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WTF is with Nikhil Kamath

WTF is with Nikhil Kamath

Written by: Nikhil Kamath
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"WTF is" is a podcast series where Nikhil Kamath hosts friends and industry experts and holds casual yet intellectually stimulating conversations. The podcast covers a broad range of topics of particular current relevance, including technology, social media, renewable energy, electric vehicles, philosophy, gaming, psychology and more.

Copyright 2025 Nikhil Kamath Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Who Gets To Decide How India Pays? | WTF is Payments? | Trailer

    Who Gets To Decide How India Pays? | WTF is Payments? | Trailer
    Oct 14 2026

    I wanted to start by drawing a diagram of the different kinds of payments and how we got here. We use UPI for everything from everyday purchases to applying for an IPO, but using it and understanding it are different things. What makes us choose one way to pay over another? What does it take to build trust? And why does a conversation about competition turn into a disagreement about who should be allowed to decide?


    This one moves from consumer incentives and bank regulation to the scale of UPI, caps on market share, and the possibility of AI agents transacting for us. There is disagreement over the costs, the timing, and whether changing commerce means payments must change too. Twenty pages of questions at the table, and one more subject waiting at the end: MDR.


    Sohini Rajola- Executive Director Growth at the National Payments Corporation of India.

    • Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohinirajola/


    Sameer Nigam- Founder and CEO of PhonePE

    • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanigam/


    Harshil Mathur: Co-founder and CEO of Razorpay

    • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshilmathur/


    Nikhil Kamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas

    Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast

    • Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
    • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
    • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/


    Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn


    Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59


    Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th


    #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline
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    3 mins
  • Will ChatGPT Book Your Next Holiday? | MakeMyTrip x Taj Hotels | WTF is Travel?

    Will ChatGPT Book Your Next Holiday? | MakeMyTrip x Taj Hotels | WTF is Travel?
    Sep 11 2026
    Access the full data and references used in this episode below.Please open this alongside the episode while watching.Open Reference DocumentI put Rajesh Magow, the chartered accountant who co-founded MakeMyTrip on a team where almost nobody knew travel, and Puneet Chhatwal, the Delhi boy who spent twenty-eight years running hotels in Europe before coming home to pull IHCL out of a decade of losses, into one room to explain the business of Indian travel from scratch, and what came out was far bigger than a lesson, from why boutique hotels are better built by outsiders and how a fifty crore partnership between their companies became twelve hundred, to what a hotel actually pays to sit on MakeMyTrip and why booking direct still isn't cheaper, why ChatGPT can't scrape its way into the travel funnel and where voice bookings are taking tier-three India, why Puneet thinks the answer for a 25-year-old isn't another app but a small, clean hotel, why only ten million foreigners visit a country with more than forty UNESCO sites, what went wrong in Goa and where the next thirty Goas should be, why tourism being a state subject is the real bottleneck, and the full playbook both of them would run to take India from ten million tourists to a hundred million.Timestamp:00:00 Introduction07:03 Getting to Know the Guests14:30 How MakeMyTrip’s Hotel Partnerships Work21:45 Booking Direct vs Travel Apps28:26 Puneet Chhatwal’s Journey from Delhi to Europe35:01 Building Villa Stays & Solo Travel Businesses41:43 Will AI Change How We Book Travel?48:40 Customer Data vs Personal Hospitality55:43 Can Robots Replace Hotel Staff?1:03:05 Bringing Small-Town India into Online Travel1:09:52 Should Hotels Cut Out the Middleman?1:16:37 India’s Mid-Range Hotel Opportunity1:23:51 Marketing India & Fixing Tourism Taxes1:30:46 Mass Tourism vs Luxury Tourism in Goa1:38:26 Can Luxury Trains Attract Premium Tourists?1:44:44 Civic Sense & the Tourist Experience1:51:24 Making India’s Attractions Discoverable & Bookable1:58:44 Alibaug’s Potential & the Homestay Business2:05:56 Why Celebrations Are Driving Villa Bookings2:13:42 What Travel Business Should a 25-Year-Old Start?2:19:43 Handling Bad Experiences & Building Trust2:27:16 Nandan Nilekani & the Shift to Hotel Branding2:34:40 What It Takes to Run an Asset-Light Hotel Brand2:41:13 The Wellness Hotel Opportunity2:48:44 Building Travel Businesses for Gen Z2:56:16 Travel Education & New Business Ideas3:02:19 Unlocking Unexplored India3:08:42 Building New Destinations & Event Tourism3:15:38 Private Jet Economics & Closing ThoughtsRajesh Magow, Co-Founder & Group CEO, MakeMyTrip LimitedLinkedIn: Rajesh MagowPuneet Chhatwal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL)LinkedIn: Puneet ChhatwalNikhil Kamath — Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: TwitterInstagram: InstagramLinkedIn: LinkedInFacebook: FacebookWatch 'WTF is' Podcast on SpotifySpotify#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline
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    3 hrs and 22 mins
  • India Is A Great Country To Travel From, Not To | WTF is Travel? | Trailer

    India Is A Great Country To Travel From, Not To | WTF is Travel? | Trailer
    Sep 3 2026

    I put the two companies most Indian holidays run through into one room, Rajesh Magow who co-founded MakeMyTrip and Puneet Chhatwal who runs IHCL, the company behind Taj, and what began as friendly needling over whose business is bigger and more profitable turned into the one question I couldn't let go of, why a country with this much coastline, culture and history gets barely ten million foreign visitors a year and what it would actually take to make that a hundred million, which pulled us through OYO's pivot, whether India's problem is marketing or the product itself, why tourism gets half a percent of GDP when every rupee spent on it comes back three times over, where the next Goa is, and the line that stayed with me, that India has become a great country to travel from and not the best country to travel to. Full episode drops soon.


    Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn


    Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59


    Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify

    https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th
    Show More Show Less
    3 mins
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good sensible talks...enlightening. love to listen daily. love to hear more on varied topics. Its an info and knowledge podcast yet entertaining

Nikhil Kamath

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