Zerodha’s Nikhil Kamath on being a school dropout: ‘Felt insecure after friends graduated, social stigma around jobs…’

When asked how the reactions were after his dropping out Kamath said his parents took the news better than expected. “My parents had given up on me. It felt like they had lost hope,” he joked, adding that his extended family values higher education.

Family Expectations

“Coming from a South Indian family with highly educated relatives, the pressure was on to follow a certain path of achievement. I believe my parents handled the situation better than expected, they showed gumption and faith in me,” he said.

On his school friends, Kamath said nothing changed because of his decisions, adding that he did get “insecure” at some point, but the circumstances made him aware of societal stigmas surrounding certain professions.

“I feel like the psychology behind it is very interesting. So my first job at a call centre in Bengaluru when I was 17 used to pay me ₹8,000-9,000. I was feeling really good about myself because I had a wage, I had access to more money than my friends had access to at that point in time, and I’ve been precociously greedy for financial independence. You feel good from 17 to 22, while your friends are at college,” he started.

Societal Pressures

Adding: “You start feeling unnerved when your friends graduate college and get their first job because there is societal stigma around a job which does not have an entry barrier. It could be any job. Call centre jobs did not require a degree they did not require expertise or proficiency of a certain kind, so societal stigma is there. You can be in a call center earning ₹1 lakh per month but a doctor earning ₹25,000 per month gets more societal acceptance. So by 22-23 when my classmates graduated and they started becoming doctors and engineers then you start feeling a little conscious.”

He however added that at some point in life “you’re comparing yourself to your peer group no matter how the peer group was created”. Kamath did add that this didn’t “hurt him psychologically in the manner that it might have hurt many others because the circumstances were conducive”, but acknowledged that if reenacted today “it would be different”.

Notably, Kamath who co-founded Zerodha with brother Nithin Kamath, is today among India’s youngest billionaires.

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Published: 25 Mar 2024, 01:24 PM IST