First Principles

Part 2: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture

First Principles

Welcome to First Principles. This is the second part of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey, co-founder and CEO of Meesho, which we had released in full for Premium subscribers of The Ken last week and is also available to subscribers of The Ken Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Vidit and I discussed a lot of things. From the way his upbringing grounded him, the way he approaches hiring at Meesho and how he approaches life now as a parent. It’s a wonderful 40 minutes where I spent some time talking to Vdit about how he continues to look beyond the horizon to find answers to the more ambiguous questions Meesho faces now. And at the end of it, he has a wonderful book recommendation for everyone. I picked up a copy myself after our conversation. I hope you had the chance to listen to the first part of our conversation, where he covered Meesho’s history of growth and pivots and how it has aligned with the changes and demands of its customers. Here’s the link to part 1 of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey - Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Youtube Now, let’s get on to part 2 of my conversation with Vidit Aatrey. - If you're a premium subscriber of The Ken. You can listen to the full conversation with Vidit Aatrey right now using this link. The full conversation was made available early to Premium subscribers of The Ken on our app and subscribers of The Ken Premium channel via a separate standalone subscription on Apple Podcasts. Write to us at fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture

First Principles

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conversation with him for over two hours. That’s enough time for both of us to pick and read cues from each other. Think about it. Can you spend two hours in a room having a truly open-ended, candid and widespread discussion with another person about their life, their business, their colleagues, their company and its culture, and even their family, without getting to really know them? I’d been wanting to have Vidit as a guest on First Principles for a while, even during our first two seasons. But as it turns out, things clicked only in 2025. I’m glad though, because I do feel Vidit’s and Meesho’s journey are a wonderful opening to Season 3 of First Principles. There’s a lot of good stuff we talked about. Why Vidit is so eager for Meesho to build for a long-term view, why he values problems way more than solutions, the humility and willingness to be led to new places by customer insights, the much talked about zero commission model, and building products for users who aren’t the top 5% of India. Let’s get started with the conversation, shall we? Welcome to season three of First Principles. - If you're a premium subscriber of The Ken. You can listen to the full conversation with Vidit Aatrey right now using this link. Write to us fp@the-ken.com with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

Introducing Two by Two, a new premium business podcast from The Ken

First Principles

From over here at The Ken's newsroom, we have a very exciting announcement: our first premium podcast – India's first premium business podcast – is now live! It's called Two by Two – and this podcast will be your personal investigative brain. Each week Two by Two will be where hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan will be joined by a few interesting and opinionated guests to discuss some of the biggest questions from the world of Indian business. But, why's it called Two by Two? Here it is: each episode of the Two by Two podcast will feature an important story investigated and discussed and visualized as a 2x2. A simple matrix that's the purest form of conflict – that places the players and their motivations on both axes. Along with incredible guests, the hosts will discuss what is going on, why is it happening, who gains and who loses, and where is all of this leading to? Two by Two is a premium podcast – but for now, the first episode is free for all listeners. On this episode, the hosts speak to Professor R Srinivasan and Srikanth Rajagopalan on the brewing rivalry between Flipkart and PhonePe, once parent and child, but now more like cousins. Flipkart, which is now venturing into FinTech with Super.money and Phonepe, which has launched the grocery delivery app Pincode are both stepping into each others turf. What happens next? Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.

The Final Supercut Part 2: Founders 21-41

First Principles

Hello, we're back again with part 2 of our final, final supercut where we’ve spliced together one interesting bit of conversation from the last 21 guests I interviewed on First Principles.  And like the last episode where we covered founders 1 to 20, you’ll hear super sharp slices of a few minutes each which are reflections on their approach to organization building, risk taking, decision making and life living. Here are the guests you’ll get listen to in this episode:   Krish Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Chargebee; Varun Dua, founder of Acko; Yashish Dahiya, co-founder and Group CEO of Policybazaar; Archit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Clear; M N Srinivasu, co-founder and Director of Billdesk; Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management; Lalit Keshre, co-founder and CEO of Groww; Niraj Singh, founder and CEO of Spinny; Karthik Jayaraman, Managing Director of Waycool; Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of Oyo; Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors; Viren Shetty, Executive Vice Chairman of Narayana Health; Aneesh Reddy, Founder and MD of Capillary Technologies; Vaibhav Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Udaan; Girish Mathrubootham, Founder and Executive Chairman of Freshworks; Harsh Mariwala, Chairman of Marico; Chetan Maini, co-founder and chairman of SUN Mobility; Jaydeep Barman, co-founder and CEO of Rebel Foods; Alok Mittal, co-founder and MD of Indifi Technologies; Kapil Chopra, Founder of The Postcard Hotels; and Manav Garg, founder of Eka. This is not the end of the road for me as a podcast host as you’ll soon find out. Actually, very soon.  I'm Rohin Dharmakumar, your host. And here's part 2 of the final, final supercut. ------ Also, if you haven't already, do subscribe to the First Principles newsletter. You can sign up for free here!