Article · ~4 min read

Nithin Kamath reveals why Zerodha deliberately stayed a 1,000-person company

Business Today Free Beginner India

A concrete India case of a founder swallowing his own instinct. Kamath started Zerodha believing 'more people solve more problems,' the default founder reflex, then his CTO Kailash Nadh pushed back. Instead of defending his gut, Kamath watched the small team compound, updated, and built one of India's most profitable companies on a deliberately lean headcount. This is what updating on hard internal feedback actually looks like, from a founder Indian builders trust.

• Kamath's first instinct ('more people, more problems solved') was exactly wrong, and he only saw it because he let his CTO's contrary view sit and play out
• Changing your mind was gradual, not a dramatic reversal: he watched the evidence for years before he was 'sold on K's idea'
• The hardest feedback to hear can come from your own team, and the founders who win are the ones who stop defending long enough to test it