to chat with a guy-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:25 Uh-huh

Nikhil Kamath 53:26 ... or chat with another girlfriend of hers and say, "This is what I look for in a man," and stuff like that-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:32 Uh-huh

Nikhil Kamath 53:33 ... and a guy in another part of the city is chatting with his guy friend and looking for the girl-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:38 And saying the same

Nikhil Kamath 53:38 ... would you show this person, the other person, and recommend a connection?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:42 You can't read DMs.

Nikhil Kamath 53:43 Right.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:43 At least we can't.

Nikhil Kamath 53:44 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:45 There's example there, [chuckles] but...

Nikhil Kamath 53:47 You guys suddenly look awkward when you're saying that. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 53:52 [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 53:53 We don't read DMs, but we don't, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 53:55 Right. But- Umang Bedi: So I- [chuckles] Umang Bedi: ... I come from a slightly different school. I believe that there's someone watching- Mm Umang Bedi: ... and you've got to be careful, right? Uh-

Tanmay Bhat 54:06 Yeah. Umang Bedi: I don't believe, I don't believe in messages that this conversation is encrypted.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 54:10 Mm. Umang Bedi: Because if you go to social... If you go to Google and say, "How do I decrypt an encrypted message on platform X?" Mm. Umang Bedi: You'll see, like, a zillion videos, which is so simple.

Tanmay Bhat 54:21 Oh. Umang Bedi: You give me your phone, I'm going to decrypt all your WhatsApps, right? Sorry, I- Yeah [laughing] Umang Bedi: ... shouldn't have said that. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 54:26 [laughing] Umang Bedi: So I don't believe that.

Tanmay Bhat 54:28 You actually wanted to say that. [laughing] Umang Bedi: I... No, I did. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 54:31 [laughing] Umang Bedi: So it's, uh, nothing's really private, right?

Tanmay Bhat 54:34 Yeah. Umang Bedi: Like, you're always leaving a digital footprint everywhere. Uh- Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 54:39 Yeah. Umang Bedi: And so, yeah, that's my school of thought.

Nikhil Kamath 54:42 ... you were saying something very interesting, how to get more engagement.

Tanmay Bhat 54:45 Hmm, how to get more engagement.

Nikhil Kamath 54:45 You started tweeting 2009?

Tanmay Bhat 54:48 I started tweeting 2009. I got my first 10,000 followers on Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 54:50 Started making jokes? [chuckles]

Tanmay Bhat 54:51 Started making jokes. Then at that point, I think-

Nikhil Kamath 54:53 Why did you think of starting to make jokes on Twitter? What were you doing at that time? Which city were you in?

Tanmay Bhat 54:58 I was in Bombay. I was just starting to do stand-up. I used to write for television and stand-

Nikhil Kamath 55:02 How old were you?

Tanmay Bhat 55:03 I was 23, I think. Yeah, 23, 24. Uh, this is 2009, right? I was 22. Um, so I just started making jokes. I got my first 10,000 followers on Twitter, and I scaled it up to about 100K. Um, then all... A- actually, everybody at AIB met through Twitter.

Umang Bedi 55:23 Oh, interesting.

Tanmay Bhat 55:24 And, yeah, in fact, a lot of comedians, uh, were born on Twitter by, by making jokes. Because 140 characters, uh, the news became the most dominant thing on Twitter very quickly. Everybody discussed the news, so the hot topic of the day, whatever it is, you'd make jokes. I scaled that up to about 100K. Then AIB happened, and then YouTube was running a program called CIP, it was called, I think, Creators in something, where they asked us to get into the program and start making YouTube videos. Um, and that was our foray into, into video. And then I got onto Instagram much later. Um, but one trend I've, I've seen is that if you're really big on YouTube, you are likely also big on the other platforms, but not vice versa. Sometimes you could be really big on Instagram, but nobody follows you on YouTube or, or Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 56:18 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 56:18 But if you're a massive YouTuber, uh, you will see millions of... If you have, say, 10 million people on YouTube, you have at least a couple of million on all the other platforms, even if you're not super, super active on it.

Nikhil Kamath 56:30 Do you think from a... I would call myself an outsider in the world of creating. Uh, do you think YouTube has found a bigger use case today than Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, everything else?

Nikhil Kamath 56:43 Because there is a lot more educational stuff out there. I'll give you an example. Like, I knew we were doing this today, and I wanted to find out what's happening, which is new and innovative in the world of social media. I could not get that on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook as easily-

Tanmay Bhat 57:02 Yeah, that's right

Nikhil Kamath 57:03 ... as I could watch a Lex Fridman podcast on-

Tanmay Bhat 57:05 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 57:05 ... social media and get it on YouTube.

Tanmay Bhat 57:07 YouTube has replaced television for me, uh, many years ago, actually. To me, the, that platform is... But like, but like YouTube gets a lot of flak, but what, what they have done over the last decade is pretty phenomenal. Um, being a YouTuber is a legitimate job-

Umang Bedi 57:24 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 57:24 ... and an occupation now, which is [beep] to me. Like, being a Twitter or, you know, is, is, is not a thing.

Nikhil Kamath 57:30 Correct.

Tanmay Bhat 57:30 Uh, I think that's the first thing that they did really well, which is make the, uh, Instagram-

Umang Bedi 57:35 Creators make money. Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 57:36 Creators make money. Like, creators make a [beep] ton of money on YouTube. Um-

Umang Bedi 57:42 MrBeast.

Tanmay Bhat 57:43 MrBeast makes a [beep] ton of money. I mean, if you, if... Like, the, um-

Nikhil Kamath 57:47 Can you tell us how much?

Nikhil Kamath 57:48 Because we don't know. I mean, I'm sure you guys know. I don't know.

Umang Bedi 57:51 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 million as well, 50 million plus.

Tanmay Bhat 57:55 This is in dollars.

Umang Bedi 57:56 In dollars.

Tanmay Bhat 57:56 In India, the CPMs are-

Umang Bedi 57:57 Yeah, yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 57:58 Yeah, yeah. In India, the CPMs are-

Umang Bedi 57:59 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 57:59 ... way lower.

Umang Bedi 58:00 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 58:00 Uh, you have to be a creator in the US.

Umang Bedi 58:02 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 58:03 In the US.

Umang Bedi 58:03 Because you're paid the same as-

Tanmay Bhat 58:03 No, but even the creators in India are making a-

Umang Bedi 58:06 What's CPM?

Tanmay Bhat 58:07 CPM mean cost per mil-

Umang Bedi 58:08 Cost per thousand

Tanmay Bhat 58:09 ... cost per thousand.

Umang Bedi 58:09 Impressions.

Tanmay Bhat 58:10 So a thousand... If a thousand monetized views, what do you make? Like, India is sub $2.

Umang Bedi 58:18 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 58:18 Um, but in America, and I think in the Scandinavian countries, it's like 10, 12, uh, in some cases, $20-

Umang Bedi 58:25 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 58:26 ... depending on the niche you're in.

Nikhil Kamath 58:27 One more level of personal question.

Tanmay Bhat 58:30 Hmm.

Nikhil Kamath 58:31 If you put out a post or a video on Instagram-

Tanmay Bhat 58:34 Hmm

Nikhil Kamath 58:35 ... versus YouTube-

Tanmay Bhat 58:36 Hmm

Nikhil Kamath 58:36 ... versus Facebook, don't tell me the exact amount-

Tanmay Bhat 58:39 Hmm

Nikhil Kamath 58:40 ... what is the amount of money you would make as a percentage of each other?

Umang Bedi 58:44 Zero on everything but [chuckles] YouTube-

Tanmay Bhat 58:45 Zero on everything, but, I mean, YouTube has ad revenue.

Nikhil Kamath 58:47 YouTube is the only one-

Tanmay Bhat 58:48 YouTube has ad revenue.

Umang Bedi 58:49 It's ad revenue.

Tanmay Bhat 58:49 I get no money when I post on Instagram.

Nikhil Kamath 58:52 Nothing?

Umang Bedi 58:52 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 58:52 Nothing. You don't get... You make- you don't make any money.

Umang Bedi 58:54 Unless you post on Josh.

Tanmay Bhat 58:56 Now, now Instagram and, is, is starting, uh... They've just- they're just rolling it out, which is for short video, you start, you start making money. Just like YouTube also rolled it out, they rolled out, uh, revenue on Shorts.

Nikhil Kamath 59:08 But then you do brand deals on Instagram.

Tanmay Bhat 59:10 I do brand deals on Instagram and every- everywhere else.

Umang Bedi 59:13 That's too much more effort. Here, you just post the video, and you're making money. Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 59:17 Because there's an ad plays like-

Nikhil Kamath 59:17 And fiction money.

Umang Bedi 59:18 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 59:19 And so, so interesting that YouTube did this, which is y- at some point, they gave creators the ability to place multiple ads depending on the length of the video.

Umang Bedi 59:27 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 59:27 Hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 59:27 Right? So if you c- that's why, [clears throat] overnight, you saw creators go... Creators were making six-minute videos, who suddenly started making 10-minute videos.

Nikhil Kamath 59:35 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 59:35 Hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 59:35 Right? That crossing that 10-minute, uh, mark became important. So people started having, you know, two, two-minute outros, just so they could cross the 10-minute mark, because that would place two ads. Today, if I post a 20-minute video, I can choose where all the ads-

Umang Bedi 59:49 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 59:49 ... can go. The only thing that YouTube still hasn't done, um, is they still haven't let creators be involved in the auctioning of their inventory, so to say. Uh, I still didn't know- I still don't know details about when people have bought inventory on my page. I notice it from the comments, when people are like-

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:07 But you can't pick which?

Tanmay Bhat 1:00:09 I have no control over the advertising side of my channel.

Umang Bedi 1:00:12 It's a full black box.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:13 Right.

Umang Bedi 1:00:13 See the difference? And, you know, it started historically... And the only, the only point that I'll add is, I consider Tanmay a professional.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:21 Right.

Umang Bedi 1:00:22 Right? He is a professional creator. This is not a fly-by-night job, right? Uh, and I keep coming back to what TikTok did. It gave a platform to a fly-by-night job.

Tanmay Bhat 1:00:33 Yes.

Umang Bedi 1:00:33 Right? So Faisal Sheikh, um, who today-

Tanmay Bhat 1:00:37 Faisu.

Umang Bedi 1:00:38 Faisu.

Tanmay Bhat 1:00:38 Faisu, yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:00:38 Right. He has 68 million followers on Josh, right?... he was earlier on TikTok, had about, I think, 20 million followers.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:45 And how much money might he be making from this?

Umang Bedi 1:00:47 Um, the little that I know is Faisal Shaikh spends half his time in a very fancy hotel in Dubai and, you know, drives a very fancy car.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:55 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:00:56 And I can tell you he's earning... Like, I don't know, I want to throw out a hazard a guess-

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:59 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:00:59 ... but I know he's making multiples of millions of dollars in a year. And this was a kid who, prior to TikTok-

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:07 But you can make, you, you can make revenue on Josh by posting videos?

Umang Bedi 1:01:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:11 Uh, is, is it like... Oh, is it, is it like YouTube where you do a split between creators?

Umang Bedi 1:01:16 So, uh, because the video doesn't play in line in a short video, you can't share ad revenue fairly, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:24 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:01:24 Because the ad will come in between short videos.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:26 In between two videos, yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:01:27 So who do you attribute it to, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:28 Got it.

Umang Bedi 1:01:29 So what we're doing here is that, depending upon the engagement on a person's post, uh, and his quality of content, there are several metrics-

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:39 Tiers, okay

Umang Bedi 1:01:40 ... uh, tiers by which creators make money, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:42 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:01:42 And it's all pay for performance, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:44 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:01:44 So you make good quality content. But someone like him, or for example, we had this kid called Vijeta, who we found somewhere, right? Uh, he got a... You know, he was a great rapper, and he has a music label deal with T-Series, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:57 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:01:57 So you basically find talent. These are unknown, inane people. The problem with the... At least what I've seen when I speak to these creators, actually, YouTube, to your point, has every damn piece of content on the planet-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:11 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:02:11 ... in terms of video. The problem is the discoverability of it. If you think about it, it's search-driven.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:18 Very search-based.

Umang Bedi 1:02:18 It's very search-driven, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:20 Everybody is lazy and feed-based.

Umang Bedi 1:02:21 Yeah, everybody-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:22 But they do give you recommendations after you've watched a video.

Umang Bedi 1:02:24 That's based on a search.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:25 Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:25 That's based on intelligence.

Umang Bedi 1:02:27 Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:27 But your first thing when you enter is based on a search-

Umang Bedi 1:02:30 Now, just imagine you want to search for-

Speaker 1:02:32 or some link

Umang Bedi 1:02:32 ... a Tamil song, and you can't type in Tamil.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:36 Right.

Umang Bedi 1:02:36 Right? Um, and so n- now, of course, they've introduced voice search, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:40 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:02:40 Which is a far better version. So what's happened is when we talk to local language creators, they have all the content, but they don't get the discoverability.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:47 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:02:47 Right? Uh, so if you notice, YouTube, again, is dominated by Bollywood music videos and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:53 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:02:53 ... certain number of channels.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:54 But they say that in English, not in Hindi, right?

Umang Bedi 1:02:56 Yes.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:57 How they title the song.

Umang Bedi 1:02:58 Yeah.

Speaker 1:02:58 So I, I think YouTube distribute... As in, YouTube monetisation for the creator can be disruptive. Like, we've, we've started sharing ad revenue with creators for videos. We've even created a, uh... So if you put four photos on a post, the fifth one, we're going to make an ad and share that revenue with you. So all of that we've plugged in, right? So you'll start making revenue on Koo. The guy with the max distribution can actually disrupt YouTube, because YouTube is a repository.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:30 Yeah.

Speaker 1:03:30 So if you see somebody's most, uh, followed account in social media, they might have 10 million followers on Instagram, but they'll still have one million on YouTube. Because getting a subscriber on YouTube is very difficult-

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:44 Harder

Speaker 1:03:44 ... because the social behavior of-

Umang Bedi 1:03:46 That's right

Speaker 1:03:46 ... subscribing is not what they've gone after. So if Instagram starts doing what YouTube does, YouTube will be forgotten. They can actually make more money. So this, this I'm talking five, 10 years.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:59 Right.

Speaker 1:04:00 Right? The guy who doubles down on incentivizing or sharing most revenue with creators will win.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:07 Do

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:08 you think... Can we reach a consensus that YouTube is somehow, in a weird manner, leading the pack of social media?

Umang Bedi 1:04:15 I wouldn't even say it's social media.

Speaker 1:04:17 No, it's not social media. It's a, it, it's a creator tool.

Umang Bedi 1:04:20 It's a TV channel, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:21 Right.

Speaker 1:04:22 It's a tool-

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:23 Which can pivot into social media?

Speaker 1:04:25 No, it can't pivot. It's, it is what it is.

Umang Bedi 1:04:27 Yeah. So today-

Speaker 1:04:28 Social media can do what YouTube does, but YouTube can't do connects-

Umang Bedi 1:04:34 Yeah

Speaker 1:04:34 ... as well as social media.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:35 What if YouTube allows you to have a profile, allows people to follow?

Speaker 1:04:40 It does. It already does.

Umang Bedi 1:04:41 It already does.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:41 Allow people- allows people to message each other, and then-

Speaker 1:04:45 Already does

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:45 ... your friend's content is recommended to you. It kind of-

Speaker 1:04:48 You can message each other on YouTube.

Umang Bedi 1:04:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:50 Wow!

Umang Bedi 1:04:51 You can.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:51 But if all of that happens, it becomes like a social media?

Speaker 1:04:54 No.

Umang Bedi 1:04:54 It's social me- it's social media minus, minus, is how I would put it-

Speaker 1:04:58 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:04:58 ... where you can't DM on, on YouTube.

Speaker 1:04:59 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:59 I'll give you another example. If I am watching Netflix, and I can chat with the other people who are watching that particular movie on Netflix.

Speaker 1:05:09 Yeah, then it becomes more social. Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:05:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:11 It becomes like social media.

Speaker 1:05:12 It becomes like social media, yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:05:13 See, there is a network effect that, that-

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:15 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:05:15 ... in that input creates. But I would go on to argue that all of these platforms, largely, largely, are passive consumption platforms, right? What makes platforms really powerful is when he made that statement, "I spent six hours a day writing nine tweets or f- 20 tweets." So you've got to create, right? And if you look at that creator-to-consumer ratio, that's where we found, at least from data, time spent in China on short video is two and a half hours a day.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:52 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:05:53 Average time spent.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:54 Can you... This is, again-

Umang Bedi 1:05:55 And 55% of the users create content.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:57 This is again, very interesting. Since you guys are in

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:00 this, is there a demography or is there a geography which spends more time on social media, if you were to compare the Chinese to the Americans, to the Indians? And is there a societal construct which incentivizes a certain people to spend more time on social media?

Umang Bedi 1:06:20 Hmm, interesting.

Speaker 1:06:22 Yeah. So at least we've seen Brazil is more social media savvy than India, because, you know, these are the two countries I have data on-

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:29 By savvy, do you mean they spend more time a day on social media?

Speaker 1:06:30 They do more comments, they create more, they spend more time. So all of this-

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:36 If you were to link it to poverty or economic parameters-

Speaker 1:06:39 Yeah, Brazil is similar.

Umang Bedi 1:06:41 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:41 Okay, even if you were to split-

Umang Bedi 1:06:43 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:43 ... your audience, right?

Umang Bedi 1:06:44 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:44 Your customers or your people who use the platform.... Is there a divide you can come up with, saying middle class spends- middle class 20 to 25-year-olds-

Umang Bedi 1:06:57 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:57 ... spend X time, whereas another class of society spends Y time?

Umang Bedi 1:07:02 So I-

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:03 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:07:03 ... if you look at it on the internet level in India, today, rural time spent, interestingly-

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:10 Is more. Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:07:10 ... is growing over urban time spent. And what that tells-

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:13 More time.

Umang Bedi 1:07:14 Yeah. More, one, one, it has more time. Two, it tells me that the num- we're a single TV household, and we're only 180 million TVs in this country, or 200 million TVs-

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:22 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:07:22 ... in this country, right? There are 1.4 billion people. There are a billion devices, 800 million smartphones. So the TV now becomes... Sorry, the phone now is your primary channel for consumption on the fly, right? And interestingly, creation as well, and that's what TikTok democratized by... with the most powerful creator tools on the camera.

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:41 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:07:41 Right?

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:41 TikTok was like the be- [clears throat] any platform that enables you to become a rock star in the easiest way possible-

Umang Bedi 1:07:48 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:48 ... will win, right?

Umang Bedi 1:07:49 Will win. Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:49 YouTube, you had to be a professional video maker.

Umang Bedi 1:07:51 Correct.

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:51 TikTok just gave you the-

Umang Bedi 1:07:53 The tools

Tanmay Bhat 1:07:53 ... tools so you could become a rock star quicker.

Umang Bedi 1:07:56 Exactly. Um, but-

Nikhil Kamath 1:07:58 So you didn't finish. You want to say something?

Umang Bedi 1:08:00 No, no.

Tanmay Bhat 1:08:00 I was, I was just-

Umang Bedi 1:08:01 Just saying in terms of time spent, what we see, China is number one by miles.

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:06 Yeah? How much is that, like, how much does an average Chinese person spend-

Umang Bedi 1:08:10 So-

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:10 ... on social media?

Umang Bedi 1:08:11 If I just take short video within social media, it's two and a half hours a day.

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:16 You're talking about the entire population?

Umang Bedi 1:08:17 I'm talking about 840 million monthly active users.

Tanmay Bhat 1:08:21 [clears throat]

Umang Bedi 1:08:21 It's insane.

Tanmay Bhat 1:08:22 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:08:23 The country's insane, right?

Tanmay Bhat 1:08:24 China.

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:24 Do you think-

Umang Bedi 1:08:25 And if I add their social networks and-

Tanmay Bhat 1:08:27 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:08:28 ... BDD and, you know, a couple of those other tools that they have, it, it's more than three hours a day, three and a half hours a day. It's insane.

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:35 Do you think there's a correlation between when countries move away from communism, socialism, come into a more-

Umang Bedi 1:08:44 Capitalistic society

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:44 ... capitalistic fold, and they're allowed to display their own creativity in a manner which is not probably inculcated in socialism? They have a spike in social media usage, and then it... there's a trail and it goes down?

Umang Bedi 1:08:58 So I think it is kind of the inverse, wherein if I look at... And I was studying this as market data. Can you guess the country, fun fact, where TikTok has the highest penetration to population?

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:15 Saudi Arabia.

Umang Bedi 1:09:16 Yeah. How did you know that?

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:17 I was there recently.

Umang Bedi 1:09:18 Oh, there you go, right. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:09:19 [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:09:19 Oh, yeah, you just made the trip, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:20 Yeah. Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:09:21 It is insane. It's 98% of the population-

Tanmay Bhat 1:09:25 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:09:25 ... is on TikTok.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:26 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:09:27 Now, if you think about it, I don't wanna get into the... I don't wanna get religious and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:30 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:09:30 ... you know, all of that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:31 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:09:31 But it's, it's a fairly conservative, closed, you know, society-

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:35 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:09:35 ... with very strong-

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:35 Can I tell you, I heard all that. When I went there, I saw the complete opposite. Having that one crutch in life-

Umang Bedi 1:09:42 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:43 ... which makes-

Tanmay Bhat 1:09:44 Foundation.

Umang Bedi 1:09:44 Foundation, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:45 It could be right, it could be wrong, it could be absolutely anything, not even religion.

Umang Bedi 1:09:49 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:49 But I think it removes so much ambiguity from your life, that insecurity is lesser in those people.

Umang Bedi 1:09:56 Interesting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:57 It doesn't matter what that crutch is. And these people were happily sharing each other's lives on social media, which is very unlike-

Umang Bedi 1:10:06 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:06 ... a more confused society, where I would assume a lot more negativity goes around.

Umang Bedi 1:10:12 So if you think about it, I mean, I'll contrast communism, closed societies, with democracies as one contrast. The second contrast could be, you know, uh, the average age of the nation. Both Saudi Arabia is a very young, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:26 25, right?

Umang Bedi 1:10:27 ... very young country.

Tanmay Bhat 1:10:27 Mm-hmm.

Umang Bedi 1:10:28 Right? China is also young, but, you know, getting older.

Tanmay Bhat 1:10:30 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:10:30 Um, and, uh, the third thing that I would add is, like, what's the level of liberalism that they have in society as large, right? Now, now, of course, Saudi Arabia is building that smart city. What's it called?

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:43 Neom.

Umang Bedi 1:10:43 Neom, right-

Tanmay Bhat 1:10:44 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:10:44 ... which is, like, the world's, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:46 $3 trillion project.

Umang Bedi 1:10:47 Yeah, it's crazy.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:48 The, the scale of their projects is insane.

Umang Bedi 1:10:50 Is insane.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:51 Like, I went to a few of... Like, I was there for a while, uh, and they took me to show me different projects and investing opportunities. And, uh, it generally feels like a pocket of the world, which is not parallelly moving with the rest of the world, because you see recessions everywhere, and here you have this-

Umang Bedi 1:11:11 There's access, accelerating, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:12 We went to a villa project called Roshan. You know how many villas they're building at one time? 45,000.

Umang Bedi 1:11:18 What?

Tanmay Bhat 1:11:18 Whoa!

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:19 Yeah, that's a villa project. The projects there are like [clears throat] it's like fantasy land, and I think even for Koo or for you guys, right, I think it's a market-

Umang Bedi 1:11:30 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:30 ... you guys should definitely hit up early, 'cause these people are changing-

Umang Bedi 1:11:34 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:34 ... and they're young, and they're changing really quickly.

Umang Bedi 1:11:36 And it's interesting you said that. We just launched the Arabic feed in Dailyhunt, and we're transforming it to that Espresso web stories-based feed for the, uh, MENA market.

Tanmay Bhat 1:11:47 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:11:48 And the maximum uptake that we're seeing on Arabic content is from Saudi Arabia.

Tanmay Bhat 1:11:52 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:52 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:11:52 And interestingly, because the news market is a little, um... you know, the velocity and volume of news is limited. What's more newsy is-

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:02 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:12:02 ... the social media guy making a post, what's trending.

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:05 Mm-hmm.

Umang Bedi 1:12:05 Uh, so it's a very different complexion to what you said, more topical-

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:09 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:12:09 ... but more trends-

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:11 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:12:11 ... versus just pure news, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:13 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:12:14 Uh, or political news.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:14 And I was curious,

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:15 and I asked them a bunch of questions, right? They showed me their social media, and I was like: "Is there a filtering system that you guys need to follow-

Umang Bedi 1:12:24 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:24 ... like from the government? Is there something you're allowed to say, something you're not allowed to say?" Uh, and surprisingly, like 98% of the people I spoke to, uh, they were all like, "There's nothing."

Umang Bedi 1:12:38 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:38 I think-

Umang Bedi 1:12:39 Wow!

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:39 ... I think the perception of another place, when you don't truly experience it yourself, is so jaded by exaggerations made by people who have their own agendas at play.

Umang Bedi 1:12:51 I agree.

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:51 Broadly, the West has influenced-

Umang Bedi 1:12:53 Yep

Tanmay Bhat 1:12:54 ... the West has influenced, uh, so much of-

1:12:58 ... our own culture.

Umang Bedi 1:13:00 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:01 Um-

Umang Bedi 1:13:01 English.

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:03 Eh, yeah, English. The Western media has influenced, and, like... How, how do I put this? Okay. Like, the West reached a certain stage of economic prosperity-

Umang Bedi 1:13:15 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:15 ... before every- everywhere else. So they reached that top part of the pyramid very quickly, the self-actualization part, you start starting to think. And there, w- when you re- when you are economically prosperous, your thinking kind of changes. You start thinking about, um, for example-

Umang Bedi 1:13:33 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:33 ... like, work-life balance, right?

Umang Bedi 1:13:37 Mm-hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:38 Uh, life at Google. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:13:39 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:39 [chuckles]

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:40 Right? Which is like, oh, you work... You know, have, have you guys seen those popular TikToks right now of-

Umang Bedi 1:13:44 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:44 ... "This is hi, I'm a product manager at Meta, and this is what I do-

Umang Bedi 1:13:48 [chuckles]

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:48 ... uh, on a daily basis, which is, oh, I walk into office at 8:00 a.m., do some... grab my shake of blueberry milkshake, and then I- [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:56 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:56 ... you know, I hang out with my team, then go out for lunch," or whatever.

Umang Bedi 1:13:59 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:13:59 It's like a three-hour, three-hour workday.

Umang Bedi 1:14:01 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:01 And then you- uh, and then we get influenced by that, saying, "Oh, my God, I gotta come in-

Umang Bedi 1:14:05 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:06 ... on a Saturday." I mean, like, our pro- our, our hockey stick growth is still yet to come.

Umang Bedi 1:14:10 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:11 You know, wealth is just-

Umang Bedi 1:14:12 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:12 ... starting to come here.

Umang Bedi 1:14:13 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:13 So you gotta, uh-

Umang Bedi 1:14:14 You gotta work hard.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:15 You, you gotta work hard to get there. B- there, the last decade, they did that. You know, you think you, they were doing that when Google was operating out of a garage?

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:24 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:14:24 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:24 No, they weren't.

Umang Bedi 1:14:25 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:25 They weren't taking weekends off, and they didn't have all this stuff.

Umang Bedi 1:14:27 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:27 So-

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:28 But I think they're the best well-rehearsed marketing engine in the world.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:33 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:33 Their ability to suck talent from every-

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:36 Everywhere

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:36 ... pocket of the world-

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:37 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:37 ... that's the differentiation, right?

Umang Bedi 1:14:38 But that's the great American dream, right?

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:40 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:14:40 I mean, that's, you know, liberty-

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:41 I think that's what the Middle East is trying to do now.

Umang Bedi 1:14:43 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:44 Like, become the most attractive destination-

Umang Bedi 1:14:46 They are

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:46 ... to work, to be there. Like San Francisco and Dubai, now, if you gave me a choice-

Umang Bedi 1:14:52 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:52 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:52 ... I would go to Dubai more-

Umang Bedi 1:14:54 Yeah. Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:54 ... than San Francisco.

Umang Bedi 1:14:55 You know, it's interesting.

Tanmay Bhat 1:14:56 Right?

Umang Bedi 1:14:56 Uh, there was a time when everybody congregated in June in London, right? Today, between November and Feb [chuckles] -

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:04 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:04 Dubai

Umang Bedi 1:15:04 ... I meet more people in Dubai-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:06 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:06 Dubai

Umang Bedi 1:15:06 ... than I meet anywhere in the world.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:07 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:07 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:15:08 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:08 But there's one thing I feel about Dubai, and, uh, I'm not saying this about India to sound overtly patriotic or something like that. Uh, Dubai seems like a good place for the privileged [chuckles] few to spend money-

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:23 Yes

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:23 ... but to actually start a business there and earn money is very, very difficult.

Umang Bedi 1:15:27 And it's still expensive-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:29 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:15:29 ... in Dubai.

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:29 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:15:29 It's very expensive.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:30 Like, I'll give you examples of I was trying to create a company and a fund there. They take three months to create a bank account for a company.

Tanmay Bhat 1:15:39 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:39 DIFC license takes one month. [coughs] For some reason, you have to do medical tests and prove you don't have certain kind of diseases to get that license to open a company.

Umang Bedi 1:15:50 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:50 Uh, you're mandated to have physical real estate inside DIFC to be able to operate a company out of there. I think, uh, geographies like Gift-

Tanmay Bhat 1:16:02 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:03 ... have totally transformed. We were the first fund, first company, one of the first to set up in Gift maybe three years ago.

Tanmay Bhat 1:16:11 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:12 Uh, when I went there, there were... There was like, you know, maybe four or five people in different pockets of Gift, and maybe 10 or 12 cows. Uh, today, when you go there, there is no real estate available. There are probably like-

Umang Bedi 1:16:24 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:24 ... 20, 30,000 people working there. I think everybody, not just us, not just us as Indians, but in each of these pockets we spoke about, be it SF, be it Dubai, be it, uh, any other geography, they might not be here, but they're talking about us like we're the next big thing.

Umang Bedi 1:16:44 Yeah, totally.

Tanmay Bhat 1:16:45 Mm. Yeah, this is India's decade is like-

Umang Bedi 1:16:47 Yeah, they... Look, they-

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:48 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:16:49 ... don't seem to be able to attract the same level of talent-

Tanmay Bhat 1:16:52 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:16:52 ... the same level of opportunity. Look at what a payments business is worth here was-

Tanmay Bhat 1:16:56 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:16:56 ... versus what it's worth there, a social business. Well, the market is much smaller.

Tanmay Bhat 1:17:00 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:17:00 So I noticed the "Be here now."

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:02 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:17:02 Very interesting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:03 Uh.

Umang Bedi 1:17:04 Tell me the story behind it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:06 Yeah, this is not that personal. This is not like some girlfriend-

Umang Bedi 1:17:08 Oh, okay. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:17:11 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:11 [laughing] This is not like that one party I was at and got so drunk that I went and got a tattoo.

Umang Bedi 1:17:16 No, what does it signify?

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:16 There, there was this author, I, I used to read his books. Not now, but like... When was this? Maybe like eight years ago, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine years ago. His name was AK Ramdas. I spent a disproportionately large amount of time and a large part of my life living like I will live forever. So I would procrastinate, I would constantly worry about what will happen 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now. I think I was a fairly insecure kid. In many ways, I still am, but, uh, I, I would not go far enough to say I had some kind of a realization. But I think, uh, if you were to ask me today, I have come to terms with the fact that we are Indians. We will, on average, live... If we all were to die, on average, we would have lived for 70 years. So if I am 36, I have 34 years left. So this is a reminder to that in a way, that you're not here forever, and stop behaving-

Umang Bedi 1:18:26 Like that

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:26 ... in the manner that you will be here forever. I think, uh, in a very weird way, life becomes more fun and happier, and you stop caring about a lot of stuff that you shouldn't have cared about to begin with.

Umang Bedi 1:18:40 [exhales]

Umang Bedi 1:18:41 In fact, when I, I was looking at it and reflecting on it, and the one thought that came into my mind was: How many of us truly live in the moment-

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:52 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:18:52 ... or are in the moment? Um, you know, we, we lead different lives on social media because there was are those masks, et cetera, that are put up for the dopamine hit.... but, and how many of us are truly aware that we're in this moment, in this room? I don't know if this moment will come again.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:19:10 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:19:11 And are we relishing it, or are we thinking about-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:19:12 Oh, I thought I blocked next Thursday already. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:19:14 [laughing] But are we- you know, are we thinking about-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:17 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:19:17 ... what's going to happen tomorrow and the next, you know, whatever, right?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:19:19 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:19:20 And so I read it that way, to say-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:21 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:19:22 ... just be in the moment and relish it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:24 Yeah. Yeah, I feel like most of life, right, is one deception or another. And, uh, maybe if you think about anything for long enough, it's meaningless. But we all have to deceive ourself into thinking whatever we're doing has meaning. But even things like, you know, hard work creates success, I feel like that is conditioning to console your own ego when things don't work out, so you can then tell yourself, "Even though I worked hard-

Umang Bedi 1:19:52 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:52 ... it did not work out." If you were to be logical about any of these things people say, hard work does not work, right?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:00 Not necessarily, yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:20:00 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:01 Like, like your watchman in your house probably works three times as hard as you. I think we are a factor of so many moving parts that we cannot control.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:11 Of course.

Umang Bedi 1:20:12 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:13 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:14 We are, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:15 But finish your story. You were talking about-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:17 I said I finished it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:18 No, but-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:18 I said now

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:19 ... how did you go from starting to tweet, spending a few hours a day?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:23 Hmm.

Umang Bedi 1:20:23 So YouTube had started a program, so we started making YouTube videos. Um, our goal was, how can we make stuff that's freely watchable on the internet, that's... that you couldn't do on television? Um, which is what our brand of comedy also was. Then one thing led to another, we started making videos, and this is pre-Jio times, where getting a million views was, like, a big deal.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:20:49 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:20:49 I remember the first video that we made that got a million views, Barkha Dutt called us to be on her show, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then we were like, "Okay, what's the next comedic dream that we want to fulfill?" Next, we were like, "Okay, we want to do odd shows in, you know, India's biggest auditoriums, go around the country."

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:07 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:21:07 And then, you know, the following year, that year we started, we sold out Siri Fort Auditorium, 2,500 people. Then we were like, "What else do we want to do?" Then we were like, "Oh, we want to do a comedy roast that's not been done in India." We've seen the-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:21:18 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:21:18 ... Western roast, and we did that. That did 6,000 people at the Dome. We started ticking those boxes one by one by one. And one thing led to another, and today I'm here at Nikhil Kamath's

Umang Bedi 1:21:28 house-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:21:28 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:21:28 ... talking about social media.

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:30 And, Umang, you, too, I think, uh... [chuckles] see, we've all been friends, right? And we have hang- hung out in different capacities at different times, but I don't think I've ever asked each one of you, like, the more you think about life, uh, you are a factor of what I don't know, what happened to you when you were a kid-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:21:51 Correct.

Umang Bedi 1:21:52 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:52 ... what were the conditions-

Umang Bedi 1:21:53 [clears throat]

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:54 ... you grew up in, how your parents were, what school you went to, who your friends were. I don't think we can get into all of that today, but maybe talking a little bit about where we come from. Not the material, like, you know, I got 98% in-

Umang Bedi 1:22:09 Yeah. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:10 ... that kind of stuff, but just a broad picture which-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:22:13 I don't think any of us got 98% in anything. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:15 Umang, I have a doubt about that. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:22:17 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:22:17 [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:22:17 Umang probably got 98%.

Umang Bedi 1:22:19 Okay, I'm embarrassed, but yeah. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:21 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:22:22 Uh, so childhood was very regular.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:22:26 No, he said we're not going to discuss that today. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:22:28 Okay, so-

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:28 Yeah, I need to speak to my therapist first when I come here. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:22:31 Regular childhood, uh, grew up in Bombay.

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:34 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:22:34 Um, Dad worked with L&T as his first job and his last job. Uh, so started as an engineer and then retired from the board. Uh, so it was a great upbringing. Uh, I loved growing, growing up in Bombay, in Pali Hill, and then suddenly-

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:48 Can I- can I just digress for a second?

Umang Bedi 1:22:49 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:49 There is a really weird school of thought. So my new big thing is psychology, okay?

Umang Bedi 1:22:54 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:54 I've stopped reading all books on finance, economy-

Umang Bedi 1:22:56 [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:56 ... stock market. I just read psychology shit.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:22:59 I know the psychology-

Umang Bedi 1:22:59 Yeah, yeah. Great.

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:59 And this has been the deal for the last few years. So it talks about people who are successful and correlates how horrible their childhood was. It says most successful people, especially startup founders and stuff like that... I don't consider startup people successful in the true sense of the word, because a lot of what we do is in our own bubbles-

Umang Bedi 1:23:25 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:25 ... and whatever, right? But let's assume for that to be true.

Umang Bedi 1:23:28 That's true, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:29 So he says that, if you were very, very insecure, even though modern world today tells us insecurity is a bad thing, insecurity is directly proportional to how, how much you will overcompensate for that insecurity, and in turn, be successful by the gauge that capitalism considers successful.

Umang Bedi 1:23:53 Totally. So by that logic-

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:54 Don't look at me- [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:23:55 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:55 ... with those eyes. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:23:57 By that logic, I'll answer the... and I'll just be, you know, remove the mask. I think if I had to describe myself, I would describe myself as amongst the most shallow human beings on planet Earth. Because when-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:10 The fact that you're able to admit that to yourself, m- probably makes you less shallow than some of us. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:24:17 [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:24:17 Yeah, that's not true. So it was always about chasing something-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:20 Right

Umang Bedi 1:24:21 ... and pleasing something and wearing a mask. So it was about standing first in class all through, just to please Dad, right? Or it was-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:29 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:24:29 ... um, you know, being- spending the first six years as an engineer, uh, and trying to be capitalistic and make the most amount of money. Uh, and then the next 14 years was that phase where I became an accidental CEO, uh, at 27, uh, and, you know, then ran into at Adobe, Facebook. And it was just one thing after the other. And for me, I think that realization came, that I'm the most shallow [chuckles] human being, is when I looked at myself when I turned 40. Um, and I had, I had become, like, 140 kilos, uh, didn't like the guy I was. I don't think I was a great... Uh, I was never around for the family, because one was always trying to, uh, you know, solve someone's problem or the company's problem, and you kind of made-... that title, your identity. Um, and you always chased, uh, a materialistic asset. And so I think on that day, I'd like to believe, uh, I gave it all up. Uh, Viru and I, when we started off, we had no, like, real funds, et cetera. We just had a belief in what we were doing, and, uh, yeah, and three- five years down that journey as an entrepreneur, we've had three near bankrupt- bankrupt experiences, or reached with one-month cash in the bank.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:43 What did you think at your lowest? When, say, you were three months away from bankruptcy, what was the thought process between you and your co- co-founder, Viru?

Umang Bedi 1:25:53 So Viru and I are like brothers. Um, we have the deepest intellectual honesty that we can say anything to each other.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:59 When things get really bad-

Umang Bedi 1:26:01 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:02 ... is the innate tendency to kind of blame each other and at a very small level?

Umang Bedi 1:26:07 Never.

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:08 No?

Umang Bedi 1:26:08 So we've never had those issues, because, you know, we're so comfortable with each other that we can now... [snaps finger] He's almost like a, you know, people tease me, he's like my work spouse, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:16 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:26:16 Because we can complete each other's sentences. But I think the, the- when we ran out of money with that one month, I can be very open around this and say, March 2020, March 7th, the pandemic hit. We were going to run out of cash on March 30th. Uh, we had just one month's cash left in the bank, and those are humbling moments, right? You go through a couple of these. Uh, but it was for no fault of ours. I mean, the business was doing well, the revenue was up. We were, uh, just burning a little bit more in that phase of Dailyhunt, and now, of course, it's profitable. But the... That phase was hard, but I think the only decision that we were debating between ourselves is, uh, will- are we pushing it too much to the edge? Like, will this happen? And somewhere, I had this innate belief, um... In fact, Viru has told this story publicly, that the month that we came together, we came together on a $100 million term sheet, um, which went away, and I took it more personally than him. Uh, literally sat on an economy seat, plane around the world, trying to raise our first $15 million. Uh, and that was great, and I think I had more fun in that journey, uh, when we were a 500 million company and we were, uh, more scrappy and whatever. But I think where it came to, the only point of debate between us is, should we tell the teams and let go of people? And I'm, like, philosophically against that school.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:38 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:27:38 You cut your coat according to your cloth, and if you hire, you don't- you technically shouldn't be firing, right? And you shouldn't live beyond your means. So luckily, on March 28th, 2020, we, uh, raised 75, and we got out of it. But I would say that turning 40 and the realization, getting more focused on health and fitness, getting, you know, more focused on trying to build and create and try and leave a legacy was... I- I today, irrespective of who I'm meeting, I wear my Keds and a T-shirt-

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:08 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:28:09 ... and I won't dress for anyone. I won't-- Like, I don't do the things that I did. I don't care about which car someone came in or, you know, where someone stays. Uh, my judgment is, do I like you, and can I relate to you, and can I learn from you, uh, and even contribute back? So I've kind of like... I don't think I've, uh, attained sainthood-

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:28 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:28:29 ... uh, but I'd like to believe that I'm not as shallow as I was, uh, just chasing a title, chasing the next number, chasing the next, uh, position. I probably had the best-paying job in tech when I- in India, when I gave it up with Facebook.

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:43 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:28:43 Um, right? And so, uh, it's one of those moments, um, but I think my wife used to tell me that those two years I was, uh, you know, not a fun guy to be with because I was just so obsessed, uh, in a different direction. So it's kind of negative in that sense, and you kind of tend to believe... The other thing that, you know, as an entrepreneur, you probably know this the best, but people will- people meet you as Nikhil Kamath. Let's say you're super successful today, but there was a time when you were not.

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:13 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:29:13 Right? And would those people still give you that, that time and attention? I think you tend to get to know who those real people are, and I think when you're... You know, when you're talking to someone, is he meeting you for the title? Is he meeting you because of you? Uh, and I think that journey of discovery over the last five years has been amazing. I, I've had- I wouldn't trade it for anything else, but that's a little bit of personal-

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:36 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:29:36 ... context, if-

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:37 No, no, that's very interesting. Yeah. I feel like, um, we all have imposter complex, little bit.

Umang Bedi 1:29:44 Yeah, totally.

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:44 Right? I feel like it's one of the best things in the world. I think the higher your imposter complex and you believe you should not have gotten lucky in the manner that you did, the nicer you turn out to be as a person.

Umang Bedi 1:30:00 And the more humble you turn out to be-

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:02 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:30:02 ... for sure, because you realize that it isn't you.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:05 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:30:05 It was circumstantial, it was luck, it was whatever.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:07 And people don't give enough weightage to being nice.

Umang Bedi 1:30:11 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:11 I think it's a big, big categorization for me. Like- Umang Bedi: The, the world is actually not equipped- Mm Umang Bedi: ... or the, the world doesn't know how to treat nice people. Right. Umang Bedi: And it's very weird. Like, if somebody's nice, you're going to take-- you're, you're going to start to take advantage. Mm. Umang Bedi: Somebody's honest, you're going to start to take advantage. That's in the world I'm talking. Right? So the world is not eq-equipped, and hence, the niceness kind of like fades rather than increase.

Umang Bedi 1:30:41 You know, there's another angle to this niceness thing, and I think as a comedian, he probably has the highest of it, right? One, I think to be a comedian, you need to be freaking smart, uh, and highly intellectual.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:54 Totally. Umang Bedi: I think comedians and politicians, smartest people in our community. [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 1:30:57 Smartest people, right? You've got to be highly intellectual.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:59 I imagine Bhagwan Pannun. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:31:02 Yeah. [laughing] But the interesting part that I find is, the hardest skill to hire for and the hardest skill to inculcate-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:11 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:31:11 ... is emotional quotient.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:13 Mm. Umang Bedi: Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:31:14 Like, can I emotionally be empathetic to what your needs are? And this could be on social media, this could be in the workplace, right? Really hard to find people with-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:22 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:31:22 ... high EQ. Umang Bedi: Mm. Right? And that's what we need, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:26 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:31:26 I mean, that's, that's what makes great teams work or the ability to create magic-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:31 Yep

Umang Bedi 1:31:31 ... uh, or the ability to emotionally connect.

Host 1:31:34 ... uh, with your audience, right? And you probably have a formula for it. Um, I'll pause there. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:31:42 [laughing]

Host 1:31:42 I was wanting to turn it over to you. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:31:44 [laughing] No, I think, um, I mean, for me, there was- I mean, the difference between AIB and my current brand, right? Like, um, like I see a lot more love now. There was a lot of respect for, for the content we made at, made at AIB. I think a lot of it is with my own personal journey. There was... people have, you know, in, in public, there's been a lot of ups and downs, and the pandemic kind of helped bec- because I was live for six to eight hours straight. I was... You know, s- uh, everything that was happening with me was also being displayed publicly. And, um, but any, eh, y- you know, emotionally connecting with an audience is, uh... it c- really comes down to authenticity.

Host 1:32:29 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:32:29 Like, you began this conversation by saying, "I'm the most shallow person in the world," and you already had me. And then I was so into that story, even though Umang, Umang took me through the... I had breakfast with Umang last, a couple of weeks ago, where we went through our, both of our, both of our journeys, actually. Um, so it, it actually comes down to that. And being, uh, being able to be that authentic, it requires a certain sense of security, knowing that everybody's flawed, and it's okay if my flaws are in public, right?

Host 1:32:56 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:32:57 Um, so it's a, it's a big skill, and, uh, anybody who's able to do it that flawlessly is, uh, like I think, I think Zakir, who's a comedian that you've heard of-

Host 1:33:07 Yes. Yes.

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:08 ... He's so phenomenally good at it. Um, yeah, I think in, in this day and age where comedy is no longer an occasion, it's a medium-

Host 1:33:18 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:19 -being able to emotionally connect is a much bigger superpower. Uh, you also want to laugh along with someone who you emotionally like.

Host 1:33:27 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:28 Uh, which is you, you- like, if you go to a restaurant and there's a band playing, and if it's not a band that you like, you can tune it out. But if you go to a restaurant, it's a comedian you don't like, you are not going to eat there.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:39 Do you know who you like right away when you meet people?

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:43 Um, I think people make good first impressions.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:48 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:49 And there are some skills that, that you can develop to make good first impressions.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:53 At one point in life, you should write a self-help book.

Tanmay Bhat 1:33:57 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:57 How to Make a Good First Impression-

Host 1:33:59 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:59 ... How to Become a Social Media Star.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:02 [laughing]

Host 1:34:02 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:02 How to Do What with You-Know-What.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:04 [laughing]

Host 1:34:05 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:06 Thank you for editing on the fly, Nikhil Kamath. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:09 [laughing] See, I'm learning.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:11 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:12 Uh, anyway, interesting, interesting end to a social media conversation, guys.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:15 We're not ending. We have more to talk about social media.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:18 Oh, really?

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:18 Like, we need to talk about-

Host 1:34:20 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:21 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:21 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:22 I was like, [beep] it got really emotional right now. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:25 We need to talk about what platform's next.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:28 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:30 What is the future of social media?

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:32 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:33 We need to talk about: Is social media good or bad for our kids?

Host 1:34:41 Yeah, that's a very important one.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:42 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:42 There's so much content which I watched last night about it, and-

Host 1:34:46 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:46 ... I feel like I want to get off social media right now, but-

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:49 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:49 ... we'll talk about it.

Host 1:34:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:50 But should we take a break, eat something?

Host 1:34:51 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:51 Let's take a break.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:52 You wanna eat something? Take a bite?

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:55 Yes, thanks.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:56 What is Discord?

Tanmay Bhat 1:34:59 So Discord, I don't even know how to describe it. So Discord became really popular... Discord's an app. It became really popular with gamers first. So if me and you are playing a game, um, not all games, me and you can't communicate from within the game necessarily. So it initially gained popularity because Discord has something called voice channels, where me and you can jump into a voice channel. So for example, here there are- I'm on this server of a friend of mine who's a gamer, and he has different, different voice channels. One of which is, uh, one of which is called, uh, you know, DJ. Late, Late Night DJ, where you log in, [upbeat music] and there's just music going on there in the background. Someone's playing-

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:38 He's playing

Tanmay Bhat 1:35:39 ... music. Yeah, someone's playing in the background.

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:41 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:35:41 And multiple people can join, uh, and people can just chill there. And/or there are voice channels which are just blank also. This one is called Duo-

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:50 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:35:50 ... because only two people can be in this voice channel. So I can jump in, someone else can jump in, and the two of us can have a conversation. [upbeat music] So if you create a Discord server, you can assign everyone, uh, privileges and roles, based on which they can join different voice channels, they can join different text channels. So it became super easy to manage a community. So it became popular with gamers, 'cause when two people are playing a game-

Host 1:36:10 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:10 ... they hop on a voice channel and talk to each other while they play a game to make communication easy.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:14 But why couldn't they do it on another-

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:16 What else existed at that point? You'd have to Skype call each other.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:19 Phone-

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:19 This is before Zoom. Huh? Phone call each other, like, from the computer, like-

Host 1:36:23 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:23 ... it didn't exist. [beep]

Host 1:36:24 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:25 Discord was the quickest way for two people to just jump onto a channel. So you've used Clubhouse, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:29 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:30 So you know how, how on Clubhouse you could just hop onto-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:33 One

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:33 ... one room, and you instantly start talking to each other?

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:35 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:35 So Discord was that before- much before Clubhouse.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:38 But for two people.

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:39 But for many- as many people. So you can have 100 people together. Um, and they solved... They, they became really popular because of this, and they kept adding features. So having a, your own Discord server-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:50 Mm-hmm

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:50 ... became a thing amongst gamers. And eventually, other people-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:53 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:36:53 ... other creators also started having a Discord server. So I had a Discord server for the longest time. Uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:58 When you say you had a Discord server, you hosted it somewhere?

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:01 On Discord-

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:02 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:02 ... you can create your own page-

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:04 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:04 ... so to say, which is called your server. And at some- at one point, I had close to half a million people on my Discord server.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:11 So they would listen to you play a game?

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:14 They wouldn't listen to me play a game. They- so even if I am not there, they can be part of the server, and I create multiple channels. Like, I'll create a channel called meme, where people post memes. Then if, if I had 500,000 people on it, I would select, like, 10 mods. They're moderators.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:29 So game is like an anchor, not the purpose why these guys are there talking?

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:32 Not the purpose, no.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:32 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:32 The purpose is for communities to hang out with-

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:35 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:35 ... one common purpose. So everybody who came onto my server-

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:37 Mm-hmm

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:38 ... knew that, oh, we all know Tanmay, and we all watch his videos. That's why we're all here.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:42 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:42 So I would create channels with specific purpose. I would create one channel, which is memes about Tanmay.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:47 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:47 So people would post memes there, which is specifically about me. Uh, so it's like, it's like a-

Host 1:37:52 It's like a WhatsApp group that-

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:53 It's like a WhatsApp group, but with a lot more, with a lot more features.

Host 1:37:56 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:37:56 That's where... Uh, so people do all kinds of fun things on Discord. People do karaoke night, people do whatever, uh, whatever, whatever they want.

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:04 And, and, uh, Twitch? What is Twitch?

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:07 So Twitch-

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:07 But also tell me this, are these guys going to be the future of social media in a manner?

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:12 So they're already- uh, Discord is already immensely popular. Uh, it's, uh, again, like, it's a closed network. It's not... You have to be let into a server. Like, some servers are open, some servers you have to be let in. Even if you're let into the server, there are different tiers, like, you can create. Like, okay-

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:28 [clears throat]

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:28 ... if, if I had a server, I would give you guys a badge called VIPs, okay? So you guys can access certain areas of the server that other people can't access.

Host 1:38:36 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:36 So it's a, it's a way to manage communities, um, and it's-

Host 1:38:40 I found it very complex.

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:41 It's very complex, that's the thing.

Host 1:38:43 Very complex.

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:45 It's very complex.

Host 1:38:45 Like, I-

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:45 Uh

Host 1:38:46 ... was overwhelmed by Discord to the extent, uh-

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:49 It's a very Gen Z, young person-

Host 1:38:51 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:51 ... thing, like-

Host 1:38:51 I got into it to look at NFTs and stuff.

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:54 Yeah.

Host 1:38:54 Which is more... Ah, it was just lost.

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:57 So how do you-

Tanmay Bhat 1:38:58 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:58 ... how do you look at NFTs on Discord?

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:01 I don't know how you look at NFTs.

Host 1:39:02 I mean, I was following, looking at certain creators-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:05 Who talk about NFTs?

Host 1:39:05 Who talk about it, and then I-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:06 On their channel.

Host 1:39:07 On their channel as well.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:08 So in Web3, having a lot of folks on your server is an indication of how active your community is.

Host 1:39:14 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:14 So when an NFT project is dropping, first they launch their own Discord server, and inside the Discord server, everyone goes, logs in, and then they drop all the updates inside that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:22 Oh.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:22 It's like, it's like a, almost like a gate, saying, "This, uh, if you're inside the Discord server, then you're special. You, you'll know, you'll get to..."

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:30 And could you make money there?

Host 1:39:31 Do you know how many users on Discord? Not too many, I mean, because it's a very niche community, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:36 How many?

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:36 No, it's not. There's millions and millions.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:39 Gl-

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:39 It's massive

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:39 ... globally, it's a good community.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:40 It's massive. It's not small at all.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:42 But in, in India, I don't think beyond like the top-

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:45 India also is huge. It's massive. Um-

Host 1:39:49 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:49 Yeah.

Host 1:39:49 No, I don't see any public data around there.

Tanmay Bhat 1:39:51 Just look up how many users Discord has. It's huge, it's like, uh, 140 million people use Discord.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:59 And I'm guessing mostly, like, Westerners, right? Americans and stuff.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:02 Yeah. There's-

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:03 I guess I- India, India would be less than 5 million.

Host 1:40:05 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:05 Probably, yeah.

Host 1:40:06 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:06 Prob- India, India would be less than that.

Host 1:40:08 140 million means... Yeah, I mean, if you look at any global platform, there are billions of ma- users, right?

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:13 Correct.

Host 1:40:13 A billion plus.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:14 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:14 Correct.

Host 1:40:15 Um-

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:15 Do, do people make money there? Were you making money there?

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:19 No, I wasn't making... It's mostly a way to manage your community.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:23 Got it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:24 But how Discord makes money is, you can do s- things called boost your server. Uh, you can, you can-

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:30 Make it more discoverable.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:31 Yeah, make it more discoverable. You can give, uh... There are special features that you can unlock by paying Discord, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:38 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:38 And Twitch?

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:40 So Twitch has an interesting story, right? So Twitch was started by Justin Kan. He s- it, it was first launched as Justin.tv-

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:49 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:49 ... this guy called Justin Kan.

Host 1:40:50 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:50 So Justin.tv, and his idea was, "I'm just gonna broadcast my life." So it was 24/7-

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:56 Mm-hmm

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:56 ... his house-

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:57 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:40:57 ... was being broadcast live. It started gaining some traction, until eventually Justin realized that, "Oh, people want to watch live streaming. Live streaming is cool." Um-

Host 1:41:07 Right

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:07 ... then he spun it off as Twitch, which was a live streaming only platform, uh, and it was the first of its kind. So Twitch gained popularity because of it being the first player to have live streaming exclusive. 'Cause unlike YouTube, where you could host videos, Discord didn't have any of that earlier.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:25 Is, is this before Periscope and-

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:27 Much before.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:27 Much before.

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:28 Much before. Discord, uh, [clears throat] Twitch has been around for-

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:31 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:32 ... very, very long, until eventually they sold to Amazon, and now, uh, Twitch is owned by Amazon and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:37 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:38 ... yeah. Um, so on Twitch, again, it's very gamified inside. If you're watching a live streamer, every second you're watching, you get points.

Host 1:41:45 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:46 Um-

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:46 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:46 ... you can gift subscriptions, which is, there are some features that you only get if you're a subscriber.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:52 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:41:52 These subscriptions are $3 to $5 or what- whatever it is, per month. So some cool features that Twitch has is, say, I'm streaming, and there's 1,000 people who are watching me. Anybody who has subscribed to my channel can gift anybody else who's watching my channel currently-

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:06 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:07 ... a subscription.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:08 Right.

Host 1:42:08 Wow.

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:08 Um, then Amazon did stuff like, there's Twitch, there's, uh, Amazon Prime subscription-

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:13 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:13 ... which is-

Host 1:42:14 Oh

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:14 ... if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you automatically get subscribe, subscribe to one live streamer.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:18 Why are you not spending as much time on Discord, Twitch, et cetera, like you are on Twitter, YouTube, Insta?

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:26 So Discord is a way to manage communities and not necessarily-

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:29 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:30 ... grow your distribution.

Host 1:42:31 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:31 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:32 It is, you grow your distribution, and then you bring all those people onto Discord, much like having your own Reddit sub- subreddit.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:38 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:38 Right, so people have their own subreddits as well. So I have a subreddit as well. Uh, I personally, uh, I shut down my Discord server-

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:45 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:46 ... uh, for many reasons. One, when you have half a million people on it, it's just a lot of people talking to each other all the time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:53 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:53 Imagine, like, at any given point, there were 10,000 kids who were-

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:57 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:42:57 ... talking to each other inside my Discord server. Like, if a video dropped, then they're all talking to each other.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:02 But you don't plug in an ad in there or something, right?

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:04 No.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:05 No.

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:05 Uh, it's just a way to manage communities, um, but I-

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:08 So how do they make money, like, as a service?

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:10 Discord makes money... Yeah, like, there are special features you can unlock by paying.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:14 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:14 It's, uh, it's on a freemium model in, in that sense. Um, so I don't spend as much time on Discord now. I, I spend time on it as a user. I, I'm part of different communities, uh, but my own Discord server, I shut down, 'cause there's so much activity, and with young people-

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:30 Mm.

Host 1:43:30 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:30 ... if you just give them a free hand... And it's a closed, it's, it's closed, right? Like, it's not like Twitter, where if you post something-

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:36 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:37 ... anybody can see it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:37 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:37 If you post something on Instagram, anybody can see it.

Host 1:43:39 Mm. It's like a closed WhatsApp group.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:40 I think you-

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:41 It's like a closed WhatsApp group. So imagine the kind of freedom people would feel-

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:45 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:45 ... inside a closed WhatsApp-

Host 1:43:46 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:46 ... WhatsApp group.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:47 Mm.

Host 1:43:47 Were they abusing? Were they...

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:49 All kinds of stuff.

Host 1:43:50 Okay.

Tanmay Bhat 1:43:50 Uh, they were posting stuff that-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:43:52 ... I would not want to be associated with. [laughing] They were telling each other stuff that I wouldn't want to be associated with. They were pranking each other. They were doing all kinds of things that I didn't wanna- I was like, "This is too scary for me." [clears throat]

Speaker 1:44:03 Mm. And you didn't want to moderate that?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:04 I didn't want to moderate that, and I didn't trust the folks who were moderating-

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:06 How do you moderate, like-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:07 ... because they're also young.

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:08 So many people, half a million people.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:10 You can't.

Speaker 1:44:10 You can't. It's very tough. Mm-hmm. I think, uh, if you get tools for it, like-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:14 Right

Speaker 1:44:14 ... if you block out certain phrases, words, you know, you'll have to build tools for it.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:20 Yeah, but if you do that kind of stuff, then you run-

Speaker 1:44:21 Then-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:22 Then you run-

Speaker 1:44:22 His following will run away.

Umang Bedi 1:44:23 Yeah, then you're uncool.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:24 You're uncool. You're uncool.

Speaker 1:44:24 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:24 It's like, "Kon uncle chala raha hai Discord?" [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:27 Correct.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:27 The whole point of Discord is it's a closed community where people can be themselves.

Speaker 1:44:31 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:31 Um,

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:32 Twitch is different. Twitch is just a live streaming platform. But now YouTube has its own live streaming. YouTube started live streaming.

Speaker 1:44:39 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:39 And YouTube is like a slow-moving ship, but when they, when they ship features, they're really solid. Twitch has more features than YouTube. It's still, in the Western world, it's still the go-to platform. Everybody's tried a live streaming platform. Microsoft tried it with Mixer. Um, so they-

Speaker 1:44:55 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:44:55 ... they poached a bunch of big streamers from Twitch to go on to Mixer. It didn't work out. Now, there's a new streaming platform called Kick that everybody's going to. Um, but YouTube streaming [clears throat] to me, is, is, is- has the most potential, 'cause YouTube, you can do-

Speaker 1:45:12 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:12 ... you can do VOD, uh, and you can do live streaming at the same time. But to me, live streaming is a way to build community-

Speaker 1:45:20 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:20 ... 'cause people get to touch and feel you in real time.

Speaker 1:45:23 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:23 People can send you a message, and you can respond immediately.

Speaker 1:45:26 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:26 And, you know, it's like, imagine if you were watching Mahabharat with your family, and if your dad could super chat- [chuckles]

Speaker 1:45:33 Mm, mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:33 ... Yudhishtra on, on T- TV, right? Like, it's, it's that. It's like modern-day VJs, but who you can, you can touch and feel.

Speaker 1:45:39 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:45:39 It's interesting, Twitch gamified the whole experience nicely. Actually, the first live that I remember as a consumer was Facebook Live, as a feature.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:48 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:45:48 This was way back in 2014.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:50 '14, yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:45:51 Right? Or 2015, actually, sorry.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:45:53 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:45:54 Um, that was the first live, uh, but there was no gamification, there was no subscription, there was no, uh, ability to tip the creator, gift t- to the creator.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:04 Yeah, I think when a, when a mammoth company tries a feature-

Umang Bedi 1:46:07 Yeah

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:07 ... they don't give enough into it to make it work.

Umang Bedi 1:46:10 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1:46:10 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:46:11 That's true.

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:11 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:11 Big ships move slow.

Speaker 1:46:12 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:46:12 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:12 So the, the, the thing is, social media-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:15 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:15 ... the success of social media platforms, I think is very serendipitous. Like, uncontrollable forces have to act on it to make it successful.

Umang Bedi 1:46:26 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:26 Like-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:26 What, what are those forces?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:28 Like, for us, uh, in our journey, like, just getting all the big guys onto Koo at once to talk in local languages and reach a different crowd, as in, if we had to do it ourselves without an event making it happen-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:47 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:47 ... like Twitter got into trouble, hence we-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:49 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:49 If we had to make it happen, it would have taken another five, 10 years.

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:53 Was that a big impetus, Twitter getting into trouble?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:46:55 Yeah, getting into the limelight, getting all of these guys active. They're still active, making sure... As in, they're trying to-

Umang Bedi 1:47:02 Yeah

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:47:02 ... connect with their followers every day-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:04 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:47:04 ... in local languages. You, you can't make this happen. It takes a lot of money to-

Umang Bedi 1:47:11 How do you gen- how do you make network effects happen easily?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:47:14 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:14 Mm. Butterfly effects.

Umang Bedi 1:47:15 Yeah. Very, very-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:16 No, so you're-

Umang Bedi 1:47:16 It's very different [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:17 ... you flap in different corners, and you pray. [laughing]

Umang Bedi 1:47:19 That's not what a butterfly effect is. [laughing]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:47:23 [laughing]

Speaker 1:47:23 In a, in a transaction company, it's easier. Like a TaxiForSure, you had drivers, users-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:29 Mm

Speaker 1:47:29 ... right? Uh, if you had to accelerate it-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:32 Mm

Speaker 1:47:32 ... you had to give cheap rates to the users-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:34 Mm, mm

Speaker 1:47:35 ... and, uh, compensate to the driver, and you take it off.

Umang Bedi 1:47:39 Yeah.

Speaker 1:47:39 Right? In a social media network, uh, it's not just two people, right? There's, there's the user, advertiser, creator, government. You know, everybody has to be happy at the same time.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:47:52 Yeah.

Speaker 1:47:52 Everybody has to use it, right? So it's a multidimensional, uh, network that you're creating. Here, you cannot, uh, you know, program this-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:03 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:48:03 Yeah

Speaker 1:48:04 ... initially. Once you take off, then you can add a little bit of math.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:07 Right.

Speaker 1:48:07 Okay, user, do a loyalty program, give them discounts-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:10 Right

Speaker 1:48:10 ... for having used. Creator, help them monetize. These two are happy, and hence everybody else is happy. But

Speaker 1:48:17 you need... So, American social media works very well because they can really push down any product-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:25 Mm

Speaker 1:48:26 ... down the throat of the whole world at once.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:48:29 Mm.

Speaker 1:48:30 So their machinery to go global-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:32 Mm

Speaker 1:48:32 ... is stronger than anyone else.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:34 Why is that?

Speaker 1:48:35 I think media, they can-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:48:37 Their own culture

Speaker 1:48:37 ... create a global story. Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:48:39 Their own culture.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:40 Is- do you think that's through entertainment or news channels?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:48:43 See, the-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:44 Like, how do they, how do they make culture?

Speaker 1:48:45 Aspiration to be American-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:47 Hmm

Speaker 1:48:47 ... is very high generally.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:49 Mm.

Speaker 1:48:49 Right? American life, we've all seen Friends.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:52 Like, I'll give you an example. Uh, say, a really cool new social media company is open in SF right now.

Speaker 1:49:01 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:01 Before it scales, how do we get to hear about it?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:05 Let's take Clubhouse, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:06 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:06 How did you hear about Clubhouse?

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:08 Referral. Somebody said...

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:10 Somebody spoke about it.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:11 Somebody spoke about it. I heard it because Elon Musk joined, joined a Clubhouse room.

Speaker 1:49:16 Mm. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:16 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:16 And then MrBeast joined a Clubhouse room.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:18 So you think it's because we follow so many Americans on our social media-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:22 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:22 ... that the-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:22 Americans dominate culture-

Speaker 1:49:24 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:24 ... simply put.

Umang Bedi 1:49:25 Yeah, but the interesting dichotomy to this argument, if there's one platform that's redefining or defining culture in America, which is what is scaring the [beep] out of them, is TikTok.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:37 Correct.

Speaker 1:49:37 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:49:37 And TikTok is now, like, literally breaking paradigms. Every kid uses it, every-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:43 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:49:43 ... now you're seeing the, the forces at play to try and ban the app first on-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:47 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:49:48 ... government phones. But that's an example of a company that came

Umang Bedi 1:49:51 from the outside.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:49:51 Outside, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:52 What is TikTok doing right that others aren't?

Umang Bedi 1:49:55 ... So couple of things. Um, one, it's probably got the most powerful creator tools on the planet.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:02 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:50:02 Um, two, it's probably got the most sophisticated content graph-based algorithm. Uh, we use a similar algorithm, but I would say theirs is far deeper, um, to understand video-

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:13 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:50:13 ... and contextually personalize it to the extent that two TikTok feeds look like no other. Um, but they are so personal, and they're so engaging to that individual. And three, I think what it's now built on top of this is this insane commerce-based monetization engine.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:32 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:50:33 Uh, where small businesses are hosting stores, commerce has taken off. Today, Douyin is driving 7% of all commerce in China. Douyin is the Chinese name for-

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:44 TikTok

Umang Bedi 1:50:44 ... TikTok in China, right? Uh, first, you know, it was cringey. TikTok was cringey, nobody went on it. Now, it's suddenly cool to be on it. Um, all I- all the friends that I know in the US have bought something on TikTok.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:57 Must also sound cool that some countries are banning it, right?

Umang Bedi 1:51:00 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:00 That automatically makes everything cool.

Umang Bedi 1:51:02 I want it more.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:02 Streisand effect. [clears throat]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:03 Yeah, so I think TikTok, uh, just got... TikTok should have never started in China.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:10 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:10 It should have started in India.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:11 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:12 As in the original, original idea of TikTok.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:14 Why is that?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:15 Boss, we are the Bollywood guys, boss. Like, you know, TikTok is-

Umang Bedi 1:51:19 Right

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:19 ... dubbing, right? So I call short video apps-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:23 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:24 ... micro or nano Bollywood, right? Uh-

Umang Bedi 1:51:26 So I call that category escapism, right?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:29 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:51:29 It's just time pass, having fun.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:31 Like, so three-hour Bollywood movie, Shah Rukh Khan-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:35 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:35 Only Shah Rukh Khan can-

Umang Bedi 1:51:37 Hold that

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:37 ... hold that three hours.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:39 We spoke about this l- last time.

Umang Bedi 1:51:40 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:40 Tanmay disagreed.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:42 What?

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:43 That not necessarily you need a Shah Rukh Khan to hold, uh, an audience for three hours.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:48 Yeah. No, but, uh, what you're saying, which is TikTok is Bollywood, I think TikTok in every country is a reflection of the-

Umang Bedi 1:51:56 Their

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:56 ... culture of the country.

Umang Bedi 1:51:58 Yes.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:51:58 So our TikTok is very Bollywood, and very filmy, and very-

Umang Bedi 1:52:02 Yeah

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:52:02 ... like, you know, [clears throat] the most popular ones are... Like, the content that they do is, you know, either it's like boyfriend, girlfriend stuff-

Umang Bedi 1:52:11 Yeah

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:52:12 ... uh, social inequality stuff, uh-

Umang Bedi 1:52:15 Or local comedy.

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:16 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:52:16 Local comedy, uh, you know, some- something about, uh, strong identity-based content, either religious identity or, you know-

Umang Bedi 1:52:23 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:52:23 ... nationalistic identity, which is very us.

Umang Bedi 1:52:26 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:52:27 Um-

Umang Bedi 1:52:27 See, uh, the other thing, I think the format worked, because I think the attention span, of how many people-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:33 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:52:33 Like, you know, there are lean forward experiences and lean back experiences. Lean back experiences is like when you're watching a movie. Lean forward is when you're just swiping and scrolling, right? This kind of gave you that entertainment gratification in 20 seconds, and then allowed you to move on. And-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:48 Are they longer videos now, or is it-

Umang Bedi 1:52:49 Now it's gone up to a minute. Uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:51 Still a minute maximum?

Umang Bedi 1:52:52 I believe TikTok... I'm, I'm trying to recollect if they've, uh, moved to 10 minutes. I read an article.

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:59 So nothing really educational like YouTube on TikTok?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:02 Mm, no, there is, there is-

Umang Bedi 1:53:03 There is education

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:04 ... an education section on TikTok.

Umang Bedi 1:53:05 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:05 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:06 In, in India, they tried EduTok.

Umang Bedi 1:53:08 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:08 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:08 For quite some... It didn't take off.

Umang Bedi 1:53:10 It didn't take off.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:10 Did it take off a lot before it got banned, and hence it got banned?

Umang Bedi 1:53:14 It-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:15 It did.

Umang Bedi 1:53:15 It did.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:15 It was very, very popular.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:16 Massive, right?

Umang Bedi 1:53:17 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:53:17 It got blocked.

Umang Bedi 1:53:17 So if you think about it, in-- they launched in 2018 in India.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:22 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:53:22 Uh, they burnt to the tune of $60 million a month to $70 million a month-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:29 In India

Umang Bedi 1:53:31 ... in India. They were my... It's public data, so I can say this: they were Facebook's largest advertiser around the world-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:37 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:53:37 ... for two or three years. They spent over-- So the Chinese machinery is burn a lot of money on marketing. Of course, they've got the tech and the product built out, uh, before they do that. So they almost burnt a billion, $2 billion a year on marketing. A bulk of it was in India-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:53 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:53:53 ... because India had the largest user base there.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:55 Where you found-

Umang Bedi 1:53:56 Yeah, uh, 240 million, uh, monthly active users, right? [paper rustling] Uh, almost 50 minutes of time spent per user per day. And it was very Bollywood filmy content.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:07 Can I also ask how much time is spent on which platform a day? Like, how much do Indians spend on Instagram, on Facebook?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:13 YouTube is the highest.

Umang Bedi 1:54:14 YouTube is highest.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:15 60-

Umang Bedi 1:54:15 YouTube is highest.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:15 60-plus minutes.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:17 Uh-huh.

Umang Bedi 1:54:17 Instagram-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:18 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:54:18 ... Instagram, 35.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:19 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:54:19 Facebook-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:20 Facebook, Instagram is about 30.

Umang Bedi 1:54:21 Yeah, Facebook, 30.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:22 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:24 And then everything else is, like, Tw-

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:27 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:54:27 Like, Twitter would be, like, 15, say.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:31 When everybody... Like, the, uh, the research I did, like, last night when I was watching videos about what people are hypothesizing the future of social media to be,

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:44 everybody seems to be saying we are moving from text bar images to video in one form or another. What makes video so much more engaging? And especially from your perspective at Koo, 'cause it's more text-oriented, I'm, I'm assuming. How do you kind of cope with that?

Umang Bedi 1:55:06 Yeah, so [exhales] uh, content format is not like the way to define future or past, right? Each use case defines what content format. Instagram basically gave you a filter in your hand, and that made prettier photos, and hence it became lifestyle as a network.

Nikhil Kamath 1:55:27 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:55:28 Right? So what started- what's the chicken and egg?

Nikhil Kamath 1:55:31 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:55:31 You never know. Like, photo was the thing. Um, videos work in entertainment, some education, long form.

Nikhil Kamath 1:55:41 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:55:41 But in terms of opinions and thoughts-

Nikhil Kamath 1:55:44 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:55:44 ... unless it's, like, the biggest opinion maker and thought leader talking to you, you're not going to sit and watch a common man's video.

Nikhil Kamath 1:55:53 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:55:53 Right? So if it's thoughts and opinions, I think a multimedia approach works better, which is what Koo is.

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:00 But you can do that, too, right? You can upload videos on Koo, right?

Umang Bedi 1:56:02 Yeah. So multimedia works-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:56:05 ... the big guys will do video, and that will be attractive. The common guy putting out text and saying something-

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:11 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:56:11 ... will still, and text can't be replaced that easily. Like, the, the quick glance that you do when you're scrolling content is not available. You, you have to commit in audio and video.

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:22 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:56:22 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:56:23 But in text, you don't. And the Instagram founders have founded a new app, right? And that's all text. That's-

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:29 It's a new, news as TikTok.

Umang Bedi 1:56:31 I, I cringed when I saw that. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:32 What is it called?

Umang Bedi 1:56:33 It's called [censored] .

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:34 Uh.

Umang Bedi 1:56:35 The freaking UX.

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:37 Bad?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:56:37 Yes.

Umang Bedi 1:56:38 It's cut, copy, paste of Dailyhunt.

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:40 Dailyhunt.

Umang Bedi 1:56:40 It is the Dailyhunt-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:56:41 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:56:41 ... of what they've launched, right? But so I kind of, I'm totally with what, uh, A- Apu's saying, because, you know, in Dailyhunt, we were... We are 70% text and images.

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:53 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:56:53 It's only 30% video, right? And for the-

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:56 Are you seeing that number change, though? Are you more video every-

Umang Bedi 1:56:59 No

Nikhil Kamath 1:56:59 ... few months?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:57:00 That's the context.

Umang Bedi 1:57:01 So the context for news is people do want to read.

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:04 Right.

Umang Bedi 1:57:04 Of course, now youngsters don't want to read too long.

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:07 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:57:07 They want short-form, for which we've-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:57:09 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:57:09 ... launched Espresso.

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:09 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:57:10 Right? Uh, so there is that use case. However, everyone, uh, media pundits, future soothsayers, VCs, investors, everyone says it's video. And yes, the... I would say, the growth of Josh for us versus the growth of Dailyhunt, Josh has been chalk and cheese. By the way, the cost spent on that is also chalk and cheese-

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:30 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:57:30 ... right, in terms of what the two platforms relatively, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:34 Is that a big cost for you guys, the cost of hosting the data? So if you're allowing someone to post a video-

Umang Bedi 1:57:42 Huge!

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:43 ... will it, from an infra standpoint, cost you a lot more, and your margins are lower?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:57:47 Yeah. Like, we, we have more text than photo than video.

Nikhil Kamath 1:57:51 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:57:51 But it's still... So because we are a social network, for the same number of users on a transaction network, we are way higher-

Umang Bedi 1:57:59 Yeah

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:57:59 ... on tech cost spend, just because you have to store so much.

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:02 Mm.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:02 Like, okay, a, a person on Koo has 10 million followers-

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:06 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:06 ... you have to remember... And if that person is active, you have to remember all 10 million. I- in the 10 million, you have to know who's active, who's not. As soon as they open the app, you have to, you know-

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:17 Right.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:17 So the compute that is just, uh, involved in all of this is just huge.

Umang Bedi 1:58:23 Huge.

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:23 Right.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:24 So hence, the tech cost goes up. And of course, with just plain video, like the Josh app and all, I think-

Umang Bedi 1:58:29 It's crazy.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:30 Yeah.

Umang Bedi 1:58:30 So imagine if you shoot a video right now on-

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:32 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:58:32 ... your iPhone.

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:33 Yeah, he was just saying 600 GB of data, this video.

Umang Bedi 1:58:35 Yeah, just imagine. So you can shoot this video in 4K-

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:38 Mm

Umang Bedi 1:58:38 ... right? Your iPhone 14 Pro movie makers are now making it to shoot movies, right?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:43 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:58:44 So imagine you are shooting in 4K, but Tanmay is on the road on an old Android phone, on a 3G network.

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:51 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:58:51 Watching that video on Josh.

Nikhil Kamath 1:58:52 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:58:53 I suddenly have to transcode it from 4K to maybe 512p or lower.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:58:59 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:58:59 Uh, and there has to be a dynamic bitrate and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:02 What, what is this tech cost for a company like Josh? Out of the 100 bucks that you spend, how much goes towards this?

Umang Bedi 1:59:08 So on Josh itself, if I'm spending 100 bucks, I would say about thir- 20 to 30 bucks.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:13 Most of it is hosting?

Umang Bedi 1:59:15 Uh, hosting, transcoding, storage, compute, and AI.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:20 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:59:20 Uh, the AI data pipeline.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:59:22 It's a lot.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:23 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:59:23 It's a lot. It's a lot. It's not that high on Dailyhunt.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:26 Right.

Umang Bedi 1:59:26 Right? Dailyhunt is more like 10, 12 bucks.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:28 Text, because it's text.

Umang Bedi 1:59:30 Text-heavy, optimized over time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:32 Mm.

Umang Bedi 1:59:32 This grew much faster.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:59:33 Yes.

Umang Bedi 1:59:34 Uh, there's lesser transcoding requirements. You don't need to serve video every 20 seconds, network lag, all of that, right? So it's a-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 1:59:41 Yeah

Umang Bedi 1:59:41 ... much higher

Umang Bedi 1:59:42 cost.

Nikhil Kamath 1:59:42 So a lot of people, I think, take issue to the fact that whatever is put up on social media is embellishment in one form or another. Uh, nobody's true life is getting depicted, but a fantasy version of a snapshot of their life. Uh, and human subconscious will generally misconstrue to think that other person's life is like that, compare, and feel like [censored] about it. Right, like they'll feel [censored] about the comparison. If we had to j- if we had to, like, kind of filter, gauge, judge-

Umang Bedi 2:00:22 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:22 ... put different platforms in a ladder, which platform do you think makes you feel worst?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:29 Instagram.

Umang Bedi 2:00:30 Instagram.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:31 Instagram?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:31 Twitter and Instagram.

Umang Bedi 2:00:32 The same example-

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:32 No, which one?

Umang Bedi 2:00:33 ... I gave you, my driver.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:33 Uh.

Umang Bedi 2:00:34 Instagram, number one.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:35 Instagram, number one.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:36 Instagram.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:36 Then, followed by?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:37 Twitter.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:38 Twitter makes you feel like [censored] ?

Umang Bedi 2:00:40 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:41 Because of opinions.

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:42 Twitter makes you feel like [censored] because of that negative feedback loop, right? Because people constantly say [censored] .

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:47 People constantly say [censored] . Um, it's very, very high opinion.

Umang Bedi 2:00:53 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:54 Now, actually, the Twitter algorithm has changed in the last two, three years-

Nikhil Kamath 2:00:57 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:00:57 ... where there's now people you follow, and there's a for you-

Umang Bedi 2:01:01 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:02 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:02 ... which is what Twitter serves to you. So-

Umang Bedi 2:01:04 That's only what Elon Musk says.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:06 [chuckles] That's only what Elo- Elon-

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:08 [chuckles]

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:08 ... Elon says. Uh, but that, uh, I, I've realized that the for you segment kind of has made my Twitter feed a echo chamber of the [censored] that I-

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:21 Mm

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:21 ... at least at one point, thought I wanted to see. Like, it's just straight up [censored] now on my, on my timeline. It's just constant.

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:26 Do you even read it anymore?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:28 No, I just scroll.

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:29 Right.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:30 It's like, a... It's like, have you, have you guys ever done this, where you open Instagram, you close it?

Umang Bedi 2:01:36 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:36 Mm.

Umang Bedi 2:01:36 Yeah.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:36 Then five seconds later, you open it again? [chuckles]

Umang Bedi 2:01:38 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:38 When you did read it, was there e- ever any original thought, anything you could gauge about your audience, you wouldn't have figured out other ways?

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:47 When I read Twitter?

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:48 When you read all the comments and everything.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:51 Um, on Twitter?

Nikhil Kamath 2:01:54 Any, any platform.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:01:55 Twitter, no. On Twitter, it's like... Comments are... See-

Umang Bedi 2:01:58 See, Twitter is still a very elitist platform, dude.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:02:01 Twitter is very elitist.

Umang Bedi 2:02:01 Yeah. 5 million people in the country, boss.

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:02:04 Mm.

Umang Bedi 2:02:04 5 or 10, what is that number? You'll have it-

Aprameya Radhakrishna 2:02:05 5, 4.

Umang Bedi 2:02:06 5 million, right? It's a-

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:07 And a lot of the comments are, like, fake and-

Speaker 2:02:10 ... fake. And so the thing is that, that depends on the culture of the platform, right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:14 Mm.

Speaker 2:02:15 Like, it's a culture. In- on Twitter, if you go and say anything-

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:20 Mm

Speaker 2:02:20 ... out of 10 comments, you will have six negative and four positive.

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:24 Right.

Speaker 2:02:25 On Facebook, you'll have nine positive, one negative.

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:28 One negative, yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:28 Mm.

Speaker 2:02:28 On Instagram, you won't have that many comments, but, you know, you're like, "Oh, [censored] "

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:33 All your likes and hearts are all good, right?

Speaker 2:02:34 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:35 But it's, it's, it's, it's also the, the, the way the feed is designed, right?

Speaker 2:02:38 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:38 On Twitter, there's a button for your mentions.

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:40 Yeah.

Speaker 2:02:41 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:41 Right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:41 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:42 I don't see all my Instagram comments.

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:44 Mm.

Speaker 2:02:44 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:45 Right? Because you have to press comment, and I have to scroll-

Speaker 2:02:47 Right

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:47 ... through 100.

Speaker 2:02:48 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:48 On Twitter, it's a separate button, so if there are three buttons there-

Speaker 2:02:51 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:51 ... I'm likely to press the middle button to see what-

Speaker 2:02:53 Right

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:53 ... other people are saying.

Speaker 2:02:54 You know, to- but to your point, the, the new platform called BeReal-

Nikhil Kamath 2:02:58 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:02:59 Yeah, have you guys seen BeReal?

Speaker 2:03:00 Right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:00 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:03:00 Interesting.

Speaker 2:03:01 But I, I don't know whether people really want to see the other person being real either.

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:06 I think maybe you should take a minute to tell what BeReal is.

Speaker 2:03:09 BeReal is, is, is an app where it just randomly pops, asks you to take a picture or a snapshot of whatever you're doing at any point in time as a surprise, and you just post it, and-

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:21 Mm

Speaker 2:03:22 ... your followers will see what you're really about.

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:25 Right.

Tanmay Bhat 2:03:25 Any trend-

Speaker 2:03:26 Huh

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:27 ... that becomes really popular-

Speaker 2:03:28 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:29 ... creates a marketplace for the contrary.

Tanmay Bhat 2:03:31 Mm.

Speaker 2:03:32 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:32 So BeReal is a response to-

Tanmay Bhat 2:03:34 Mm

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:34 ... Instagram Stories-

Speaker 2:03:35 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:35 ... specifically.

Speaker 2:03:36 But I think that's a fad, and nobody really wants to go and see people-

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:40 Mm

Speaker 2:03:40 ... being real-

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:42 You think so?

Speaker 2:03:42 ... in the long run. No, it's not fun. Uh, it-

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:47 If, if we were to agree that, okay, Instagram makes people feel like [censored] .

Speaker 2:03:50 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 2:03:51 Why are people still spending so much time on it? What is-

Speaker 2:03:54 It's a fantasy world. I want to be like that. It makes me feel like [censored] . It is the world we live in.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:02 Mm.

Speaker 2:04:03 Every successful person makes me feel like [censored] in general.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:08 Mm.

Speaker 2:04:08 But I still want to be like that, and I still want to see what they're doing, and...

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:12 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:13 You know, misery is addictive.

Speaker 2:04:14 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:14 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:15 You know, ever been in a relationship [laugh] that you should have gotten out of it? [laughing] You should have gotten out earlier, but you're just like, "Ugh, I'm addicted to this drama

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:22 now." [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:23 Are you in a relationship, Tanmay?

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:24 I am not.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:25 When was the last one?

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:27 What has happened to social media? [laughing] Can you tell me, Nikhil Kamath? [laughing]

Speaker 2:04:30 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:31 Dating apps.

Speaker 2:04:32 I hooked up on social media.

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:33 Through social media?

Speaker 2:04:34 I've met people.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:35 100%.

Speaker 2:04:35 100%.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:36 My God!

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:37 Yeah, I once made out with someone inside Instagram. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:41 How do you do that?

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:41 What is hooked up through, through social media? What does that even mean? Like, met people through social media, yeah. Why are all of you so interested in my dating life? [laughing]

Speaker 2:04:49 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:49 It's fascinating to me.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:50 [laughing]

Speaker 2:04:50 [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:51 Every 15 minutes of this podcast-

Speaker 2:04:53 What is the... What is the-

Speaker 2:04:54 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:54 Hey, that's interesting. What is the role of envy in social media?

Tanmay Bhat 2:04:58 Oh, man.

Nikhil Kamath 2:04:58 How much of social media is fed by envy? [coughs]

Speaker 2:05:00 Dude-

Tanmay Bhat 2:05:01 [coughs] Dude, e- envy is the fuel for social media, and it acts out in different ways, right? Um, for example, I think a lot of, uh, a lot of whiny, a lot of whiny folks who are on Twitter, a lot of it is just envy, right? Like, like I think the hate for, uh, influencers and celebs is largely envy.

Nikhil Kamath 2:05:27 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:05:28 Um, like it's, it's-

Nikhil Kamath 2:05:30 Give us a categorization of envy. What will make people envy you the most? Is it how many followers you have?

Tanmay Bhat 2:05:37 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 2:05:37 Is it your lifestyle, how it has changed because of the following? Is it-

Tanmay Bhat 2:05:41 I mean, everybody envies different, different aspects of different people's lives, right? Um, but, like, if I, if I were to sit and [censored] about Elon Musk, but if you ask me a question saying: Would you like to be Elon Musk? The answer is 99 out of 100 people would be like, "Yeah, [censored] yes. Yeah, I would love to be Elon Musk, at least for, like, a week."

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:05 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:05 Right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:06 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:06 Um, so a lot of negative energy, I think, comes out of, out of envy. I feel, uh, whenever I see, uh, [lips smack] people going out of their way to be negative, to be in comments, it's mostly like, okay, this person is clearly having a [censored] day.

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:20 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:21 And the act of opening an app and seeing what you post voluntarily and then them commenting publicly about something [censored] about you, is usually a reflection of them not having a good day.

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:33 It's also a sense of community, right? Because they kind of collaborate with other people who are saying [censored] about you, and they feel like they're part of something. No?

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:41 Yeah.

Speaker 2:06:41 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:41 It's like-

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:42 In a way, we are, right?

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:42 ... it's like, you know, if, if someone says something [censored] to you, and 15 peop- 15 other people get to feel the same way by just liking it.

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:49 Right.

Speaker 2:06:49 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:49 Right. They don't even wanna go through the effort of-

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:51 But that's dopamine, too, right?

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:53 That's dopamine. I mean, the person who's liking it is not getting the dopamine-

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:56 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:56 ... but the person who made the comment is getting the likes, is feeling it.

Speaker 2:06:58 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:06:59 Right.

Speaker 2:06:59 Totally.

Tanmay Bhat 2:06:59 So, yeah. So sometimes if I go to a... If, if I go to a popular creator's page and make a joke or be cheeky or say something negative, I know that there are many other people who are envious, much like me, and saying something negative is gonna, is gonna get likes. Like, if you look at any of Elon's tweets, right? Like, Elon tweets, and then the first four tweets on that are people trying to dunk on him.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:22 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:22 Um, people quoting Elon to dunk on him in the hope that other people retweet it.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:28 Mm.

Speaker 2:07:28 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:29 Um-

Speaker 2:07:29 To gain popularity.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:30 What do you think he goes through?

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:31 This is called, this is called clout farming.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:33 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:33 Right? This is the word that- that's, like, cool amongst young kids-

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:37 Clout

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:37 ... clout farming.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:38 Cloud.

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:39 Farming is literally like ... [speaking Hindi] It's like, oh, you're farming for clouds.

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:44 What do

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:45 you think-

Tanmay Bhat 2:07:45 Clout

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:45 ... Elon is going through? If you had to, like, vicariously-

Speaker 2:07:48 Exactly

Nikhil Kamath 2:07:48 ... think like him. Like, why do you think he tweets as much? Is it because it's working for him?

Speaker 2:07:54 He's got the... So I don't think he has a marketing team for Tesla or SpaceX or now Twitter, or-

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:03 Or the Boring Company.

Tanmay Bhat 2:08:04 He is the mark- he, he is the marketing.

Speaker 2:08:06 If he thinks something, all of us know it. Like, how powerful is that? How many people have that?

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:12 ... I think this is the most

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:14 powerful tool there is out there, right? Like, media, social media, news media, print media-

Speaker 2:08:19 100%

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:19 -all of it.

Speaker 2:08:21 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:21 But I think the money has kind of got drained from most traditional media outlets.

Speaker 2:08:26 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:27 So it'll be interesting to watch what changes in the future. If I had to, like, put you guys on the spot and ask you for one line, what do you think will change in media bar social media in the next 10 years? And pick one company. If you were to start afresh, you would invest, in which one would it be?

Speaker 2:08:48 Interesting. I think, um, so in the world of thoughts and opinions, um, so just like in the world of TikTok-

Nikhil Kamath 2:08:59 You can't say Koo, you can't say Josh and Dailyhunt.

Speaker 2:09:02 I, I won't say it.

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:03 [chuckles]

Speaker 2:09:03 But this is what I-

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:04 Uh-huh

Speaker 2:09:04 ... kind of know deeper, so I, I'm sticking to thoughts and opinions. But in the world of short video, anybody who felt like Shah Rukh Khan or whichever cultural big guy for short video in that country, TikTok made that happen.

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:21 See-

Speaker 2:09:21 Thought leader in the world of thoughts and opinions, an app that will make anybody feel like, you know, their, uh, biggest, you know, news anchor, journalist, blah, and being able to portray themselves like a Raveesh Kumar or an Arnab Goswami, or whoever, sitting at home, giving out... belting out-

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:45 Mm

Speaker 2:09:46 ... uh, interviews, belting out their own thoughts and opinions, but look professional. Isn't that kind of, uh, experience, I think will-

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:55 And-

Speaker 2:09:55 will go a long way? Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:09:56 Pick a company which is investable in a certain way, private or public.

Speaker 2:10:01 Uh, I would... Social media, right? Um, I mean, now that's, I think-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:09 I mean, you can say print or traditional media, but I wouldn't think you will.

Speaker 2:10:12 I wouldn't, I wouldn't invest in traditional media anymore. I think democratisation of-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:17 Mm.

Speaker 2:10:17 The, the superhero won't exist-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:20 Mm

Speaker 2:10:21 ... for too long. I think decentralised superheroes is the way to go, whether you take entertainment or sports or news or whatever it is. So these are the, uh, things. Nobody is really doing it. Everybody is already famous. I think Snap is a good-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:39 Really?

Speaker 2:10:39 Yeah, like-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:40 Why?

Speaker 2:10:41 I think they, they really went on disappearing pictures, ephemeral content, and juiced it out.

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:47 Mm.

Speaker 2:10:48 Like, if I were to go back in time and invest in when there were this-

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:52 But Snap of today, no?

Speaker 2:10:55 No, not a replica of Snap.

Nikhil Kamath 2:10:56 But today, like, just compare-

Speaker 2:10:58 So I have an idea. If somebody does it, I'll invest in it. So what's cool for youngsters is to feel like the adults don't understand what I'm saying, what I'm doing, why I'm, why I'm famous. You know, all of those things. So I have an idea where, uh, if you create an app for youngsters to come and actually type what they want in English or whatever language they want, but publicly it goes as gibberish, right? But only people on that app get to know what they've said in English.

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:32 You mean they have a language of their own?

Speaker 2:11:33 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:34 Which-

Speaker 2:11:34 To the public, to the outside world, it's like Aprameya has a million likes, but adults of the world don't know what...

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:43 I resonate with that. I remember doing this-

Speaker 2:11:45 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:45 ... as a kid, when we would add the letter ph in between-

Speaker 2:11:49 Ah

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:49 ... every word or ph in between-

Speaker 2:11:50 P language. Tanmay: P language.

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:52 Yeah. You mean something like that, right?

Speaker 2:11:53 Yeah, but this is computer-generated gibberish.

Nikhil Kamath 2:11:57 Right.

Speaker 2:11:57 So you will be super curious what that 14-year-old or 15-year-old said that got a million likes amongst them.

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:04 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:12:05 But-

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:05 It's like when people DM a meme to you-

Speaker 2:12:08 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:08 ... but the page is private.

Speaker 2:12:10 Ah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:10 So you're forced to like the page-

Speaker 2:12:11 So you don't-

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:12 Just to see it

Speaker 2:12:12 ... you don't fucking know, but they know.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:14 It's an interesting idea.

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:15 Interesting idea, and-

Speaker 2:12:16 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:16 ... kids might do it just because of that.

Speaker 2:12:18 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:18 Just because of that, yeah.

Speaker 2:12:19 So this is an idea-

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:20 Mm

Speaker 2:12:20 ... it will become big, but I don't have bandwidth to do it. But if somebody does it, I'll invest. [laughing]

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:26 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:27 Nice. Tanmay, same question.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:29 Um, I think verticalization of social platforms is something that I would keep an eye out for.

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:38 Explain that.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:39 Like, LinkedIn is social, but it's for a very specific purpose.

Speaker 2:12:44 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:12:45 TikTok is social, but it's for a very specific purpose. So I wouldn't be surprised if, surprised if social plat... I mean, BeReal also is, is for a very specific purpose. So specific purpose-driven social media platforms.

Nikhil Kamath 2:12:59 And how specific do you think it'll get?

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:01 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:13:01 Will it become like Netflix we were talking about? When you're watching a movie, you chat with people who are watching the movie.

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:06 Yeah, so the- that would be a very specific purpose for which you-

Nikhil Kamath 2:13:10 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:10 ... which is consumption of content. YouTube is kind of that already.

Nikhil Kamath 2:13:15 Mm-hmm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:16 Um, that I think is... Because I think there's no one platform serves all. That day, that time is gone.

Speaker 2:13:23 I, I think the way to pick it is, if you take a horizontal guy and see what's the most active community there, and then if you can pick that and put it into a social media-

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:34 Like, just sports right now would be interesting, 'cause I'm interested in, you know, cricket, basketball, e-sports, uh, five, six, five, six different sports.

Speaker 2:13:43 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:43 That'd be interesting. Um, so I think what- I think the days of one platform serves all is probably-

Speaker 2:13:49 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:13:50 ... it's tough. Uh, because think about it, right, like, when you, when you join a Twitter, it's so difficult for you to... Like, Twitter has this problem, which is, uh, someone joins and they immediately leave, 'cause either what's on their feed is not immediately attracting to them, it doesn't make them want to contribute. Like, there was... What is the ratio called, which is, uh, viewer to creator-

Speaker 2:14:12 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:12 ... ratio?

Speaker 2:14:13 Yeah. Mac to mouth.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:14 [clears throat] Mac to mouth.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:15 Yeah.

Speaker 2:14:15 They have the least, by the way.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:16 Twitter has the least, right?

Speaker 2:14:17 Yeah, has the least.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:18 TikTok has, has the most, right?... uh, so I think, I think that's why I say verticalization, that I think is d- and I don't know, I mean, I, uh, g- I, I'm very bullish on YouTube, um, but I don't know about the Google stock.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:33 I think so, too. I actually resonate with that. I think the amount of learning, if nothing else, that's happening on YouTube, it's-

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:41 YouTube is launching YouTube Learn, by the way.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:43 Yeah.

Guest 2:14:43 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:44 And YouTube Podcasts also.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:45 That's it.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:45 They want to eat podcasts.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:46 The scale of that-

Guest 2:14:47 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:47 ... is becoming incredible.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:49 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:49 Like, I, like, I consume as much information from YouTube as I do from books.

Guest 2:14:54 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:55 Yeah. You were asking, saying, "Why, why do people enjoy video more than text," right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:14:59 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:14:59 It's like, imagine if every, if-

Guest 2:15:03 It's lazy.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:03 No, it's like, uh, did you... Have you see- read Lord of the Rings or have you seen the movie?

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:08 Mm.

Guest 2:15:08 Ah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:08 It's, uh, it, it, it's that.

Guest 2:15:09 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:10 It's just visually more appealing. If there was, if there was a way for... If there was a seamless way for someone to turn a great book-

Guest 2:15:17 Into a video

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:17 ... but make it into a three-hour documentary-

Guest 2:15:20 Yeah

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:20 ... I would, I would [beep] love that, right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:22 I think Lex has started doing that, Lex Fridman.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:24 He started doing this?

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:25 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:25 Turning books into...

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:26 Podcasts.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:27 Podcasts, ah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:28 I was watching his Animal Farm thing.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:30 Ah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:31 Mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:31 Got it. Oh, yeah, he, he tweeted about this as well.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:33 Mm, mm.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:33 Uh, that would, that would be great, um-

Guest 2:15:36 Dude, I think AI will start making movies out of-

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:39 But you never get... The thing I've realized with applications like this, I tried that Blinkist. What is that thing? Which someone-

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:46 Blink- Blinkist.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:47 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:48 Blinkist, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:48 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:48 Which is the summary.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:48 Like-

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:49 It's not the same.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:50 It's not the same at all.

Tanmay Bhat 2:15:51 It's not.

Nikhil Kamath 2:15:51 Even Lex's one-hour interpretation of Animal Farm, like I'd read the book earlier, it's probably better by a magnitude of a lot actually reading the book.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:03 Of course.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:03 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:04 'Cause so much of the joy of reading a book is-

Guest 2:16:06 Mm

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:07 ... while you're reading it, the thoughts that are going on in, as a screensaver of your brain, right?

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:11 Correct.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:11 'Cause your life's context is being matched with what's being said-

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:14 And you can't pause-

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:16 ... in that sentence

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:16 ... a video like you can pause reading a book.

Guest 2:16:18 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:19 It's right there.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:19 Yeah.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:19 Nikhil, you just press that. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:20 I know, but it's not the same thing, [laughing] you know? Yeah. But it doesn't feel like the same thing.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:26 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:26 Like, you can sit here on a thought for, like, 10 minutes, but if you're watching a video, you're like, kinda like, you know?

Guest 2:16:33 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:33 I'm lying down watching a video, I'm not gonna, like-

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:35 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:35 ... pause it.

Tanmay Bhat 2:16:35 I love that YouTube feature, though, just to double-tap to go back 15 seconds.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16:40 Mm.