From Ghaziabad to Silicon Valley: Nikhil Kamath x Nikesh Arora | People by WTF | Ep. 11

[upbeat music] Nikesh Arora. Oh, boy, where do we begin? A boy from Ghaziabad, who's now one of the highest-paid execs in the world. That's Nikesh for you. He's collected degrees like people collect Pokémon. Constantly pivoted way before it was cool, worked at Google after landing an accidental interview with Larry Page, then at SoftBank, and now leads Palo Alto Networks, a big name in cybersecurity. Let's find out how not sticking to a lane worked in his favor. [upbeat music]

Hi, Nikesh. Thank you for doing this.

My pleasure.

Uh, I don't know where to begin. There's no fixed agenda for today or not-- There isn't one particular thing I want out.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, our audience is largely the entrepreneur, wannabe entrepreneur crowd in India, and we meet people who have gone down their path, been really successful, such as yourself, and try to tell them what they can learn from someone like you.

Or what-- Yeah, from either doing what I did or not doing what I did.

Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect. All right.

Sometimes we find not doing what someone did is as useful-

For sure.

-if not more.

For sure.

Uh, so maybe we can begin by you telling us a bit about yourself, and we start from there.

Where would you like to start? Uh...

Childhood. [chuckles]

Ah. As you know, I grew up in India. Uh, my father was in the Indian Air Force. So, you know, you grow up in the Indian Air Force, you grow up with just enough means, so you have a good life, but, uh, no different than every other person who grows up in India, where you have to be resourceful, you have to be, um-- you have to work hard to get above the crowd and, and, uh, and sort of make something out of your life. And in that context, and my parents are amazing. Uh, my father passed away a few years ago, but, uh, he worked in the Air Force for his entire life. He was a lawyer, uh, and his job was to solve thorny legal issues, both within and without. And, you know, when you live in a family like that, where every day he's trying to get people to do the right thing, uh, the sort of the... You absorb the implicit culture of the high integrity you see around you. So, you know, I have my f- father to thank for a life of integrity, where he had to make decisions against all odds. He had to make decisions about lots of things, where, you know, i-it was crystal clear for him, given that the role he has was always to pick the right side, that somehow that became the mantra in our family, that he always had to do the right thing, irrespective of the cost, and so that sort of, that sort of you, you get that from your father. And my mother, uh, you know, rare for her time, she's a masters in math and Sanskrit, so she was very along, along, along the lines of that education empowers, and whatever you do, you have to be smart, you have to be well-read, and you have to, to do that. And, you know, she provided the nurturing element in the family. So I was very blessed. Uh, the difference is, when you work in the Air Force, you move around every few years. So it brings a sense of impermanence, it brings a sense of, uh, instability, perhaps, and the question is: what do you make out of it? So, you know, on the flip side, you, you get to adapt to many situations, and you can pick up your bags and move, uh, because you've done that naturally over your life. So, so those are some of the, sort of, sort of the, I'd say, the key building blocks of one's personality as you grow up.