Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath explained the reason why the stock broker does not have IIT, IIM alumni among its employees. In a conversation with Shekhar Tomar, Assistant Professor, Economics and Public Policy, Indian School of Business (ISB), Kamath suggested that the priorities of IIT, IIM students often do not match with that of Zerodha.
However, he did clarify there was no policy to not hire IIT, IIM students. “Thing is not like we don’t hire them. It’s just that there are no IIT, IIMs [alumni] in this company. And the reason is when we started, the first many years, there was not enough money on the table. So, we couldn’t afford any IIMs. Because people come with the price tag.”
Kamath explained how business school students had clear objectives and it was difficult to make promises that couldn’t be kept. “The way MBA schools work is that you get wired to think about where you want to get to life in how much time. Like you know there are all these goals set as soon as you finish your MBA. In 3 years I’ll be this, after 2 years I’ll be this, in 5 years I need to be earning this much money. So, when someone comes to me and says Nithin, ‘can I be here in this much time?’, I don’t know. I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow morning, how will I tell you where you’ll be after three years.”
Kamath indicated he understood the financial burden that the students were often in. “People are spending a lot of money to do these courses. They’re right in a way. They can’t just come out and say ‘I’m okay to be in a place which says you do well, you’ll make some money at the end of it’,” he explained. He summarised the culture at Zerodha: “The culture has been every day we get up, we’ll do something better and wherever we have to get to life, we’ll get to.”
During the conversation, Kamath also touched on how day trading, which he did in the initial years of his career, looks easy but is really tough. “Day trading is probably the toughest place on the planet to make money. It gives you an illusion that it’s easy, but I think the only easy thing about day trading is opening an account. Otherwise, it’s law of the jungle,” he said.
“Day trading is a zero-sum game. You’re competing with everyone else. On one side it might be a retail investor but has to understand that on the other side could be some PhD in Math with access to unlimited money and computation power. So, it’s really hard making money day trading,” Kamath added.
Also read: ‘Half our office was crying’: When founder Nithin Kamath sent fake cops to raid Zerodha headquarters!
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