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Nithin Kamath: musings on risk, quitting, and the thin line between passion and foolishness

Nithin Kamath · nithinkamath.me Free Intermediate India

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.

  • 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
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The question it answers

  1. How do I tell my parents I'm quitting a stable job to start up, and survive the pressure that follows?

Read with it

  1. This is the exact scene you are dreading, in Indian parents' own words. Vineeta Singh (SUGAR) turned down a lucrative offer and... Humans of Bombay Article · 8 min read 5 Indian startup stories: founders who turned down the safe job and faced the family they had to answer to Humans of Bombay
  2. This is the runway-and-plan-B ammunition you can literally quote to your parents. Adam Grant's research found founders who kept... tampham.co Article · 6 min read Don't quit your job to start a business (Adam Grant's research on de-risking the bet) Adam Grant (research), summarized
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