Fortune India
While others race for IPOs and headlines, Nikhil Kamath has quietly built a billion-dollar company, resting on an entirely different philosophy of life and ambition.
He dropped out of school at 16, started a job at a call centre, and later co-founded Zerodha — a bootstrapped trading platform now worth over $3 billion.
No flashy fundraising. No VC hype. Kamath’s Zerodha scaled quietly, profitably — proving that long-term thinking can still win in a start-up world obsessed with speed.
Books, silence, and self-inquiry matter more to him than buzzwords and brand-building. Kamath often retreats from public life to reflect, read, and reset.
On 'WTF is with Nikhil Kamath', he doesn’t dominate the mic. He listens. From spiritual gurus to CEOs, the podcast offers a rare humility in an era of hot takes.
No private jets. No fleet of supercars. Kamath’s aesthetic — and attitude — is sparse, functional, and deeply intentional. A billionaire with zero flash.
His Rainmatter Foundation supports climate, education, and livelihoods — not for CSR optics, but to decentralise power.
To Kamath, ambition isn't about constant hustle—it's about balance. He believes that always being in performance mode can make you lose sight of yourself. For him, stillness isn’t an escape.
In a time when hustle culture is being questioned, Kamath’s values-first model offers a new kind of aspiration — one that prioritises self-knowledge over spectacle.
Kamath isn’t just reshaping Indian finance. With his values-first approach to wealth, he’s giving Gen Z permission to dream differently — with less noise, and more meaning.