✍️ Essay
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India
Free
Intermediate
Kamath built Zerodha with zero VC, so his advice is un-hyped and unusually honest for an Indian founder of his stature. He blew up a trading account, worked a call center for four years to clear the debt, and only then went full-time. His two lines you should sit with: "sharpen your axe before you go chopping wood" (build the skill and runway before you quit) and "it was a thin line between passion and foolishness. Today we are called passionate because it worked out." That is the honest frame to carry into the dinner-table conversation.
Nithin Kamath: musings on risk, quitting, and the thin line between passion and foolishness
From nithinkamath.me by Nithin Kamath Varies (essay collection)
- Buy yourself credibility with parents by building the skill and a runway first, not by quitting on a whim
- The passion-versus-foolishness line is only decided by outcome, so reduce the downside instead of arguing the upside
- Even a founder whose parents supported him treats the decision as a defined, de-risked bet, not an identity leap
