Part 1: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive

More from First Principles

1. 

   S3 · E9 · 12 Jan 2026 · 50 min

   Part 1: Darwinbox’s Rohit Chennamaneni on leading without a CEO, the ‘show don’t tell’ product mindset, and why resilience beats intelligence

   In part 1 of the 50th episode of First Principles , Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder of Darwinbox, joins the show to talk about what changes after the early chaos of a startup fades. He explains how Darwinbox has operated without a CEO for years, how the 3 founders divide ownership of decisions instead of debating everything together, and why this structure helped them move faster as the company grew. Rohit also gets specific about product building. He talks about designing HR software that does not need training sessions or long explanations, why adoption matters more than feature depth, and…

2. 

   29 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 39 min

   First Principles, second look: The 2025 wrap

   What a year it's been. After a long hiatus and when we thought we'd closed the curtains for good, First Principles came back in April 2025 for Season 3. And what made this comeback so special? Simple: Rohin was genuinely excited to be back in the interviewing chair. That excitement is infectious. It showed up in every conversation and every question. This year, he sat down with eight incredible CEOs and founders who opened up about their journeys, their philosophies, their wins, and their struggles. These were deep, candid conversations about what it really takes to build something…

3. 

   S3 · E8 · 22 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 9 min

   Part 2: Ixigo's Aloke Bajpai on using empathy, customer experience, and resilience to both survive and thrive

   Hello and welcome back to First Principles. This is the part 2 of the 49th episode since we started, or the 8th episode of season 3. In this episode, I sit down with Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO of Ixigo, one of India's fastest-growing and most downloaded travel platforms. While most Indian OTAs followed the Western template of flights-first followed by hotels, Aloke and his co-founder Rajnish took a radically different path. The one that would take nearly 14 years before Ixigo became a full-blown OTA. Aloke takes us through Ixigo's unconventional journey, starting as a meta-search engine in 2007…

4. 

   S3 · E7 · 17 Nov 2025 · 56 min

   Part 2: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital

   Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 2 of the conversation. The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts. That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from corporate life in 2019.…

5. 

   S3 · E7 · 10 Nov 2025 · 1 hr 7 min

   Part 1: Indiagold's Deepak Abbot on turning a nation's 'dead asset' into credit scores and working capital

   Hello, listeners, and welcome back to First Principles, Episode 48, or the 7th episode of season 3. This is part 1 of the conversation. The host, Rohin Dharmakumar, first crossed paths with Deepak Abbot back in April 2015, even before The Ken had been founded. Rohin was chasing down an insightful breakdown of the tech ecosystem's huge user numbers during the Free Basics debate, and Deepak, a veteran operator and former product head at Paytm, was the go-to source for his data-filled, analytical posts. That same data-driven curiosity is what led Deepak to walk away from corporate life in 2019.…

6. 

   S3 · E6 · 22 Sep 2025 · 1 hr 3 min

   Part 2: Trilegal's Rahul Matthan on the firm, the partnership, and the principles

   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…

7. 

   S3 · E19 · 28 Sep 2026 · 14 min

   Season 3

   Summary I have hosted First Principles for four years and 58 episodes, and I have never once stopped to look at it. This episode is me doing that. There is no guest. It runs about fourteen minutes, and it ends with something I need from you. Season 3 started with Vidit Aatrey of Meesho in April 2025 and ended with Mukesh Bansal in August 2026. A lawyer, a banker, a restaurateur and a venture capitalist were guests on a show I had built for founders. The businesses were trucks, fish, kitchens and bikes. And my questions moved away from fundraising and towards where a person came from and how…

8. 

   S3 · E17 · 17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

   Part 2: Mukesh Bansal on hiring for loyalty to a mission, "no means not now", writing three books, and compounding sideways

   Where Part 1 followed the companies, Part 2 is about the person behind them. Picking up from Mukesh Bansal's move from one venture to the next, this half gets into how he finds talent ("work with them for six months"), the mental models he runs his life by, and the beliefs underneath them. He explains why rationally no one should start a company, how he processes every rejection as "no means not now", why he writes three books by simply showing up to a blank page, and how he separated the longevity basics he trusts from the biohacking he no longer does. It ends close to home: loyalty as…

9. 

   S3 · E17 · 10 Aug 2026 · 58 min

   Part 1: Mukesh Bansal on founder mode in the AI age, the three kinds of professionals in the AI age, and the Haridwar boy who found entrepreneurship in a library

   Mukesh Bansal has founded and left more companies than most people build in a lifetime, and in Part 1 he explains why. He founded Myntra and sold it to Flipkart; he co-founded Cult.fit and turned fitness into a category; and today he runs the AI company Nurix and the Meraki Labs studio. Asked what he is now, he says "a learner", and admits he gets bored the moment a company starts working. Part 1 traces the thesis and the companies: how he allocates his weeks, why he thinks the AI era rewards the hands-on operator over the people-manager, what Nurix and Fermi are, why Myntra's move into…

10. 

    S3 · E16 · 27 Jul 2026 · 1 hr

    Fireside Ventures' Kanwaljit Singh on the decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him consumer, raising half the fund he could have, and keeping a coach in his sixties

    1 · Summary Part 2 of 2. Part 1 laid out the bet: a fund built only for Indian consumer brands, back when the idea sounded absurd, and the anti-power-law machine Kanwal Singh built to make it work. This half is the person. The near-decade at Hindustan Lever that gave him his love of consumer, the Intel years, and the Paper Boat conviction that taught him to back the founder over the idea. Then the man himself: parents who came to India as refugees from Pakistan, a father who kept collecting degrees while feeding the family, the coach he started seeing in his sixties and what separates…

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