so are you financially independent you are currently the CEO of indd money a company which is valued at 5,000 cror how does the founder of a startup actually make money I don't think uh you know salary makes you feel rich but on the other hand the real value can only be created through equity and esops so if I had acumulated esops of 10 lakhs I would be worth 20 crores correct and there are examples like this Lots you were to start your own career right now as a 25-year old guy which industry or which companies
would you like to join so that you can derive value out of their resource I don't think that if somebody with 20 years of experience is better than someone with 5 years of experience you're saying only with the cash salary it is very difficult for somebody to Achieve Financial Independence and which is [Music] why Mr as kup you you are currently the CEO of indd money a company which is valued at 5,000 crores you've been working in almost four five companies in your entire uh life so far so are you financially independent yes I'm financially
independent so how do you define Financial Independence uh you know if me and my family does not need to rely on a monthly cash flow to meet the ends meet one if that's financially independent and I can also extend and then what is wealth can that wealth be passed on to certain Generations yeah so that you know they are able to perhaps use it for you know doing something better to for the Mankind in this world what I'm curious to know is how does the founder of a startup actually make money right how does that
entire process work because from the outside when we evaluate startups we look at okay they're not making profits what the point and that's how a common man might look at it so can you educate us as to how a Founder makes money yeah no great so firstly the founder cannot make money through salary okay okay the second thing is that typically think of a company like a pizza right uh where a Founder who is building the company with his own money and does not have any investors then the whole pizza belongs to him now when
the founder wants to scale and when he wants to build out a company and create a large impact he or she wants to raise Capital but uh but there there are institutions in this country Venture capitalists of various stages and private equity which invest in companies there are they getting the money from they get their monies from investors hni investors University endowments and so on and so forth so the minute uh a Founder wants to raise Capital to scale his or her company that founder would take money from the company and in exchange give few
pieces of pizza to those investors so now let's assume that there are you know four pieces of pizza for Simplicity so I would keep two pieces of pizza and I would give two pieces of pizza to these investors right that's how it happens so now the investors own 50% of the pizza I own 50% of the pizza now as my company grows further my pizza becomes bigger H and I put more cheese on it and what what happens is that I need to give more pieces of pizza to more investors because I want to scale
even more or two pieces or or I have let's say 25% of the pizza and 75% of the pizza belongs to these investors now the founder can monetize and he he and she has to monetize along with all of these investors through following ways number one way is that he or she can do a sale of the asset which means do a merger and acquisition meaning sell the company sell the company as an example M mintra selling to Flipkart uh so that's one way to do it the second way to do it is you say
I want to list my asset on the Bombay Stock Exchange or National Stock Exchange right I want to list it IPO IPO and I want to invite normal people retail people to be able to invest in my company so that's the second way that is what zato did that is what zato did or that is what uh you know PM also did recently or that is what policy Bazar has done that is what naika has done and so so that point of time the founder gets to sell there are some there are some lockin etc
etc but that now now that makes the founder part of his pizza liquid right he can go and sell in the open market nibles of that in the open market yeah so what is the success rate for a Founder like you mentioned a Founder can't make money through salary because they're taking a nominal salary so out of 100 startups which are made coming in India how many startups can actually have an event of an IPO or getting acquired by another company where the founder actually makes some wealth so I would say two 2% yeah company
which is getting started uh you know obviously the failure rates are higher because they may even fail even before being able to raise Capital so how does the employees make money now I understood about the founder uh but a lot of people watching over here uh you know are really hesitant of joining a startup because they like like you mentioned only two out of 100 startups might actually become successful so as a person who is starting out my career how can I make it worth my while so how can I become a part of that
wealth creation Journey along with that founder yeah look I mean I think just like the way today's date an investor chooses a company that he or she wants to invest in same way they need to be able to have the sense of how to choose companies yeah that's the first thing second is that I think the magic of employee stock options and it's kind of got proven with so many liquidity events that has happened is just unbelievable it creates like a think of a person who's 25 years old you know uh especially if that person
joins the right company and actually negotiates more esops versus salary in for a growth stage company in four to 5 years time that person will create so much of wealth that he she will be ready to do a startup of his own or her own for salaried people if assuming they don't participate in uh creating a company or they don't have esops assuming Pure Play salary I think it's just I've not seen it very seldom for people to get financially independent you're saying only with the cash salary correct it is very difficult for somebody to
Achieve Financial Independence and which is why you know something which I also didn't do when I was a kid but save and put their money in sips every month h that is that compounding is very powerful and that can you know make you somewhat financially independent so Ashish after what salary did you start feeling Rich so I I don't think uh you know salary makes you feel rich okay whether you are earning 10,000 rupees a month or you earning 1 lakh or 10 lakh the concept of salary right firstly it doesn't come in one month
a salary when we say is divided by 12 months and second is that salary comes to you after tax and tax is deducted fully so I don't think uh one can create wealth with just salary but on the other hand uh the real value can only be created through equity and esops can you give an example what is the esops that they took and what was the value of that ESOP when they finally got the exit got it got it no that's a good point so let's say a person who uh joined me in the
beginning if he had 100 rupees of esops that 100 rupees of esops uh you know gave him a value of about 2 lakh rupees so and2 lakh you can do the maths so if I had accumulated esops of 10 lakhs that would be worth 20 crores correct and there are examples like this Lots okay enough to start their own company enough to start got it so if you were to sort of let's say start your own career right now as a 25y old guy which industry or which companies would you like to join uh so
that you can derive value out of their esops yeah so I think I would definitely uh be very bullish on fintech financial services so your company my company yes I'm very bullish right uh and and it's also at the right stage for sure I'm also very bullish about htech uh uh htech you know converged with aih mhm is going to be very powerful I'm also pretty bullish about a lot of uh Enterprise or SAS Tech can you tell me a little bit about um how your journey began like what was your what was your first
salary I started working right after graduation this is before my postgrad uh and my first job was with this radio business of times group I think my salary was like 10,000 rupees or something like that which year was this this was 1998 this was many years ago I was 22 you're making 10,000 a month yes how much would that value be today 10,000 a month maybe 60,000 Rupees that's actually a pretty good starting Sal yeah okay right so what did you study I did economics honors first and then I did my postgraduation uh from Migel
in correct so in early on when you began your career what were you optimizing for like did you think that okay I need to make a lot of money and be a rich and then retire or was it something else that you were thinking about in your 20s or maybe your early 30s yeah I think so look I mean I think I had this huge Fortune to uh join Google which was again very transformational and join them as their first country head you know uh this would have been a little bit later in your career
right yeah I mean it was actually not that late in the career how old were you when you became I was I think about uh 32 years old well how do you think you became a country head of Google so far because I worked for I I built the internet businesses for times before that okay and internet was just happening right I also just want to say that you know the the world has started changing and it's changed now right like I have seen that a the concept of age and the concept of experience is
getting out of the picture completely I have met a lot of people with amazing experience on paper but when I actually get down to talking to them they have been in existence what does that mean which means that they haven't learned anything even at indd money there are people who work with me you know there could be a 28 29 year old who would be 10x to someone who's worked 20 years okay so I think the concept of age that can a 29y old really scale and do things and you know build stuff uh I
think that is something which uh has completely changed so I don't think uh that if somebody with 20 years of experience is better than someone with 5 years of experience so what is that um numerical figure after which I can quit my job and think of being a startup founder yeah so okay so I think that person if that person can have this 4 to 5 CR of Corpus then that person also has a cushion and can also think think of doing a startup think of failing many times and finally succeeding so your your advice
is that if somebody wants to start their own company have at least like four to five crores in savings yeah my my my uh my suggestion is that many times a lot of people jump into starting up chances of failure are very hard and then you want to come back to employment and swap back to you know starting up rather than that learn work in a startup spend some time create some Corpus and then jump into doing a startup so Ashish can you talk about your own investment strategy how do you manage your own money
so I you know love the concept of allocation okay yeah so broadly my allocation is across Indian equities global equities can you tell me the percentages yeah so largely so let's say firstly let's talk about equity and non- Equity equity for me 70% non-equity is 30% uh when I say non-equity it means debt debt mutual funds hybrid and so on and so forth and bonds yeah and within Equity uh you know uh there is domestic and Global equities I like diversifying between both uh so that's how it is done of in non equities uh you
know things like Angel Investing and uh real estate is less than 3% but when you mean real estate 3% like what is real estate in this real estate doesn't include the house that you stay in let's let's leave that out but real estate as an invest okay you're not even including your house here yeah I'm not including the house so apart from your house you have real estate investments in which is 3% of your portfolio less than 3% and what is this like some commercial building like it could be like a plot it could be
like an apartment it could be like a commercial why did you buy it because you don't like it over over the period of time I would have bought it but I'm saying that what I learned over the last 15 years it's an inefficient asset class basically okay any anything else apart from these investment products like bonds fds debt funds domestic Equity us Equity anything else apart from this apart from this is my equity in the company that I work in okay the the in money correct yeah I'm assuming that is um the biggest part of
your wealth yes perhaps when we go IPO perhaps yes but do you think you will one day go IPO I mean I think this time we don't want to definitely sell the asset uh you know we would love to enable lot of retail people to also create value from us H so Ashish um what is the biggest risk you have taken in your life which has helped you become successful so when I was the country head of Google that was uh amazing opportunity a highly remunerative opportunity and for me the biggest risk was to just
leave everything leave that and plunge into starting up I think that was perhaps the biggest one right I think you just basically say listen I want to uh basically build my own startup H and that has been worth it obviously I hope so Co asers I think um I've asked all the questions that I could possibly think out of you thank you thank you and wishing you all the best thank you so much cheers thank you guys and I'll see you in the next one
