How I Work & Think

1. Professional Context & Uncertainty

Having spent several years navigating private market investments and working closely with Nithin Kamath to manage operations and day-to-day tasks at Zerodha, I have developed a deep appreciation for managing complexity and uncertainty.

My perspective on business was permanently forged during my early days co-founding BookedUp in Bangalore. Acting as the physical delivery agent, I experienced the brutal reality of operational friction—managing inventory, coordination, and raw communication. It taught me that ideas are cheap and easy to have, but implementation is everything. I look at business not through the lens of a conceptual "pitch," but through the hard reality of its underlying infrastructure and efficiency.

I remain consistently calm throughout the day. In fast-moving, high-stakes environments, maintaining emotional stability is key to keeping the team grounded. I place high importance on respecting people's opinions, fostering collaborative environments, and avoiding unnecessary friction.

2. The Zerodha Operational Compass

My day-to-day operational execution is guided by the unwritten rules we live by at Zerodha:

• Do Right by the Customer: Never optimize for the short term. Prioritize compounding long-term trust, and treat employees with the same deep respect and care.
• Play to Your Structural Uniqueness: Constantly evaluate how we can be structurally different and do things that our competition is simply unable or unwilling to do. Find our distinct operational strengths and double down on them.
• Simplicity as a Force Multiplier: Relentlessly simplify operations and workflows. Complexity is the ultimate enemy of innovation and speed.
• Uncompromising Peer Kindness: Treat colleagues, partners, and founders with deep, proactive kindness. Avoid unnecessary friction.

3. My Decision-Making Framework

I treat decision-making seriously and aim to be firm and decisive once a path is chosen. My approach is structured as a balanced, multi-stage hybrid model:

Ultimately, data and advice only take you so far under high uncertainty. I filter all compiled analysis and feedback through my intuitive gut feel to make the final call, applying two core investment mental models:

• The Macro & Numbers Filter: Evaluating if the numbers and sector-level tailwinds point to a clear, easily modelable and predictable outcome.
• The Defensibility Premium Filter: Identifying highly unique, deep-tech, or sovereign-critical businesses that are incredibly hard to build. Even when the initial spreadsheets are unrealistic and revenues are years away, we support them because what they are building is rare and vital.

4. Communication & Collaboration Preferences

• Context-First Communication: I strongly prefer when people share complete context before calling or messaging. Avoid sending open-ended "Hey" or "Do you have 5 minutes?" messages. State the issue, the background, and what is needed upfront so I can engage constructively.
• Async-First by Default: I highly value asynchronous communication (written messages, structured memos, email) for day-to-day updates, status checks, and non-blocking questions. It allows everyone to work in flow states.
• The Simplicity & Kindness Mandate: Keep communications direct and simple. In alignment with our unwritten rules, I treat my peers and colleagues with absolute kindness and expect the same collaborative, empathetic posture in return.
• High-Context Sync Meetings: For critical projects where quick text messages or short memos fall short of capturing the nuances, I prefer meeting the team directly to align. For large-scale brainstorming or strategic planning, I prefer high-energy, face-to-face discussions.