//podcastplus.net/feed/podcast~96c3cef331f0790ef4094e1ec8085bce11e0c349a3a90d957a6a65e59cd32521 First Principles is a weekly interview podcast comprising authentic, candid, and insightful conversations between some of India’s most accomplished founders and business leaders, and Rohin Dharmakumar, The Ken’s CEO & co-founder. From personal philosophies, mental models and decision making frameworks, to reading habits, parenting styles or personal interests, each episode will delve into what makes each of these leaders unique. Sun, 27 Sep 2026 10:51:21 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/38cbbbd8/90e00299.mp3 Hello and welcome back to First Principles . This is the 47th episode since we started, or the 6th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution. Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radical “all-equity partnership” and the “lockstep” compensation model, designed to de-risk the firm from becoming dependent on individual “rainmakers” and to align everyone’s incentives towards collective success. A key theme is the power of compounding principles. R... Mon, 22 Sep 2025 00:30:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/38cbbbd8/90e00299.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/2343fbe0/b5b4b26b.mp3 In this episode, Rohin Dharmakumar sits down with Rahul Matthan, a co-founder of Trilegal, one of India’s largest and most successful full-service law firms. While Rahul starts by questioning if a lawyer can be an entrepreneur, the conversation unfolds into a masterclass on the patient, principled art of building a lasting institution. Rahul provides a rare, inside look into the unique challenges of building a professional services firm—a business where the people are the product. He breaks down the counterintuitive models Trilegal adopted to foster a culture of collaboration over individual stardom. We explore their radical “all-equity partnership” and the “lockstep” compensation model, designed to de-risk the firm from becoming dependent on individual “rainmakers” and to align everyone’s incentives towards collective success. A key theme is the power of compounding principles. Rahul explains how foundational decisions made 25 years ago, such as not naming the firm after its founders ... Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:30:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/2343fbe0/b5b4b26b.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/e0dbcd6d/76aad432.mp3 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then, in fairly short order, word-of-mouth driven inbound Seed and Series A investments. Over time it became Clevertap, raising over $180M in VC funding and becoming a globally used and respected product. As it turns out though, one of Clevertap’s operating philosophies is, well, First Principles. A strong reason is because Anand himself is a strong believer in it. At the age of 12 he lost his dad. Thus, at an age when kids... Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:30:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/e0dbcd6d/76aad432.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/f77755ee/b9063fdd.mp3 Hello and welcome back to First Principles. I’m thrilled to bring you episode 46, my conversation with Anand Jain, the co-founder of Mumbai-headquartered customer engagement platform CleverTap. Anand and I were once colleagues at the media conglomerate Network 18. He got out before I did. In 2013 he and two of his colleagues, Sunil Thomas and Kondamudi, left Network 18 and decided to fire up their respective laptops and code a new customer engagement platform. In just a few months, WizRocket, as it was then called, found its first – albeit non-paying customer. Then, in fairly short order, word-of-mouth driven inbound Seed and Series A investments. Over time it became Clevertap, raising over $180M in VC funding and becoming a globally used and respected product. As it turns out though, one of Clevertap’s operating philosophies is, well, First Principles. A strong reason is because Anand himself is a strong believer in it. At the age of 12 he lost his dad. Thus, at an age when kids... Mon, 11 Aug 2025 01:45:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/f77755ee/b9063fdd.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/ca7e1d15/4dcf1863.mp3 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For years, driving by the Inner Koramangala Inner Ring Road from where I stay to Indiranagar, the Ultraviolette showroom would always catch my eye on the left. I used to constantly wonder about those really cool bikes hanging from cables in the double-ceiling office, intrigued by what kind of bikes they were. Coincidentally, Ultraviolette was founded in the same year that The Ken also started. We've both been in Bangalore, both in a similar part of town, for ... Mon, 28 Jul 2025 01:30:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/ca7e1d15/4dcf1863.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/589ad960/24adc8aa.mp3 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - My first introduction, and indeed my ongoing and recurring one, to Ultraviolette has been personal. For years, driving by the Inner Koramangala Inner Ring Road from where I stay to Indiranagar, the Ultraviolette showroom would always catch my eye on the left. I used to constantly wonder about those really cool bikes hanging from cables in the double-ceiling office, intrigued by what kind of bikes they were. Coincidentally, Ultraviolette was founded in the same year that The Ken also started. We've both been in Bangalore, both in a similar part of town, for ... Mon, 21 Jul 2025 01:15:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/589ad960/24adc8aa.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/b5e56987/35226049.mp3 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023. But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation.  Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s ... Tue, 01 Jul 2025 06:45:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/b5e56987/35226049.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/b7435ecf/6752e5d3.mp3 Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023. But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation.  Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s ... Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:10:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/b7435ecf/6752e5d3.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/b6020524/5697091e.mp3 Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover. By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it. This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort.  I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me. Because he felt completely at ease divi... Mon, 19 May 2025 00:40:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/b6020524/5697091e.mp3 https://media.transistor.fm/4ec5109e/dcbd8ea7.mp3 Delhivery, the logistics company, started out in Delhi. It even has Delhi in its name, literally. Yet, a few weeks ago, I flew to Goa to meet its co-founder and CEO, Sahil Barua, because that’s where Delhivery’s headquarters is now. It was a day trip. I took an early morning flight. Spent a few hours at a quaint cafe where I was the only guest. Then, I walked 15 minutes through still back alleys filled with cashewnut and mango trees before ending up on a dusty highway, dodging traffic next to an under-construction flyover. By the time I got to the studio where I was meeting Sahil, my adventure quota for the day was almost over. I loved it. This was the first time I was meeting Sahil. We’d only exchanged emails with each other. He’s tall, lean and bearded. There’s a certain air of seriousness, for want of a better word, to him. A professorial sort.  I steeled myself, expecting our conversation to be a bit stiff. But Sahil completely surprised me. Because he felt completely at ease divi... Mon, 12 May 2025 01:10:00 +0000 https://media.transistor.fm/4ec5109e/dcbd8ea7.mp3