At the End of the Day, You Bet on Founders

Zerodha founder and chief executive Nithin Kamath tells Deepsekhar Choudhury that the philosophy of a company is what sets it apart and makes it special. Edited excerpts

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At what stage should a start-up start thinking about its culture?

The culture is something a business has to start figuring out from day one. And you can't do something just because Zerodha does it. In some other company, the founder would not inherently be wired the same way. I think every company needs to have a culture which kind of fits into their scheme of things.

The thing is, every company has its own culture, right? You can't say which is right, which is wrong. Whatever's working for you is right. Now, so as far as the culture at Zerodha goes, it really starts from the top management. For example, we care about health. So hopefully that percolates to the rest of the team.

What are some things that define Zerodha's culture?

Everyone at Zerodha has spent some time with us. At least among the top 100, we haven't really had too many [people] leave us. The way to keep working so long at a company is if you're given some kind of space, some kind of freedom. That's also cultural.

The philosophy with which we work at Zerodha is very different from the philosophy at other start-ups. That is what makes us special. The day you compromise on the philosophy, the culture suffers.

We are probably the only company in India that has gotten to 1.5 crore customers without a single ad. Why have we stuck to that? Or why don't we have an IPO [initial public offering]? Or why does