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Nikhil KamathNikhil Kamath

Ep #5 | EdTech What’s Broken, What’s Next? With Nikhil, Ronnie Screwvala , Gaurav Munjal & Jay Kotak

Get ready for a gripping episode all about the EdTech revolution... We've got Gaurav and Ronnie, the masterminds behind EdTech, joining forces with Jay, who went to the best colleges, and Nikhil, who went against the college tide. Don't miss out on this discussion, where we'll uncover the magic of personalized learning, gamification, and supercharged teachers reshaping the education scene. P.S.: This episode brings you four diverse contrarian perspectives on EdTech in India that'll leave you wanting more! Nikhil Kamath - Co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon and Gruhas Follow Nikhil here:- Twitter https://twitter.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio/ Koo https://www.kooapp.com/profile/Nikhilkamath Ronnie Screwvala Chairperson & Co-Founder - UpGrad - Building Careers of Tomorrow Follow Ronnie here:- Twitter https://twitter.com/RonnieScrewvala Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ronnie.screwvala Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RonnieScrewvala/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronnie-screwvala Gaurav Munjal- Co-Founder and CEO at Unacademy Youtube @unacademy Twitter https://twitter.com/gauravmunjal Instagram instagram.com/gauravmunjal Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/gauravmunjal8/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gauravmunjal.blog/ Jay Kotak - Co-Head at Kotak811 Follow Jay here:- Twitter https://twitter.com/jay_kotakone Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jay_kotakone Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayukotak #edtech #unacademy #nikhilkamath #education #educational #technology #iit #iim #jee #neet #sslc #icse #ai #podcast #upgrad #ronniescrewvala TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 01:07 Bill Gates Windows, Gaurav Munjal Doors 04:46 Genesis of Unacademy 09:25 Ronni's entrepreneurial beginnings in a time of no Angel and VC funding 11:50 UTV 13:37 Funding, Movies and Building a B2C Business 16:00 The 30 X business model 19:30 What is Ronnie up to today? 20:25 Owning sports teams in India 22:00 Cost of owning a sports team 23:10 Jay Kotak’s Journey and him feeling older 25:55 Staying in the United States or coming back to India 27:56 Soft Power Vs Patriotism 29:41 Cricket vs. Other Sports 31:20 Imposter Complex and Balance in Entrepreneurship 37:20 Jay’s serendipitous love story 41:31 Ronnie taking a compliment and Gaurav’s drive 45:32 What does it mean to be a unicorn today - Unacademy’s scaling story! 48:40 Why did Nikhil call Jay, Ronnie and Gaurav 50:35 What is Jay building at Kotak811 53:40 How did Nikhil and Jay meet? Kotak's future 56:50 How many children in India go to private schools? 59:55 What does UpGrad do? 1:01:11 Unacademys Tournament Business and some Teachers getting paid a million $! 1:04:22 Syllabus vs Teachers 1:05:34 Ivy League vs Ed Tech 1:13:55 Roblox and gamification 1:16:06 Making Education Addictive 1:19:08 State of the Current Education System and the Future 1:21:55 Are exams and qualifications the only way to get a job? 1:25:30 How to measure talent today? 1:28:55 Why do People get degrees? Does it help prepare you for a job? 1:32:57 Why do we actually learn 1:35:30 Predicting the Future of Education, Jobs & Climate Change 1:41:50 Summary 1:42:10 Ed Tech Founders Share Insights of the Industry 1:45:35 Boot strapped Vs Funded Ventures & Physicswallah 01:48:45 TCS on LRS 1:53:00 Current State of Indian Start-Up Eco-System? 1:57:40 Learnings from their journey 2:07:35 Outro

Gaurav MunjalguestNikhil KamathhostRonnie ScrewvalaguestJay Kotakguest
Jun 11, 20232h 7mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:07

    Intro

    1. GM

      top three percent of kids get into these good colleges. What about the ninety-seven percent?

    2. NK

      If education was online, can that compete at or compare with real-life education?

    3. RS

      I think I've been blessed by not being, uh, spoiled with a lot of fundraising. [upbeat music]

    4. NK

      Do you think balance is an important part of being a successful entrepreneur?

    5. GM

      No. I hate balance. [chuckles]

    6. RS

      I think balance is a very important part of anything.

    7. JK

      The opportunity and the way this country is changing-

    8. RS

      Yeah

    9. JK

      - is a once in a-

    10. RS

      Century

    11. JK

      - century or more.

    12. RS

      Yeah.

    13. GM

      Uh, Bill Gates has started this, uh, Windows that has made him a billionaire, and I want to start Doors.

    14. NK

      It's kind of cool. [chuckles] [upbeat music] So thank you guys for coming. I think most of you here do not need an introduction, but maybe a good way to start this is, A, how do we all know each other? And, B, maybe talk about ourself for a minute or two, so we just get to know each other a bit more.

  2. 1:07 – 4:46

    Bill Gates Windows, Gaurav Munjal Doors

    1. NK

      Would you like to go first?

    2. GM

      Um, [clears throat] I'm, I'm the only non-billionaire on this panel. Um, um, I know Ronnie because he runs UpGrad, and, um, uh, I run this company called Unacademy. And, uh, I, I, I don't know, how, how do I know you? How do we ended up-

    3. NK

      Bangalore.

    4. GM

      I think you have this, uh... Yeah, you were doing a party one day.

    5. NK

      Mm.

    6. GM

      I got a message, and, uh, Jay, I'm meeting for the first time.

    7. NK

      Maybe you can tell us a more creative version of introducing yourself. So don't say what you would say in a job interview, in a college interview, or a TV interview, but tell us what you would tell your friends. Who is Gaurav?

    8. GM

      Okay, let me phrase my thoughts.

    9. RS

      Have you had a job interview?

    10. GM

      Yeah, once. Uh-

    11. RS

      Ah, okay.

    12. GM

      Well-

    13. RS

      It's a good start.

    14. NK

      So all of you are like mega brains, okay? Which college did you go to?

    15. GM

      So I, I'll, I'll start from the beginning.

    16. NK

      Yeah. Yeah.

    17. GM

      So, um, I, I was born Bikaner.

    18. NK

      Mm.

    19. GM

      Uh, and then, uh, father's a doctor. Grew up in Jaipur, uh, middle-class family. Um, but, uh, I think at the age of twelve, I went to my dad and said: "You know, I saw in Dainik Bhaskar newspaper, uh, Bill Gates has started this, uh, Windows that has made him a billionaire, and I want to start Doors." And I was coding at that point- [chuckles] ... so. [chuckles]

    20. NK

      It's kind of cool. [chuckles]

    21. GM

      At some way, I was- I could have been the poster boy of WhiteHat Jr. because I was, uh... But, but we'll get to WhiteHat Jr. at some point. Um, when I was eleven or twelve, I was aggressively coding. Um, you know, like, like you were interested in elocution, et cetera. I never, um, uh, was into sports. I was into computers, gaming, uh-

    22. NK

      Were you a bright child, good marks in school?

    23. GM

      Uh, like, I would study just before the exam, and I would get eighty, eighty-five percent.

    24. RS

      Mm.

    25. GM

      Uh, and some of the teachers... But every parents-teacher meeting, I would get reprimanded at home because I would, um, I was, I, I, I think I had this rebellious nature-

    26. NK

      Mm

    27. GM

      ... which I still do.

    28. NK

      Mm.

    29. GM

      Where I just had to, uh, uh, take my teachers to a breaking point.

    30. NK

      Mm.

  3. 4:46 – 9:25

    Genesis of Unacademy

    1. GM

      Roman, my co-founder, and I are in... At, at some point became the top twenty most followed people on Quora, just because we were writing. So at some point we found this, and Unacademy, in fact, started as a YouTube channel when I was-

    2. NK

      You should say a bit about your co-founder. He's like some academically, like, a, an anomaly of sorts.

    3. GM

      Yeah. I, I'm, I'm getting there. So we started creating-

    4. NK

      [chuckles]

    5. GM

      ... videos. Um, I started creating computer science videos, but, uh, they didn't get-

    6. NK

      Mm

    7. GM

      ... uh, a lot of views, but they got, like, fifty thousand, sixty thousand views. And then, um, I met... Roman and I know each other from school, where we used to go to chemistry tuitions together. And at some point, he was in AIIMS. Uh, he had just become a doctor. He was the youngest doctor. And then somehow he ended up cracking... He was just about to crack the UPSC exam, but the results were not out. And the day he cracked, I called him up. I thought, "This is a great opportunity. I mean, he has cracked the examination. He has three months before he has to go to Labasa. Why not? I should get some free videos out of him." So it was done as a content project, but those videos kind of became-

    8. NK

      What were these videos about? What did you talk about?

    9. GM

      UPSC preparation.

    10. NK

      Mm.

    11. GM

      Because I was making computer science videos, they used to get fifty thousand to one lakh views. But when his video came-... we got a million views. The channel became one of the biggest channels, et cetera. So-

    12. NK

      YouTube channel?

    13. GM

      Yeah. Um, YouTube channel, Unacademy. And then next one, one and a half years, uh, Himesh and I, my other co-founder, we had started this company called FlatChat. It was like Tinder, but for finding roommates. This I had started when I was in college in NMIMS. Uh, I'd raised my first angel invest-- I, I, in fact, got a first angel investment offer when I was in fourth year of college, but then I got this software engineering job, which was the first job. Um, pretty good job. So for me to come from a middle-class background and say no to that kind of offer, I think it was sixteen lakhs per annum back in two thousand and twelve. Um, I mean, it was too good to refuse. And then one year I stayed there, I paid off my education loans. I had taken an education loan to study in college. Um, and then at some point, like you said, that I realized I cannot work for somebody else's vision. I mean, I was too much of a rebel to, uh, work for somebody else. So then FlatChat was started, which CommonFloor bought in twenty fourteen. That's how I came to Bangalore. Uh, and then I was with CommonFloor for one, one and a half years. Uh, learnt how to scale a company. FlatChat was small. It was sold in ten months, uh-

    14. NK

      So did Unacademy start like that? Was it a video channel which became a business?

    15. GM

      Yes. Yes.

    16. NK

      So you started monetizing this channel?

    17. GM

      Yes. We started monetizing it, but when Roman went to Labasna, he was not, uh, um... I mean, he was not allowed to make money-

    18. NK

      Mm.

    19. GM

      -so we stopped monetization. So-

    20. NK

      The educational anomaly I was talking about is he became a doctor and then?

    21. GM

      Uh, IAS officer.

    22. NK

      Yeah.

    23. RS

      Wow!

    24. NK

      So he did both together.

    25. GM

      Yeah.

    26. RS

      That's, that's lovely.

    27. GM

      And then, and then, you know, there was this one, one and a half years of convincing. We would talk every night. It was clear that both of us would talk, figure out a way to convince his parents on how, uh, he should leave IAS, et cetera.

    28. NK

      And when did Unacademy become all that it is in terms of scale? The same question I asked him. When did you realize Unacademy is big?

    29. GM

      No, so we had that, uh, intrinsic optimism-

    30. NK

      Mm.

  4. 9:25 – 11:50

    Ronni's entrepreneurial beginnings in a time of no Angel and VC funding

    1. NK

      Would you like to go next? [chuckles]

    2. RS

      Yeah, sure.

    3. NK

      [chuckles]

    4. RS

      Uh, proud of me having a very low middle-class upbringing, uh, keeps your feet on the ground.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. RS

      And I think I'm around because I've kept my feet on the ground most of my life. That's why I'm, I'm still walking around the place. I think it's very important. Um, I had a great first innings and a lot of fun, um, by seeking out and being an entrepreneur, but in a way in which-

    7. NK

      So Ronnie, we don't know how you started off. Where did you grow up?

    8. RS

      Grew up in Mumbai, in Grant Road.

    9. NK

      Where did you go to school?

    10. RS

      [coughs] Sorry.

    11. NK

      Where did you go to school?

    12. RS

      I went to school in a place called Dun's Institute.

    13. NK

      Okay.

    14. RS

      Okay.

    15. NK

      What did your parents do?

    16. RS

      Uh, my dad has been a professional. He worked with the Tata Group for a long time.

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    18. RS

      And I think before he retired, he spent about ten years with a, a UK company called J. L. Morrison, that make Nivea cream.

    19. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    20. RS

      And my dad's-- and my brother's [coughs] got a PhD in HR. And then, I don't know, at my young age, figured out that I may not be that good implementing somebody else's vision.

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    22. RS

      So felt, [coughs] I needed to start off and do something on my own.

    23. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    24. RS

      Um, and that was when I had to decide whether I wanted to do an MBA.

    25. NK

      How old were you?

    26. RS

      Um, uh, nineteen, twenty.

    27. NK

      Mm.

    28. RS

      And I think at that stage-

    29. NK

      And what year was this?

    30. RS

      Hmm, good question. Fifty... It's about seventy-eight. [coughs] Nineteen seventy-eight. Okay, so I don't know whether that's got a validity stamp today. [laughing] In relevance to everyone's, because everywhere I had a lot of, uh, raised eyebrows here. But, um, yeah, I was at excellent crossroad, two very clear learning lessons for me at that early stage. [coughs] One is when my dad said, "Okay, I don't really figure out what you want to do, but why don't you do your MBA, do your charter accountancy, and then if you want to still-

  5. 11:50 – 13:37

    UTV

    1. NK

      first?

    2. RS

      [lips smack] Um, I started a cable TV company-

    3. NK

      Mm

    4. RS

      ... that started wiring up all of Mumbai-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... and most of the five-star hotels.

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    8. RS

      That was a time when, uh, the TV sets didn't have a remote control....So not only did we have to start selling the concept to people, but we also had to sell concepts to the TV manufacturers to start making multi-channel TV sets at that particular point in time. So that was my, I think, first sojourn into starting something.

    9. NK

      And then? When was the big moment where-

    10. RS

      There's never been a big moment. I think big moments are-

    11. NK

      Oh

    12. RS

      ... overplayed in life.

    13. NK

      Okay, when did Ronnie Screwvala become Ronnie Screwvala to people who don't know you? Who didn't know you personally. When did you become a figure, per se?

    14. RS

      Yeah, so I don't know what that criterion, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    15. NK

      [chuckles]

    16. RS

      So I don't think any one person-

    17. NK

      [chuckles]

    18. RS

      - de- defines where the other one is. But I think media-

    19. NK

      But so you wear the mask.

    20. RS

      But media is a profile-

    21. NK

      Mm

    22. RS

      ... that gets you somewhere. So I think early media days-

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. RS

      - then later media days, and then I think when we morphed to be a-

    25. NK

      Okay, you started cable?

    26. RS

      Yeah.

    27. NK

      Did very well in cable.

    28. RS

      Five years, then sold it.

    29. NK

      How much do you sell it for?

    30. RS

      Literally nothing. It ... I think at that's the stage where it was getting quite messy.

  6. 13:37 – 16:00

    Funding, Movies and Building a B2C Business

    1. NK

      to start the media stuff?

    2. RS

      So media, I think, again, is serendipity-

    3. NK

      Mm

    4. RS

      ... in many ways, right? Because, um, as coming from the lower middle-class home, I think I- since I hadn't studied, for me, learning soft skills was an important element. So instead of doing boxing and football in school, I did elocution, debates, dramatics, theatre-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... and front-of-camera hosting at that particular point in time.

    7. NK

      And what did you do in media first?

    8. RS

      So literally, that, it was pretty much that. And I think the first thing that happened is there was an advertising agency called Lintas Lowe.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. RS

      And Alec Padamsee, who used to-

    11. NK

      Yeah

    12. RS

      ... do a lot of theatre with, I used to do a lot of theatre with. So he came in one fine day and said, "You know, Hindustan Lever wants to do India's first sponsored program."

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. RS

      And that's pretty much how the company was born. And he said, "We've got to make 13 episodes of a TV show. Do you want to make it?" And I said: "Well, why are you coming to me?" He says, "You just look like the guy who's gonna be able to put it all together."

    15. NK

      Mm.

    16. RS

      And I think that's how the media part started.

    17. NK

      And that led to movies and UTV.

    18. RS

      Movies, much later.

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. RS

      I think, didn't have funding for almost six, seven years.

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. RS

      So when you don't have funding, you build a B2B model.

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. RS

      So we were a cost-plus model for everything else. We started making TV content-

    25. NK

      Right

    26. RS

      ... and doing lots of stuff.

    27. NK

      Mm.

    28. RS

      And that's when I realized, for the first time, to get in private equity, get external investors.

    29. NK

      Mm.

    30. RS

      And then media started getting defined-

  7. 16:00 – 19:30

    The 30 X business model

    1. RS

      Because I needed to build a B2C brand.

    2. NK

      Mm.

    3. RS

      And you can't build a B2C brand in media-

    4. NK

      Mm

    5. RS

      ... if you're not in the big screen part of it.

    6. NK

      Mm.

    7. RS

      And-

    8. NK

      And what was the need to build the brand? Uh, like...

    9. RS

      Just for me, I think I was starting to get obsessed with scale.

    10. NK

      Okay, scale.

    11. RS

      And I think value. Like, if you see, there are about 30, 40 companies in media that have got-

    12. NK

      Mm

    13. RS

      ... listed since the time we did that.

    14. NK

      Right.

    15. RS

      And I think if you look at their market cap for the last 20, 25 years, they haven't moved more than 10% cumulatively in the last 25 years.

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. RS

      So my realization to unlock and create value-

    18. NK

      Mm

    19. RS

      ... was to build a integrated model versus being a pure play. And at that stage, I think for six, seven years, I got slaughtered by everyone saying, "Where's your focus?"

    20. NK

      Mm.

    21. RS

      "Why are you not only into one single aspect?"

    22. NK

      Mm.

    23. RS

      Then you get competitor reviews from different people. Uh, but I think normally when you're going against the grain and you know it, means when a lot of people think they've not understood your model, I've found that that's normally where 10X, 10X, or 20X value gets created.

    24. NK

      So do you think these still hold true, like B2C is where value can really be created, even today?

    25. RS

      A B2C business today, you're saying in, in media specifically?

    26. NK

      Not, not in media, in anything.

    27. RS

      Yeah, it's a tougher one. So I think when one got into education-

    28. NK

      Mm

    29. RS

      ... and one got into learning-

    30. NK

      Mm

  8. 19:30 – 20:25

    What is Ronnie up to today?

    1. NK

      And how does Ronnie spend time today? Like, how much time does which business take up?

    2. RS

      So I'm not a, I'm not very big at breaking up-

    3. NK

      Yeah

    4. RS

      ... time. I think the elasticity-

    5. NK

      Mm.

    6. RS

      I think I've been blessed with, uh, keeping my feet on the ground most of the time.

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. RS

      I think I've been blessed by not being, uh, spoiled with a lot of fundraising-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. RS

      ... from time to time, which I think really corrupts-

    11. NK

      Mm

    12. RS

      ... people-

    13. NK

      Right

    14. RS

      ... and corrupts minds, and corrupts businesses-

    15. NK

      Right

    16. RS

      ... and corrupts many other things. But I've also been most blessed that I enjoy everything that I've done.

    17. NK

      Right.

    18. RS

      So I think my media part, to do that-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. RS

      ... uh, and the level at which you do it, and I think what I'm doing right now, whether it's our not-for-profit-

    21. NK

      Mm

    22. RS

      ... foundation-

    23. NK

      Mm

    24. RS

      ... or whether it's going back and doing a little bit of storytelling in the movies, mostly with the skilling and workforce development and learning platform-

    25. NK

      Mm

    26. RS

      ... uh, that we're trying to build globally.

    27. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    28. RS

      And a little bit having

  9. 20:25 – 22:00

    Owning sports teams in India

    1. RS

      fun with, um, sports teams like the Kabaddi one where-

    2. NK

      You both have a sports team, right? In the same league.

    3. JK

      We both have two, uh, sports teams, technically-

    4. RS

      Yeah

    5. JK

      ... because we also own-

    6. NK

      Kabaddi?

    7. JK

      - table tennis.

    8. NK

      Table tennis?

    9. JK

      It's a small-

    10. NK

      Yeah

    11. JK

      ... that's a smaller property, but still fun.

    12. NK

      Yeah?

    13. JK

      Yeah.

    14. NK

      Do you guys ever like... I mean, I know you don't play Kabaddi. I'm hoping the answer is that. Like, but table tennis, you must enjoy it?

    15. JK

      Yeah.

    16. RS

      Yeah.

    17. JK

      Yeah.

    18. NK

      Have you tried Kabaddi?

    19. RS

      Uh, Kabaddi for me-

    20. NK

      Yeah [chuckles]

    21. RS

      ... would go back a long time, right?

    22. NK

      Jay is young. Jay can still-

    23. JK

      I mean, unfortunately, not young enough.

    24. NK

      [laughing]

    25. JK

      Uh, I've played a little bit.

    26. NK

      Right.

    27. JK

      But that's more just after the team happened and then trying to-

    28. NK

      Mm

    29. JK

      ... you know, see what it is.

    30. NK

      Are they, are they nice to you and don't really go hard on you because you're their boss in a way?

  10. 22:00 – 23:10

    Cost of owning a sports team

    1. NK

      he had come for a Kabaddi game.

    2. RS

      Yep.

    3. NK

      So we were talking about it, and it seems like the learning curve or, or the amount of money you need to set up a Kabaddi game is not as high as many other sports.

    4. RS

      Yep.

    5. NK

      You don't need a stadium like cricket and football.

    6. RS

      Yeah.

    7. NK

      And if you're close to the action, it, it does... I, I see the appeal at some level.

    8. RS

      Yeah. I mean, in India, sports is quite different.

    9. NK

      Uh.

    10. RS

      There, if you're in the US, you need to own a stadium, you need to own the infrastructure. Here, you don't need-

    11. NK

      Mm

    12. RS

      ... necessarily, even in cricket, to necessarily own the venue.

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. RS

      And they're normally quite segregated. But yeah, I think the Kabaddi-

    15. NK

      Have these teams become profit-making now?

    16. JK

      Yes. But it depends on how you account for it in terms of allocated cost and how much non-discretionary spend you are doing, in terms of are you building a youth program? Are you doing scouting? Are you investing in building any physical infrastructure?

    17. NK

      Mm.

    18. JK

      So maybe, uh, also, Ronnie is in, uh, Mumbai, I'm in Pune. His fixed cost tends to be a little higher.

    19. RS

      Yeah.

    20. NK

      Mm.

    21. RS

      Yeah. But right now, I think we are all having more fun-

    22. NK

      Mm

    23. RS

      ... than the monetary gains from it, I would say.

    24. JK

      Yeah, I agree.

  11. 23:10 – 25:55

    Jay Kotak’s Journey and him feeling older

    1. NK

      Would you like to go next, Jay?

    2. JK

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Tell us about yourself.

    4. JK

      Yeah, sure. So first, uh, fun to learn, Ronnie, about you before I knew you, because I only knew you from two thousand and fourteen. I only know the later stage of, uh, Ronnie, and I echo a lot of the things that he said, like resonated with me. Uh, middle-class values, feeling older. Uh, now I'm meeting and interviewing people born in two thousand and one.

    5. NK

      Mm.

    6. JK

      And-

    7. NK

      How old are you now, Jay?

    8. JK

      I'm eighty-nine, so I'm thirty-three.

    9. NK

      So you're the youngest one.

    10. JK

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      How old are you, Gaurav?

    12. GM

      Uh, I'm ninety born.

    13. NK

      Oh, wow!

    14. JK

      Also...

    15. NK

      I'm older than both of you then.

    16. JK

      Yeah.

    17. NK

      Okay, go on. [chuckles]

    18. RS

      [chuckles] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Um, I'll have to just act young. [laughing]

    19. NK

      [laughing]

    20. GM

      But we-

    21. NK

      But-

    22. GM

      ... we both were born on the same date.

    23. NK

      But considering you went to MBA or whatever, around seventy-eight, you don't look your age.

    24. RS

      Right.

    25. GM

      No.

    26. RS

      Or didn't do my MBA, but yeah.

    27. JK

      Yeah.

    28. NK

      No.

    29. JK

      I agree. I would've-

    30. NK

      Yeah.

  12. 25:55 – 27:56

    Staying in the United States or coming back to India

    1. JK

      when I was taking that decision, you know, three weeks before I was going to graduate, I was evaluating, "Hey, do I want to stay in the US?" It's a pretty comfortable life. Work at a private equity fund or an investment bank or a tech company there, or do I want to come back? And my father actually called me, and rare that he would do something like this.

    2. NK

      Mm.

    3. JK

      And he said: "I really do think, uh, you should come back for India, not as much necessarily for Kotak, because the opportunity and the way this country is changing-

    4. NK

      Yeah.

    5. JK

      -is a once in a...

    6. NK

      Century.

    7. JK

      Century or more.

    8. NK

      Yeah.

    9. JK

      If you think over the last five or six centuries, this has only happened six or seven times.

    10. NK

      Yeah.

    11. JK

      And, um, that-- I kind of took that plunge, and I'm, I'm, I'm glad I did.

    12. NK

      Where did you go to college?

    13. JK

      I went to undergrad at-

    14. NK

      Like him, like, tell us where you went to school, when you went out.

    15. JK

      Sure. I went to school at, uh, Cathedral and John Conan School in Mumbai, and then went to college to Columbia-

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. JK

      -in New York. Came back, worked for a few years, mostly, uh, consulting, investment banking, not at Kotak, and then went to business school. I did my MBA at Harvard in Boston. I graduated two thousand and seventeen, and since then I've been in India. And I actually, after MBA, joined Kotak, spent a couple of years doing capital markets, which was the original kind of, uh, strength and, you know, original business-

    18. NK

      Mm.

    19. JK

      -of the Kotak group. And then I moved into consumer and B2C ever since.

    20. NK

      I remember meeting him-

    21. JK

      Mm.

    22. NK

      -meeting up with you in Boston, your last two, three months of your Harvard, this thing. And I remember having that breakfast conversation with you, and you were still debating on India or not India.

    23. JK

      Yeah, yeah.

    24. NK

      And glad your dad convinced you, or?

    25. JK

      We were on the same page.

    26. NK

      Yeah.

    27. JK

      You were on the same page. I'm glad. It's best, best decision, not just for, for me, but for anybody in my generation. And I'm seeing a lot of-

    28. NK

      People coming back.

    29. JK

      Lot of people coming back.

    30. NK

      It's a very interesting train

  13. 27:56 – 29:41

    Soft Power Vs Patriotism

    1. NK

      of thought, right? Like, go back in time. Is patriotism defined by arbitrary boundaries drawn at one point of time? I would, I would also like, you know, put a cave- caveat in here and say some countries are more patriotic than us. Like, I feel like America does an amazing job of selling patriotism.

    2. JK

      No, wait, wait. So that's a soft power approach.

    3. NK

      Mm.

    4. JK

      We should not mix that up.

    5. NK

      Yeah.

    6. JK

      And I'm glad you brought that up there-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. JK

      ... Right? Because obviously, that's a soft power approach-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. JK

      -where it's only the view from one particular side and point of view.

    11. NK

      Mm.

    12. JK

      So yeah, they've done a remarkable one-sided job-

    13. NK

      Mm

    14. JK

      -on soft power.

    15. NK

      Mm.

    16. JK

      Okay? Where you can make a movie about an assassin that-

    17. NK

      Mm

    18. JK

      -shot one hundred and twenty-three, uh, people-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. JK

      -in a country they went and occupied.

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. JK

      But if the other person had done it from the other side-

    23. NK

      Mm

    24. JK

      -you're not going to see a Hollywood movie on that, right? So whether you can call it Sniper or you can call it XYZ, uh, but they've done a great job.

    25. NK

      Is there a, is there a correlation between how many patriotic movies are made-

    26. JK

      Yeah

    27. NK

      ... to the underlying patriotism in the country?

    28. JK

      Soft power for America in every sense of the word. I mean, there's your Silicon Valley, and there's your technology-

    29. NK

      Mm. Mm

    30. JK

      -and then there's Hollywood, and yeah. I think, I think... I would say cricket and Bollywood for India are very internal-

  14. 29:41 – 31:20

    Cricket vs. Other Sports

    1. NK

      Mm.

    2. JK

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Do you think, because you both have a bird's-eye view on kabaddi, do you see cricket losing the kind of viewership with the newer generations than it did in maybe, for maybe people in their thirties and forties?

    4. JK

      I-

    5. NK

      What about the youngsters?

    6. JK

      I don't think so. I think there is enough space in India-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. JK

      ... for multiple sports to coexist, and I think cricket is around to stay. You can never say forever. If you look at a sport like baseball, for example, in the US, it is on a steady kind of declining trend, but the US still has four major sports.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. JK

      And they are-- for me, it's more about-

    11. GM

      ... the fact that they emphasize different elements of human skill.

    12. RS

      Mm.

    13. GM

      You think about a baseball that's a little more like cricket.

    14. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    15. GM

      A basketball that is about a height-

    16. RS

      Mm

    17. GM

      ... reflexes, you know, uh, endurance, intensity.

    18. RS

      Mm.

    19. GM

      American football, you'll often see some of those footballers are fat, you know? Uh, and there's a whole host of, uh, different skill sets on a, a football field. The act of going to a football game is like an all-day event, two hours from the city, as opposed to a basketball game, which is like going to a movie. I see the same kind of thing manifesting itself, uh-

    20. RS

      Mm

    21. GM

      ... in India. Same thing in the UK with rugby, cricket-

    22. RS

      Mm

    23. GM

      ... football. Kabaddi is very different from cricket-

    24. RS

      Mm

    25. GM

      ... in the kind of elements of human skill that it emphasizes, and it's a very different viewership proposition. It's a shorter game, it's a 40-minute game. It's a very high-intensity, 30-second, uh, piece, and I think that's what makes it exciting. And you can go for a kabaddi game as a family-

    26. RS

      Mm

    27. GM

      ... like you would for a movie in the evening-

    28. RS

      Mm

    29. GM

      ... see it and come back.

    30. RS

      Right.

  15. 31:20 – 37:20

    Imposter Complex and Balance in Entrepreneurship

    1. NK

      Can I ask you guys a very interesting question? Digress a little bit. Like, when all three of you spoke about your life, your journeys, uh, you brought up the middle-class upbringing, the middle-class values. I'm also from a middle-class family, right? Uh, do you think we do this subconsciously to signal the perception of us we want to be known- we want others to know us for?

    2. RS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Because we have a little bit of imposter complex.

    4. RS

      Yeah, it's important.

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. RS

      It... Yeah, we do. I, I would say yes, but it's an important part of the narrative, right? Because your, your-

    7. NK

      But is it the, is it a truly important part of the narrative of why the three of you are successful, or is it an important part of justifying the narrative?

    8. RS

      Well, two parts to that. One is, it's important to be part of the narrative because you asked the question, because we're sitting here having a conversation-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. RS

      ... which we're assuming other people will want a gleam out of-

    11. NK

      Mm

    12. RS

      ... and therefore, the context is important. And second, yes, I do genuinely believe that the grounding-

    13. NK

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... that one got, and I think when I listen to what-

    15. NK

      Mm

    16. RS

      ... Jay said-

    17. NK

      Mm

    18. RS

      ... that there's a, there's a grounding that you get. So I think it's important to refer to that. And you're not saying it-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. RS

      ... so that you can say, "Look, once upon a time, I was here, and now I'm here." I don't think that's the context.

    21. NK

      But can I also ask you a question? Who does not want to imbibe middle-class values on their kids? Like, I would think most wealthy people in the world are trying to teach their kids middle-class vam- values in one way or another. So how are we unique, or how is that unique in each of your own journeys? Because that-

    22. RS

      Well, I'd pivot it out the other way-

    23. NK

      Uh

    24. RS

      ... because who doesn't is a very small minority of who doesn't.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. RS

      Because you're talking about it with the top-angle view.

    27. NK

      Right.

    28. RS

      I think we're all looking in from the bottom-angle view.

    29. GM

      Bottoms up, yeah.

    30. RS

      And in the bottom-angle view-

  16. 37:20 – 41:31

    Jay’s serendipitous love story

    1. NK

      Yeah.

    2. JK

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Which phase, which cycle are you in right now?

    4. JK

      I'm right now in the... Actually, I'm in the middle of cycles. I would say the last three years has been a lot of, uh, drill-down work-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. JK

      ... and all work-related. But now, uh, I'm getting married this year, so I think that is going to necessitate some-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. JK

      ... changes in balance.

    9. NK

      Tell, tell them the story about your-

    10. JK

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      Okay, let me do, like, half of it, and you can do the-

    12. JK

      Yeah

    13. NK

      ... finishing part of it.

    14. JK

      Nikhil's been waiting to set this up. [laughing]

    15. NK

      [laughing] No, I'm happy it worked out the way it did. So one day, me and Jay go out for a meal in Bombay. We go for dinner. Where did we go?

    16. JK

      Uh, I met you at Mekong, at Lanzen.

    17. NK

      Yeah.

    18. JK

      I think-

    19. NK

      Not Mekong.

    20. JK

      Not Mekong. What is it?

    21. NK

      We were sitting on that, uh, lobby place.

    22. JK

      Huh. But, but, but I saw you at Me- at, at, at the... There's a, there's a Chinese restaurant-

    23. NK

      Correct

    24. JK

      ... at Lanzen.

    25. NK

      Correct.

    26. JK

      And then we-

    27. NK

      Japanese or Chinese.

    28. JK

      And then we had coffee-

    29. NK

      Yeah

    30. JK

      ... uh, at the-

  17. 41:31 – 45:32

    Ronnie taking a compliment and Gaurav’s drive

    1. JK

      Thank you

    2. NK

      ... I thought this group would be very interesting. Uh, we have one very savvy investor-cum-entrepreneur, cum has done everything in life, from producing movies to media, uh-

    3. RS

      And how do you define savviness? Because I think savviness is a, it's a, it-

    4. NK

      In-

    5. RS

      ... you get a, it's a nomenclature that you get into sometimes.

    6. NK

      In the world that we live in today, my benchmark, my metric, is capitalism, and through those lens, historically, looking at your track record, you're very savvy. Fair?

    7. RS

      Uh, beauty is in the eye of the beholder-

    8. NK

      [laughing]

    9. JK

      [chuckles]

    10. RS

      ... so I'll accept it from that point of view, for sure.

    11. NK

      Capitalism kind of removes the beauty in the eye of the beholder argument, 'cause we're all viewing from similar lens.

    12. RS

      Yeah, but just to complete that off, and to what maybe Gaurav said earlier-

    13. JK

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... I can't visualize ever when I was getting turned on over who drove what car.

    15. JK

      Yeah.

    16. NK

      Yeah.

    17. RS

      I think for me-

    18. NK

      Are you bad at taking compliments generally in life?

    19. RS

      I just... Sorry?

    20. NK

      Like, are you bad at taking compliments in life generally?

    21. RS

      Yeah, maybe I am.

    22. NK

      Because that's subconsciously-

    23. RS

      Yeah

    24. NK

      ... a trigger to something else. Why do you think that is?

    25. RS

      ... my own self-conviction maybe-

    26. NK

      That's a good question.

    27. RS

      I, I mean, I don't know. I don't-

    28. NK

      Self-conviction would help you take a compliment.

    29. RS

      I was trying to f- I think my ... I think you're very right and very intuitive on that. Maybe I'll, I'll take it one level forward, that I was trying to fine-tune it even more further-

    30. NK

      Mm.

  18. 45:32 – 48:40

    What does it mean to be a unicorn today - Unacademy’s scaling story!

    1. GM

      So, so, so, so for us, I mean, for us it was the fact that who has made it big in the venture capital game, and, and to be tagged as a unicorn. I mean, when we were 25 years old, me, Roman, and Himesh, one of the goals was that, you know, if we can make a unicorn before 30, that would be awesome. And it did happen.

    2. RS

      Meaning convince four or five people to give you a lot of money at a higher value.

    3. GM

      But-

    4. RS

      That was- that's what it would mean, right?

    5. GM

      But unlike some other companies, our company has also created value. So yeah, but-

    6. RS

      Yeah

    7. GM

      ... essentially that. Essentially.

    8. RS

      I'm, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just curious about that. I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not ... I'm, I'm, I'm very happy with my announce Gaurav, but I'm, I'm trying to ... Because I think it's the messaging that we all do in a conversation is very important.

    9. GM

      No, no, so I get it. I mean, if I were to look back-

    10. RS

      And I'm half-javing you, so don't get me wrong. [laughing]

    11. GM

      [chuckles] If, if I were to look back, should I have chased valuation the way I did? Probably not. But it did teach me a lot of things, and at some point, you know, Unacademy in the last 12 months, the way we have focused on EBITDA, uh, I think very few venture-funded companies have. And this month will be the first month where we are cash flow positive. So I think that journey wasn't easy, but, uh-

    12. RS

      That's a hardcore capitalistic talk now.

    13. NK

      But, uh, one thing I have to add in Gaurav's defense is what he's saying, that valuation game, he was not the only one playing it.

    14. GM

      Oh, no.

    15. NK

      There were, like, millions of people who wanted to achieve what he achieved. So regardless of market cycles, and when money-

    16. GM

      Yeah

    17. NK

      ... drains out and interest rates go up, I think a lot of credit goes to him for having been able to get that money, scale Unacademy in the manner that he did, and I think he should take pride in that, and-

    18. RS

      Always.

    19. NK

      Yeah.

    20. GM

      No, I, I would, I would be a little humble here and say that, um, there was only one feedback that Shailendra and Dipendra and Bhavin, these three people are- have been good mentors, and they've built companies, they have helped build companies. They kept saying that, "Don't let your ego come in between."

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. GM

      So I just, I was just... I accepted the reality, but there were 10 people who told me what to do. So i- I just didn't let it get into my head that, oh, just because I, like, I could convince five people to value me at a certain valuation doesn't ... And, and by the way, this happens with a lot of other founders. Um, rest, how to execute or, you know, how to do that, et cetera, I think that was the easy part. But listening and having that acceptance that you [censored] up or you over-hired people, um, and the journey of letting go of, of people would be a tough one. So I think, uh, doing that acceptance was the major part. Uh, once you accept that, "Hey, I did... I [censored] up," there are 10 people who will tell you, "You have to reduce your fixed cost, you have to reduce your S&M, you have to reduce your G&A."

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. GM

      And then, um, and, and then we probably did.

    25. NK

      Yeah. But that's all that matters, bro. As long as you guys have course-corrected in a direction that will make you-... bigger, better, stronger in the future. I mean, see, at the end of the day, we all wish each other the best,

  19. 48:40 – 50:35

    Why did Nikhil call Jay, Ronnie and Gaurav

    1. NK

      right?

    2. RS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      And, yeah, yeah. So where I was at before this conversation is we have one very, very savvy person because he's done so many things. We have a very articulate friend of mine, Jay, who has gone to the best colleges in the world and gotten great marks and-

    4. JK

      Not really.

    5. NK

      How much did you get?

    6. JK

      I was always- [laughing]

    7. RS

      Not-

    8. NK

      How did you, how did you get into Harvard?

    9. JK

      I, I was a good student.

    10. NK

      Yeah.

    11. JK

      Uh, I was a very good student-

    12. NK

      Mm.

    13. JK

      -but I was not, uh, I wasn't always in the top ten percent, not in the top one percent, in all of my classes, all through.

    14. RS

      See, that's the benchmark that you come up with, not in the top ten percent, but, uh, yeah.

    15. JK

      No, but in... Typically, you know, there is this kind of culture in India that, like, you have to have ninety-nine or ninety-eight.

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. JK

      And I was always eighty-nine, ninety, uh, k- kind of.

    18. NK

      Which is good. And then we have another engineer who has done so well, and you have me, who has not gone to college, is fairly illiterate from the traditional lens. So putting four people like us together, right? Like, one who doesn't have any education, one Harvard, one like, so much experience and so many other things-

    19. RS

      But also with-

    20. NK

      Also-

    21. RS

      -very little education.

    22. NK

      But you went to college, you said.

    23. RS

      I did my B.Com, and that was it.

    24. NK

      Yeah.

    25. RS

      So you're saying that's, that qualifies bigger time, right?

    26. NK

      That's four, that's four years more than I did. [chuckles] And I thought if we all come together and we talk about education overall-

    27. RS

      Mm.

    28. NK

      -not just for everybody looking to build a product, a company in education, uh, any kind of a business ancillary to education. I thought four diverse views like this should help an entrepreneur starting off today. So that's the intent of today, and, uh, it's not about our individual companies-

    29. RS

      Yeah.

    30. NK

      ... it's not about how well Unacademy is doing, or UpGrad is doing, or Kotak Bank is doing. Uh, Kotak Bank is-

  20. 50:35 – 53:40

    What is Jay building at Kotak811

    1. NK

      we should-

    2. JK

      No, no

    3. NK

      ... be commenting about it.

    4. RS

      Yeah.

    5. JK

      Kotak Bank is not... So I can't take a remote credit for that. I'll only take credit for a little bit of Kotak811 inside Kotak Bank. Kotak Bank is not-

    6. NK

      Could, will you elaborate on that a little bit? Because we'd like to know what Jay is doing at 811.

    7. JK

      Hmm. Uh, okay.

    8. RS

      What, what is 811?

    9. JK

      Uh, [exhales] 811 stands for, interestingly, given the news that happened yesterday, 8th of November, uh, which was the date of demonetization, where we, as a traditional slash legacy bank, uh, started a immediate online account opening, which was never allowed before that. Along with demonetization, uh, a set of new interesting and very progressive regulation came that allowed bank accounts to be opened for the first time without a wet signature. So Kotak started a product called Kotak811 that basically allowed that to happen, and, and it saw extremely high uptake because it turns out that a lot of India was, and to a lesser extent still is, not banked or underbanked, and that has been a journey. And recently we've-- seeing the scale of that opportunity, we've, uh, in a management segregation, not a legal entity segregation, very important because regulatory businesses have to be, uh, carved it out, uh, as a bank in bank management segregation. And we think of ourselves a little more as a digital bank slash fintech, but, you know, fully regulated, um, business.

    10. RS

      That's nice, and you took that eight... I mean, it's eight-eleven, but you call it eight-one-one.

    11. JK

      We call it, uh, uh-

    12. RS

      Yeah

    13. JK

      ... so it's Kotak811.

    14. RS

      And nine-eleven, they couldn't have called it nine-one-one-

    15. JK

      Mm

    16. RS

      ... otherwise it would have been the emergency number-

    17. JK

      Exactly

    18. RS

      ... in, in America, right? So I think-

    19. JK

      It turns out that most people in India have no i- no concept of what nine-one-one is.

    20. NK

      Tell us, tell us what 811 does broadly-

    21. JK

      Uh

    22. NK

      ... like if you had to categorize it in a bucket.

    23. JK

      You can open a bank account in three minutes-

    24. NK

      Mm

    25. JK

      ... sitting in your living room on your phone. It's a partial KYC account, and you get a virtual debit card. You can start transacting immediately. So element one of the proposition is that it's, uh, fully, you know, straight through. We do around, uh, six lakh accounts a month, so give or take twenty thousand o- order day, which is considerable. So 811 now contributes seventy, seventy to seventy-five percent of the total accounts that Kotak opens. Uh, and that's just the, the power of digital and why I'm in Bangalore so much. The second element of the value proposition is that we are an unbundled offering. Think of it like how IndiGo disrupted Jet Airways. We have zero balance. We are the only large bank in India to offer a bank account with zero minimum balance, which is very compelling for most of India that does not have ten thousand rupees to put.

    26. NK

      So would you, like, summarize and say it is banking focused on the young in a fast, efficient, near zero cost manner?

    27. JK

      Yes. I guess that's a good, good way to summarize it.

    28. NK

      The one thing I have to add, like, you know-

    29. RS

      Especially for a very underbanked nation.

    30. NK

      Yeah, yeah. The one thing I have to add

  21. 53:40 – 56:50

    How did Nikhil and Jay meet? Kotak's future

    1. NK

      about Jay is, before the story about him meeting his now to be wife and all of that, the very first time I met Jay is when I had gone to the Kotak Bank office, where Jay was sitting, and pitched their family a product which would-- a product of ours, which would manage a part of their money. And this was a few years before that. And, uh, I will say this about Jay, right? A lot of people look at people who are popular personalities, kids, and make up preconceived notions in their mind. Uh, but Jay was refreshingly different. He is not somebody's son alone, but Jay, on his own, is extremely impressive. Uh, like-... for the, for the first, I don't know how many times we met, he would never even, like, mention his dad once or, you know, that he's the son of this person, he owns this bank, and all of that. And I hope personally, because we have a relationship and, you know, whatever, I hope that one day when that opportunity comes, uh, I hope that opportunity comes to lead Kotak Bank, but I can't think of somebody who has more, you know, natural ability. He's so calm, stable, uh, has so many facets which would serve well in leading an institution of that size.

    2. RS

      Yep, couldn't agree with you more.

    3. JK

      Yeah.

    4. NK

      I appreciate that, but- [chuckles]

    5. JK

      Yeah. [chuckles]

    6. NK

      Uh, Kotak-

    7. RS

      Now he's gonna-

    8. JK

      Humility as well.

    9. NK

      I miss that.

    10. RS

      No, I think he's gonna pull the regulator and the regulation on-

    11. JK

      No, no, it's not, it's not just about regulation. It's, it's, it's a large business.

    12. NK

      Mm.

    13. JK

      We are twenty-six percent shareholder.

    14. NK

      Yeah.

    15. JK

      There are seventy-four other, and, uh, leadership and future has to be decided in the context of what is best for all. I am committed in what I'm doing right now, and of course, by virtue of being, uh, the largest shareholder, we are aligned with the future of the business. But for me, I don't see that as a necessary-

    16. RS

      So do you think he's not taking compliments well either, like you asked me? [chuckles]

    17. NK

      No! No, I, I, I think this is... He's taking it better than you, I must say.

    18. JK

      Okay.

    19. NK

      Because you have, like, this aversion where you reject it blanket, but he's trying to like, you know, incorporate another facet.

    20. RS

      He's adding to it.

    21. JK

      No, I don't agree with a lot of your compliments, because I do think that-

    22. NK

      Uh

    23. JK

      ... uh-

    24. NK

      This is the best compliment of them all.

    25. JK

      No, no, no.

    26. NK

      The fact that you're not agreeing with my compliment.

    27. JK

      It's having a head start-

    28. NK

      Mm

    29. JK

      ... from being born in what was, when I was much younger, I was, you know, we were not very affluent, but still, you know, privileged, uh, parents that value your education, being able to send you to an American school-

    30. NK

      Mm

  22. 56:50 – 59:55

    How many children in India go to private schools?

    1. NK

      That's a good way to come back to this. They say that, what was the number? Somebody was telling me forty to fifty percent of school-going children in India go to private schools. Uh, if government schools, in their form today, don't function, do you think that is a testament to how they don't function, as to how they have to change? The very fact that fifty percent of India, and we are talking about India, where, you know, like maybe three, four percent of our country pays tax, so that fifty percent is not affluent, which is taking the additional hassle of paying school fees and the expenses and all of that, sending their children to private schools. Does that talk about public schools in a-

    2. RS

      It, it-

    3. NK

      I wouldn't say derogatory.

    4. RS

      Is that number, is that number true? I'm not sure about the number, but I'd just say it in two parts.

    5. NK

      Mm.

    6. RS

      Firstly, I think the US, by the way, the school, the schooling is not so great.

    7. JK

      I was going to say exactly that.

    8. NK

      Yeah.

    9. RS

      There's enough people who come back from the US-

    10. JK

      Yeah

    11. RS

      ... in the fifth standard-

    12. NK

      Yeah

    13. RS

      ... and here will have to go in the third standard.

    14. NK

      Right.

    15. RS

      So that should give you a pretty quick benchmark on that.

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. RS

      And look, we work with about twelve hundred schools in rural India-

    18. NK

      Mm

    19. RS

      ... and I can tell you, since you're bringing that-

    20. NK

      Mm

    21. RS

      ... when those are zilla parishads-

    22. NK

      Mm

    23. RS

      ... and those are what you would call the-

    24. NK

      Mm

    25. RS

      ... the schools. But I think there is a sense of infrastructure that also pulls it down. It's not just that-

    26. NK

      Mm

    27. RS

      ... it's the faculties, the teaching, and whatever else you go there.

    28. NK

      Mm.

    29. RS

      But I can tell you, when we started opening a library-

    30. NK

      Mm

  23. 59:55 – 1:01:11

    What does UpGrad do?

    1. NK

      us, like, thirty seconds on what UpGrad does, and I'll come to you next. Mm.

    2. RS

      Yeah. So if I were to sort of define it, I think education is a very calendared event-

    3. NK

      Mm

    4. RS

      ... and it's a very preconceived notion where-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... you go through a certain portion of your life, and it's over.

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. RS

      And I think we want to disrupt that space in today's... For us, the definition of what we want to build-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. RS

      ... is a sort of what I would call a learning, skilling, and a workforce development company.

    11. NK

      Mm.

    12. RS

      And-

    13. NK

      Do you also skill people who are already working?

    14. RS

      Yes. In fact, most of the people we skill-

    15. NK

      Mm

    16. RS

      ... have to be in some sense of a job and working, and the earliest we do is college learners or the last year of college people.

    17. NK

      You take people in when they're eighteen, nineteen, that kind of age group?

    18. RS

      We don't take, but they come to us. But yeah. [chuckles] Uh, because I think take-

    19. NK

      Do you reject?

    20. RS

      ... No. See, the beauty about technology and online is it's a much more inclu-

    21. NK

      You say take because you don't do a pull, you don't do marketing, advertising as much. Is that why?

    22. RS

      No, no, for two reasons.

    23. NK

      Yeah.

    24. RS

      One is, it's a option at that stage, you know?

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. RS

      That's why the calendar event, it's not an option.

    27. NK

      Mm.

    28. RS

      It's programmed in your life. You have to go to school, or you have to go to college-

    29. NK

      Mm

    30. RS

      ... or you're going to be called a dropout-

  24. 1:01:11 – 1:04:22

    Unacademys Tournament Business and some Teachers getting paid a million $!

    1. NK

      Right. How is Unacademy different?

    2. GM

      So Unacademy is ... I, I don't- internally also, we don't think we are in the education business, we think we are in the tournament business. So what happens is, today, whether it's 60 million people give, uh, these competitive examinations.

    3. NK

      Mm.

    4. GM

      You have your UPSC, you have your NEET, you have JEE. And [lips smack] for a huge, like for almost everyone who comes to 11th standard or 10th standard-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. GM

      ... the only way to change their socioeconomic status-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. GM

      ... is by getting selected into these examinations.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. GM

      Because I, I like to think that, uh, and, and this is what's similar to, um, what UpGrad also does, is it helps people get better jobs-

    11. NK

      Mm

    12. GM

      ... makes them better skilled.

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. GM

      So I think that's, that-

    15. NK

      Are you both at the same price point in a way?

    16. GM

      No, but, but we are in different markets.

    17. RS

      Very different mar- very different segments.

    18. NK

      But similar price points?

    19. RS

      Uh, no.

    20. GM

      No, no.

    21. NK

      Which would be higher and lower?

    22. GM

      No, no. So, so, you know, we'd cater for the SSC examination-

    23. NK

      Mm

    24. GM

      ... where a annual subscription would cost 5,000 rupees.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. GM

      But we have a JEE examination, where an annual subscription would cost 1.2 lakhs.

    27. NK

      Mm.

    28. GM

      So we are sort of in that tournament business, where, let's say, if people get selected and they go into an IIT, their life will change. The life of their-

    29. NK

      Because IIT is like a lottery, you say tournament, because so few get in?

    30. GM

      Yes.

  25. 1:04:22 – 1:05:34

    Syllabus vs Teachers

    1. GM

      And some of them-

    2. NK

      Can, can I interject once? Is that the differentiation why one EdTech platform works over another, quality of teachers? Is it syllabus, is it teachers?

    3. GM

      But again, see, you need to realize-

    4. RS

      In this segment, it would be different. I mean, for me, uh, and for the overall working professional, it's a lot of plus, plus, plus.

    5. GM

      Mm.

    6. RS

      It's not necessarily teachers and faculty, which is the epicenter of it.

    7. NK

      Is it the syllabus? Like, if you had to pick one at UpGrad, would you say syllabus have more weightage or do teachers do?

    8. RS

      No, I think learning experience and the whole process of learning, because it's online, is the most important part of it, and connecting. Otherwise, I mean, just a lecture today is not gonna move the needle from all points of view.

    9. GM

      Mm.

    10. RS

      And if you have- just have a TED Talk, that's not how you're gonna learn for the next level of what you want-

    11. NK

      Yeah. Yeah

    12. RS

      ... to necessarily do, right? So I think that is the pivotal part. So for us, learning experience. Right now, to me, what I think is gonna revolutionize learning-

    13. NK

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... is peer-to-peer learning.

    15. NK

      Mm.

    16. RS

      So while we are talking about teachers and faculty, I can see that trend in the next five years, the power of everything that's gonna go to the next level. And maybe not in school, because you do need that basic element.

    17. NK

      Mm.

    18. RS

      You can't suddenly have peer-to-peer.

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. RS

      It's peer-to-peer learning, right?

    21. NK

      I actually wanted to ask Jay that question, 'cause-

  26. 1:05:34 – 1:13:55

    Ivy League vs Ed Tech

    1. JK

      I agree with this.

    2. NK

      Yeah.

    3. JK

      Yeah.

    4. NK

      Did you go to Harvard because the teachers were good?

    5. JK

      Mm.

    6. NK

      And after you went to Harvard, did you learn more from your teachers or your classmates?

    7. JK

      So Harvard is actually a ve- Harvard Business School is a very interesting kind of education model because it is a combination of teacher to, to student and peer to peer. Because every class is almost like a conductor with an or- to an orchestra, where the conductor is only kind of, which is the professor, he gives you a case. Everybody has to read it before the class. You assume everybody's read it. It's usually a very interesting-

    8. NK

      Mm

    9. JK

      ... case on a topic based on what the class is, and they have, you know, millions of cases. And then, the professor has a roadmap of what he or she wants to get out of that discussion, but he pushes different members of the class. And because it's a very diverse class, like, for example, on a case where you're talking about Disney, the media company, there was a girl who was a child actress, who became a very successful child actress and then a media executive, and then came to Harvard Business School and had an interesting perspective to share-... with the rest of the class, and likewise on other topics. And that's, to me, m- I learned a lot more from my co-

    10. NK

      But what was most valuable? Was it the network, the classmates, and what you learned of them, or was it the teaching staff and-

    11. GM

      No, but, like, for him, it would be different than for what it would be for a normal person.

    12. JK

      No, I, I disagree.

    13. GM

      No, no, but because the normal person is going there for an intent to eventually get a very high-paying job.

    14. NK

      In Harvard? I don't think so.

    15. JK

      I don't think so.

    16. RS

      No.

    17. JK

      I don't think so.

    18. RS

      No, that wouldn't-

    19. JK

      I don't think so

    20. RS

      ... necessarily be the case.

    21. JK

      I think that, uh-

    22. RS

      That's normally a given by the time you are going there.

    23. JK

      Yeah, I think that for most people, they already have some form of reasonable paying job before they come for an MBA. Because in the US, unlike in India, you don't do an MBA right after your undergrad. It's usually anywhere from three to six years of work experience. And because the school is so selective, these folks tend to have gone to IITs or, you know, very good schools to have begun with.

    24. GM

      Mm-hmm. Then, then what's the intent?

    25. JK

      So the intent is to go to up-level yourself into being a business leader and to being, uh, a more well-rounded professional and person.

    26. GM

      But... So what I had heard-

    27. JK

      Mm

    28. GM

      ... and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, uh, the most sought-after jobs after H- after somebody completes HBS-

    29. JK

      Mm

    30. GM

      ... are private equity firms, hedge funds, uh, venture capital firms.

  27. 1:13:55 – 1:16:06

    Roblox and gamification

    1. GM

      your question is more about online, do you know about Roblox? So there is an app called Roblox. In US, every kid between 6 to 16, like, one in every three kids spend more than two hours on the app. So it's a metaverse, gaming metaverse, where you can play games with your friends, et cetera. That is now replacing some of the offline experiences. So you can go to an amusement park with your friends, and it's a mobile app, it's not a VR headset. You can go to an amusement park with five of your friends, have social interactions, and then there are these game developers which are building experiences. So my belief is that if you have built that or what Minecraft has done, if you have built those kind of experiences, and you are seeing kids addicted to those experiences, and they are doing experiences online-

    2. NK

      This is actually interesting.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. NK

      I saw this on a Elon Musk interview.

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. NK

      He said it's easy to get kids to play video games. The question is, can you tweak the video games just enough to make the-

    7. GM

      To make the next learning experience?

    8. NK

      Yeah.

    9. GM

      And they are already there. So, so there, uh... By the way, there is a chemistry lab experience on Roblox.

    10. RS

      But when you tweak that, and I'm coming back to the peer-to-peer-

    11. GM

      Mm.

    12. NK

      Mm

    13. RS

      ... the reason why that's a great learning medium is you don't need an intermediary.

    14. NK

      Mm.

    15. RS

      You don't need that one pontiff.

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. RS

      You don't need somebody on the pulpit.

    18. GM

      Yeah.

    19. NK

      Right.

    20. GM

      And then Roblox is exactly peer-to-peer.

    21. RS

      Yeah.

    22. GM

      A game developer developed a chemistry lab experience that if you mix these two things, a reaction will happen.

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. GM

      You go there with five of your friends, and you are doing experiences. You can also click virtual selfies, et cetera, and you're posting there. So I think, like, that will happen, and if you have to crack online education, you won't say that I will have boring content.

    25. NK

      Is that the next big thing in online education, peer-to-peer?

    26. RS

      You have to make it big. There is no big things in life-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. RS

      ... you have to make them big. So-

    29. NK

      But the next thing?

    30. GM

      This is a good- [chuckles]

  28. 1:16:06 – 1:19:08

    Making Education Addictive

    1. GM

      And, and, and my belief is that you have to make some... You know, I wrote this blog post long back about good addiction products. Like, how some of the best minds of the world are working on GTA or FIFA or, you know, making every experience or Instagram so addictive.

    2. RS

      Yeah.

    3. GM

      But some of the best minds are not working on education being super addictive. So once we start-

    4. NK

      Why is, why is GTA, FIFA, et cetera, addictive?

    5. GM

      And by the way, that's recorded content. So if you can make recorded content multiplayer so addictive, you can do that with education as well.

    6. NK

      Why, why is it addictive? And why is education not? What needs to change?

    7. GM

      Gamification. Like, like, if you... Uh, you know, there is this game called Jailbreak on Roblox. Simple game, super simple graphics, but one is the social aspect element of it, the second is the gamification element of it.

    8. NK

      Mm.

    9. GM

      Um, if you read this book called Actionable Gamification, it breaks down every single aspect of why you get addicted to a game.

    10. NK

      Mm.

    11. GM

      You- people play games that they win.

    12. NK

      Mm.

    13. GM

      So today, if they are sitting in a coaching center where you don't even get entry to a best teacher's class-

    14. NK

      Mm

    15. GM

      ... because they say you are number 100.

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. GM

      That won't work. But if there is an AI app that says that... So the AI app can actually say that, "Nikhil, you want to learn this?" It can real time generate a lesson for you.

    18. NK

      Mm.

    19. GM

      By the way, this is not happening, but we have to make it happen. And can start giving you questions.

    20. NK

      So basically-

    21. GM

      And, and, and they have to give you some positive reinforcement, because if you start playing... If FIFA only had world-class mode and didn't have a amateur mode, you would never play FIFA.

    22. NK

      Oh, that's quite interesting.

    23. RS

      Sure, addictive is a sharp, sharp word-

    24. GM

      Mm

    25. RS

      ... but I think if you look at... I mean, I come from a media background-

    26. GM

      Mm

    27. RS

      ... so I think storytelling-

    28. GM

      Mm

    29. RS

      ... is a very important aspect-

    30. NK

      Mm

  29. 1:19:08 – 1:21:55

    State of the Current Education System and the Future

    1. GM

      that I fully agree.

    2. RS

      It's simple.

    3. GM

      Yeah.

    4. NK

      Do you think our current benchmarks are not well-placed to cope with the changes that are happening? Like, education makes, in my view ... I'll give you my experience of education, right? Went to a terrible school. I hated my school, hated my teachers, grew up being scared of things I should not have been scared of. I was probably scared of my class, class teacher, this teacher, that teacher. Stopped going to school. Beyond the 10th, I didn't go. I started working and stuff like that. But what I remember of school is it taught me to be conformist in a manner where their idea of what I should be, their idea of what I should learn, their idea of what is required to get the outcome we just spoke about, being job success, entrepreneurship, whatever, that was met. But that idea seems to be changing very quickly in the world. I don't think you become successful 10 years from now-

    5. RS

      Yeah

    6. NK

      ... by being conformist anymore.

    7. GM

      So my, my, my view on that is that the definition of school is also changing. For example, if you ask an 11th or 12th year, 12th standard student, especially if they are not preparing for test prep or if they are because of their parents said so, if you truly ask them what they want to be, being a YouTuber would be a ... Like, a lot of people would say they want to be a YouTuber now.

    8. NK

      Really?

    9. GM

      Yeah.

    10. RS

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      And, and, and why do- why does that work?

    12. RS

      Or a, or a social media celebrity of some kind.

    13. GM

      And, and-

    14. NK

      But I think that cycle is turning.

    15. GM

      No, no, but why that works is you need to realize, YouTube is sort of like a school-

    16. NK

      Mm.

    17. GM

      -with instant gratification.

    18. NK

      Mm.

    19. GM

      And which is nonlinear.

    20. RS

      Mm.

    21. GM

      At school, you could get X marks. On YouTube, if you crack something, you can get, like, 500,000 marks in a way.

    22. NK

      Mm.

    23. GM

      You know, th- that those are the kind of views that we get.

    24. NK

      Mm.

    25. GM

      So that's why I also start thinking that if people eventually want to play nonlinear games-

    26. NK

      Mm

    27. GM

      ... these platforms that have opened up, there, there are 15-year-old kids who are making games on Roblox.

    28. NK

      Mm.

    29. GM

      There are, there, there is a kid ... One of the most, a YouTuber who earns- fifth largest YouTuber in the world who earns the most money is a kid who reviews toys.

    30. NK

      Mm.

  30. 1:21:55 – 1:25:30

    Are exams and qualifications the only way to get a job?

    1. GM

      not saying that will be disrupted.

    2. RS

      If it does, it'll be at that very top 1% level.

    3. GM

      I, I agree with you.

    4. RS

      It's not gonna get disrupted.

    5. GM

      I think-

    6. RS

      And actually, in some ways, it shouldn't.

    7. NK

      Mm. I agree with that, too.

    8. RS

      That it needs to be ...

    9. GM

      Mm. Why?

    10. RS

      Because you need to layer.

    11. GM

      Yeah.

    12. RS

      You need to build on situation.

    13. GM

      One of the reasons where I reached where I reached was because I found YouTube.

    14. RS

      Yeah.

    15. GM

      I didn't crack any examinations.

    16. NK

      Yeah.

    17. GM

      So if you, if you see what are these tournaments, one tournament is that in a traditional sense, if you become good at physics, chemistry, maths-

    18. RS

      Mm

    19. GM

      ... and you crack that examination, I think that's powerful. But I couldn't. I went to a college which had too much fees, where the best job you could get was in one of these IT services companies, three and a half lakhs, and there was no way I wanted to, to get that job. Not saying that's a bad job, but that's not-

    20. RS

      Mm

    21. GM

      ... that was not for me. So in a way, and, and, and this is why I think upGrad and higher ed needs to change is, "... " agar mere ko life mein woh thappa lag gaya ki aapne JEE, NEET crack nahi kara, how do you change that?

    22. NK

      No, okay.

    23. GM

      If you, if you didn't go to a good college, how do you change that? And I think YouTube is one way. upGrad mein, if I can get a good degree, and that gives me exposure, that's one way. So what I'm saying is that, think of a kid who didn't crack ... Let's say top three, top 3% of kids get into these good colleges. What about the 97%? They go into these engineering colleges in, let's say, tier two, tier three cities. Their job placement rate is 2%, 5%, 10%. Ab unka kya hoga? So they- their capability is there, but they don't get the exposure. But-

    24. NK

      Is that a problem that there are not enough jobs, or is that a problem that they are not well enough educated?

    25. GM

      Both. See, education doesn't solve for exposure. Ab mere ko LinkedIn pe agar ... You know why people prepare for UPSC examinations? There is a friend of mine, she gave the UPSC examinations four to five times. Extremely smart friend. I'm like: "You gave the examination five times. Why?" "Because of the predictability. Okay, once I crack it, I will get this wealth, or this status, or this credibility, or my father would give me validation." [lips smack] So at the end of the day, you know, it take- I mean, it takes a lot of years for you to come out of the shell that was created for you, et cetera, and you are always seeking that validation. But ... And this, this is my question to all of you. Think of a kid, and this is huge chunk of our population. The kid does not crack a good examination. The kid goes to a average college. The college does not give ... get the kid a job. What does he or she do?

    26. NK

      But that's changing. In many ways, I feel like-

    27. RS

      We want to throw one more light-

    28. NK

      Mm

    29. RS

      ... because I think we want to look at a broad topic like we are about-

    30. NK

      Mm

  31. 1:25:30 – 1:28:55

    How to measure talent today?

    1. NK

      mindful of time. But I would like to s- you know, maybe add here that today, companies like Facebook, Google, Tesla, even us here in India, we don't care about educational qualification in the manner that once we once did.

    2. JK

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Like, we don't ask for people to tell us what qualification they have. I've not hired anybody ever looking at their degree and their marks.

    4. JK

      No, but, Nikhil, I think that's a sliver-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. JK

      ... at the top in more evolved parts of-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. JK

      -our job ecosystem. I think the moment you go one level down, you being an IAS officer or being an IIT grad absolutely matters. But I have a separate question: If the system was good, and the test was meritocratic in the right set of ways, and everybody had equal opportunity, what's wrong with the test or a way that kind of tells folks who are looking to hire that from this pool, this is the most capable? I agree it's not where it is right now, and that's where, you know, a lot of that solve has to happen.

    9. GM

      No, but I, I think the test is good. I'm talking about folks.

    10. RS

      Yeah, but capable is the key word.

    11. JK

      Yeah.

    12. RS

      So I think, you know, today, more and more, we are c- now hard, hard driving those ones.

    13. JK

      Yeah.

    14. RS

      What is capability?

    15. JK

      Yeah.

    16. RS

      What is readiness? What is whatever else-

    17. JK

      Yeah

    18. RS

      ... what are you at the cusp of? So I think that all those are changing-

    19. JK

      Yeah

    20. RS

      ... which is why I still believe there are some fundamental things that need to be built on. But-

    21. JK

      Yeah, I agree.

    22. RS

      Disrupt just for the sake of disrupt-

    23. JK

      No, but-

    24. RS

      ... actually creates a little bit more chaos.

    25. NK

      What skill set do you need to ace these tests? And is that relevant to you doing the job you get after the test well?

    26. RS

      I mean, when you say soft skills, for us here, it's a very sophisticated word.

    27. JK

      Mm.

    28. RS

      I mean, I call them super skills now.

    29. JK

      Yeah.

    30. RS

      I don't even call them soft skills.

  32. 1:28:55 – 1:32:57

    Why do People get degrees? Does it help prepare you for a job?

    1. GM

      my belief is that everyone is collecting these badges and these credentials, which is what education is about. Now, if somebody takes an online degree from UpGrad, great degree, that's a badge, because some... Like, like I was talking to a SVP of mine, and his wife had taken an UpGrad course. I asked him, "Why did she take that?" Uh, she said, uh, he said that for her, the moment she put that on her LinkedIn profile, suddenly she started getting more requests. So in a way, what test prep is also doing is, you are collecting these badges. "Meine exam crack kar liya. I have this degree. I went to this college, or I have so many subscribers." So, "Or I built this game, which was played by so many people." In a way, I like to think that that's what education is becoming about, on how... And, and then you can say that our system currently is limited. Ke abhi ye che badges hi available hai. But, uh, what online can solve for is, ke say, you know, you can do these three things also. This is what some-

    2. RS

      Online is not that different.

    3. JK

      Yeah.

    4. RS

      It is an inclusive medium-

    5. GM

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... because exclusive is a problem.

    7. GM

      Mm.

    8. RS

      Here, I have to get a test prep to get into IIT.

    9. JK

      Mm, exactly.

    10. RS

      Perfectly fine.

    11. GM

      Mm.

    12. RS

      Phenomenal world out there, but hello-

    13. GM

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... we're ten billion people in the world right now. Eight billion going to ten billion people, right?

    15. GM

      Mm.

    16. RS

      So obviously, that opportunity of being very democratic on what we wanna do is gonna have-

    17. GM

      Mm-hmm

    18. RS

      ... it's gonna have to change quite radically.

    19. JK

      I think education has to solve for... So one part of it is the badge gets you into the room with the recruiter and the HR, and then, you know, the job. The far bigger challenge is, once you're in the job, how are you good at it? Are you good at it? Because there's only so much that you can-

    20. GM

      No, I think-

    21. JK

      Uh

    22. GM

      ... I think, I think the opposite is true. I think today, getting into the room is a bigger challenge. People are still, there are- like if, if, like for example, Nikhil said that they don't look at the IIT tag. If you don't look at that tag, there are still great people.

    23. JK

      A bigger challenge for who and when? Sure, for twen- for eighteen to twenty-three year olds, probably, and yes, it is a challenge because there are not that many jobs, which is a sep- separate problem to solve. But being good at-

    24. NK

      ... something, anything is very important, and education should be solving for how to make people passionate about things that they're there good for.

    25. RS

      Yeah, without using the word education-

    26. NK

      Yeah

    27. RS

      ... because, again, you get back into-

    28. NK

      Yes

    29. RS

      -a little bit of a structured environment.

    30. GM

      But

  33. 1:32:57 – 1:35:30

    Why do we actually learn

    1. RS

      So I don't think it's about us disagreeing or agreeing in that context, 'cause it's such a, it's such a massive challenge and such a massive opportunity, frankly. Um-

    2. GM

      Hmm. But, but do you think that would anybody learn anything for the sake of learning? For example-

    3. NK

      Yeah.

    4. RS

      Yes. Yeah.

    5. NK

      Everything I do-

    6. RS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    7. NK

      ... that's for the sake of learning.

    8. JK

      That's myopic, I think maybe-

    9. RS

      Absolutely

    10. JK

      ... our, our society has kind of conditioned us into that, but-

    11. NK

      Can I tell you, like, personal example? My initial phase of learning was based out of insecurity. I didn't go to school, I didn't go to 11th standard, 12th standard. All my classmates did. That insecurity drove me to learn.

    12. GM

      But there's selection bias bhi hai. See, we-

    13. NK

      Hmm

    14. GM

      ... there is also a lot of selection bias-

    15. NK

      I think there are plenty of unlimited people in the world

    16. GM

      ... if we talk about, we talk about any product that has made success-

    17. NK

      No, not selection bias. But where I'm getting to today is, I've stopped reading the kind of stuff that I read back then, which would help me be better at a job.

    18. JK

      Yeah.

    19. NK

      And today I keep reading about history, and psychology, and-

    20. JK

      Yeah

    21. NK

      ... philosophy. And these things I do not for a job, this is just because I find them-

    22. JK

      But I think that stuff does-

    23. NK

      Hmm

    24. JK

      ... help you be better-

    25. NK

      Yeah

    26. JK

      ... in life, and job is part of life-

    27. NK

      Yeah

    28. JK

      ... in terms of identifying patterns of-

    29. RS

      You just want to be more rounded-

    30. JK

      Yeah

  34. 1:35:30 – 1:41:50

    Predicting the Future of Education, Jobs & Climate Change

    1. NK

      like, digress this conversation into another place altogether. Let's say, the world evolves. Tomorrow, a lot of the jobs get replaced by computers, and so on and so forth.

    2. RS

      Hmm.

    3. NK

      There are not enough jobs in the world. Two, immaterial of how skilled the person applying for the job is, let's say that equilibrium is not met. World transforms into some kind of socialism, but by-choice capitalism.

    4. RS

      Hmm.

    5. NK

      Right?

    6. RS

      Hmm.

    7. NK

      Like Thomas Piketty spoke about donut economics-

    8. RS

      Yeah

    9. NK

      ... where we're in equanimity with nature in a way. Growth for the sake of growth is not good. Let's say-

    10. GM

      Universal, universal basic income is there.

    11. NK

      Yeah. UBI is there.

    12. RS

      Hmm.

    13. NK

      People are getting paid. Peop- do not then have-

    14. RS

      I think global warming will come in sooner-

    15. JK

      Yeah

    16. RS

      ... than that one, if you ask me, here.

    17. NK

      I, I personally, uh, like, I know a lot of people are very critical of global warming. Like, we have a big fund, Rainmatter Climate. We do a lot of, uh, work around climate change. I tend to be more sanguine about it. In many ways, when I look at the world today, I feel we are the luckiest. We have the best version of the world any of our ancestors ever did. We live for forty years longer than we lived hundred years ago.

    18. JK

      Yep.

    19. NK

      We didn't have to see world wars, we didn't have to see racism, we didn't have to see, uh, disease, malnutrition, all of this in the manner that our predecessors had to. Uh, so sure, global warming is a problem. We have to work on it. We have to, like, you know, work on negating the effects of climate change. But notwithstanding that, I think in the future, if UBI were to come in-... I feel the kind of learning that we are talking about will become the only kind of learning, where people choose to learn a certain thing because they want to learn it.

    20. RS

      Absolutely.

    21. SP

      I agree.

    22. RS

      Yeah.

    23. SP

      Yeah.

    24. RS

      And to get on with what-

    25. SP

      I agree

    26. RS

      ... they want to do in life, absolutely. And that, that to me is the, is the fun part of it. It's a limitless-

    27. NK

      And this is how life used to be

    28. RS

      ... it's a limitless world.

    29. NK

      Like, if you go back 2,000 years ago, philosophy was not something-

    30. RS

      Yeah

  35. 1:41:50 – 1:42:10

    Summary

    1. RS

      of it.

    2. SP

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      Yeah. So what we are saying, to summarize the last bit of our conversation, what needs to change about education or what people looking to build around education need to bear in mind, is the near future could be a time of increased gamification.

  36. 1:42:10 – 1:45:35

    Ed Tech Founders Share Insights of the Industry

    1. NK

      Changing, not replacing the bricks of education, if we were to consider it a wall, but a lot of tweaking of the bricks to make it less conformist in the manner where your ability to regurgitate information is not as valuable as it was 20 years ago. That change will likely happen, and people need to bear that in mind. And another point you brought up, is peer-to-peer will become increasingly relevant. Like Jay also said, going to Harvard is as much about the other people who went with him-

    2. RS

      Yeah

    3. NK

      ... to Harvard, than it is about syllabus, teachers, teaching stuff.

    4. RS

      Yeah.

    5. NK

      In the interest of time, moving on, you brought up BYJU'S for a second. Would you like to... Because it's all over the news, if you guys have an opinion, like, would love to hear it, since you're both in this space.

    6. SP

      No, I think I don't have a particular opinion on BYJU'S-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. SP

      ... but I will make a more generic statement.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. SP

      I think what has happened is that any new employee I'm interviewing, any new investor who comes and talks to me, there is this sort of negativity about EdTech. And the people who are in EdTech know that it's a phenomenal sector.

    11. GM

      ... I mean, the kind of pools, revenue pools that it has, whether it's in higher education or in test prep or in K-12, it's amazing. I mean, I was giving you the example that the top 10 offline coaching centers of the country do 20,000 crores in revenue annually. But if you don't even go top 10, if you go localized, in Madhya Pradesh, there is an exam called MPPSC. There is a coaching center, six or seven institutes, that helps people prepare for that examination. Does 150 crores a year, and there are hundreds of such examples. So that revenue pool exists offline. You can bring that online. Similarly, in higher education, whether any kind of college that helps people getting- get better skilled or get a better job, there is a huge opportunity to disrupt.

    12. NK

      Don't take this from a perspective where somebody's comparing one company with another.

    13. GM

      Mm.

    14. NK

      It is not about Unacademy. It is not even really about-

    15. GM

      No, but the sector-

    16. NK

      Byju's.

    17. GM

      I'm talking about sector, that the sector is-

    18. NK

      Where do you, where do you think as a cycle? Every stock, every sector has cycles. So if you were to paint the cycle like this, where do you think EdTech is at right now? Very simple, concise answer.

    19. GM

      I think in COVID we were at the peak.

    20. NK

      Mm.

    21. GM

      And then, uh, last year, I think at least for us, we would say that we were going through a lot of tough times.

    22. NK

      Mm.

    23. GM

      Now we are climbing back up.

    24. NK

      Right.

    25. GM

      Uh, and, and that's more Unacademy, and I can't say for others, but that's what we are.

    26. RS

      Yeah. Uh, look, there is no this at all-

    27. GM

      No?

    28. RS

      ... to be honest, because the opportunity and what the need is-

    29. GM

      Mm

    30. RS

      ... is absolutely massive.

  37. 1:45:35 – 1:48:45

    Boot strapped Vs Funded Ventures & Physicswallah

    1. RS

      down.

    2. NK

      Why is that?

    3. RS

      Because you don't need capital to make the changes that you need to make. Not everything is about capital.

    4. GM

      Mm.

    5. RS

      So I think-

    6. NK

      Doesn't capital afford you larger distribution in a manner-

    7. RS

      No

    8. NK

      ... where you can reach more people?

    9. RS

      No, no, I think-

    10. NK

      Like, if you could make-

    11. RS

      I'm not talking about zero capital-

    12. NK

      Mm

    13. RS

      ... but I'm not talking about the capital that everyone thinks that-

    14. NK

      Mm

    15. RS

      ... that capital if you throw at-

    16. NK

      Mm, mm.

    17. RS

      This is a b- this is an overall se-

    18. NK

      Have you ever raised money at UpGrad?

    19. RS

      Yes, we have raised money. Yeah, but I'm saying the capi- capital for most people sounds like... If you're looking at such a large sector-

    20. NK

      Mm

    21. RS

      ... and since you're talking about your core group that would want to listen to this, want to go there-

    22. NK

      Mm

    23. RS

      ... one of the things I would say is, you don't need to re- have that kind of capital to make the change in this sector.

    24. NK

      Mm.

    25. RS

      And that's gonna be the fun part of it.

    26. NK

      Mm.

    27. RS

      Because then it'll be longer lasting-

    28. NK

      Mm

    29. RS

      ... it'll be a lot more permanent.

    30. NK

      Right.

  38. 1:48:45 – 1:53:00

    TCS on LRS

    1. NK

      the new TCS on LRS?

    2. GM

      I think it's complicated, because-

    3. NK

      Mm

    4. GM

      ... at one level, if we want the rupee to be-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. GM

      ... competitor to the dollar-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. GM

      ... to the yuan, we want to be free float-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. GM

      ... as much as possible, and we want to-

    11. NK

      You want to be capital account convertible.

    12. GM

      Yeah, you want to be completely convertible.

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. GM

      But it's very easy to say that.

    15. NK

      Mm. Can I ask you to prophesize if India were to become truly convertible-

    16. RS

      Yeah

    17. NK

      ... capital account convertible? Let's say LRS, the money going out of the country is maybe $22 billion. Let's make-

    18. GM

      Yeah

    19. NK

      ... our assumption. It's somewhere around that this year.

    20. GM

      Yeah.

    21. NK

      Do you think more money would go out or more money would come in?

    22. GM

      So-

    23. NK

      I ask you this, while I pre-phase-... that every international bank and investor I meet today-

    24. JK

      Wants to come to India.

    25. NK

      Wants to come to India.

    26. JK

      I think right now, money would come in. Money is coming in. India is doing very well.

    27. NK

      I actually agree with you.

    28. JK

      And to, on, on the, uh, LRS TCS point, there is the real fact that this was a loophole.

    29. NK

      Mm.

    30. JK

      The fact that, um-

  39. 1:53:00 – 1:57:40

    Current State of Indian Start-Up Eco-System?

    1. JK

      capital? So it's difficult.

    2. RS

      So but I think we've, we've, we've ridden the storm quite well-

    3. JK

      Yeah

    4. RS

      ... through three of these ones, because I think we've been-

    5. NK

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... a little bit more prudent.

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. RS

      Right?

    9. NK

      Do you think this funnel of money which came into India, EdTech, many other sectors in the last decade, when, say, the cost of borrowing in the West was a fraction of what it wa- what it is now?

    10. RS

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      Maybe it was 1%, now it's maybe 5.5%. How long do you think this winter will continue for? And when you look at large numbers of companies like SoftBank and, uh, uh, Temasek, and all these big guys, Tiger Global, they all seem to be down so much. What do you think will incentivize the fresh risk-chasing money to come into India, and in turn, into EdTech?

    12. RS

      So I think a lot of that money came in, actually-

    13. NK

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... came in from the East Coast-

    15. NK

      Mm

    16. RS

      ... but went to the West Coast guys.

    17. NK

      Mm, mm.

    18. JK

      Yeah.

    19. RS

      Because most of the money got spent-

    20. NK

      Mm

    21. RS

      ... on advertising, and, and-

    22. JK

      Yeah

    23. RS

      ... spending out of the West Coast guys-

    24. NK

      Mm

    25. RS

      ... in America.

    26. NK

      Yeah.

    27. RS

      So actually, some sense of in and out happened there.

    28. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    29. JK

      Mm.

    30. RS

      I wouldn't put Temasek, and SoftBank, and Tiger all in the same bracket.

  40. 1:57:40 – 2:07:35

    Learnings from their journey

    1. JK

      guys, again, mindful of eight minutes or whatever we have left, maybe take the last couple of minutes each to say what have you learnt that you wish you knew before starting UpGrad, before starting Unacademy, before everything Jay has done in the realm of education, something for people starting off today to watch out for. And if you had two choices to change about education overall, what would they be?

    2. RS

      So I think, um, I've said this before, and I'll say it again: we don't have the liberty for hindsight.

    3. JK

      Mm.

    4. RS

      And I think anyone starting up needs to understand that, that if the formula is one about hindsight-

    5. JK

      Mm

    6. RS

      ... it doesn't happen that way.

    7. JK

      Mm.

    8. RS

      If in nineteen ninety-five-

    9. JK

      Mm, mm

    10. RS

      ... I did this, this, and this, I would have been a ten X value of my media company.

    11. JK

      Mm.

    12. RS

      Doesn't-- I could have been bankrupt-

    13. JK

      Mm

    14. RS

      ... because five other things would have happened there.

    15. JK

      Mm.

    16. RS

      So to me, it is a learning process.

    17. JK

      Mm.

    18. RS

      It's an iterative process.

    19. JK

      Mm.

    20. RS

      And if you look at it always fast-forward and forward-

    21. JK

      Mm, mm

    22. RS

      ... versus hindsight, you're going to be able to actually better your odds of success.

    23. JK

      Mm.

    24. RS

      So for anyone who's looking for what would I do in the rearview mirror-

    25. JK

      Mm

    26. RS

      ... the, the, the possibility is that you'll do a lot more wrong if you keep looking in the rearview mirror.

    27. JK

      Mm.

    28. RS

      Because what-

    29. NK

      One thing I gather from you a lot is you take a certain amount of pride in the wrong that you have done, and you speak about it.

    30. RS

      Yeah.

  41. 2:07:35 – 2:07:51

    Outro

    1. NK

      Done. So thank you, everyone.

    2. JK

      Thank you.

    3. NK

      And, uh, look forward to seeing you guys next time. Thank you, guys, for coming.

    4. JK

      Thank you.

    5. GM

      Thank you. [clapping]

    6. NK

      Hi, I'm Nikhil Kamath. I'd love to know what you thought of the episode. Uh, comment, like, and subscribe, and thank you for watching.

Episode duration: 2:07:51

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