People by WTF

I sat down with Nikos Christodoulides, the President of Cyprus — and the rare leader who came to politics as a historian first. Cyprus is a country of a million and a half people sitting on the bridge between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which makes it one of the most strategically placed nations on earth right now. We got into why he believes the world is sliding back into raw power politics, why the institutions built after World War II no longer reflect reality, why India has to be at the centre of whatever replaces them, and why he thinks war is the easiest mistake a country can make and the hardest to undo. We also talked about democracy under pressure, why he moved from the left to the centre-right over a lifetime, what AI might do to work and governance, and what it actually feels like to wake up every day and carry the weight of a country. He told me it's a very lonely role — and that the only thing that matters is whether history, not tomorrow's headlines, judges you well.00:00 Introduction03:07 Being a historian first, a politician second08:02 Why power politics is returning to the world12:03 The case for India on the UN Security Council17:01 How postwar institutions favoured the incumbents22:23 Whether democracy still delivers economic progress27:02 Designing a new regional order from India to Europe34:39 Why interests, not values, reshape alliances40:53 The only real way to avoid war42:35 Where he stands on left versus right46:02 Moving from academia into political reality47:11 What AI could do to work and democracy52:08 Thinking about the next generation, not the next election56:22 What it feels like to hold power1:03:09 What diplomacy taught him about negotiation1:07:57 A closing argument for India's leading role#NikhilKamath – Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter/X: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Nikos Christodoulides – President of the Republic of CyprusLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikos-christodoulides-660b02139/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikoschristodoulides/?hl=enX: https://x.com/ChristodulidesWatch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Most politicians know history. My next guest is a historian who became a president. He runs Cyprus — a million-and-a-half people sitting on the bridge between Europe and the Middle East — and he thinks the world is sliding back into the kind of power politics he spent his academic life studying. We got into why starting a war is easy and finishing one is almost impossible, why he believes India has to lead the next world order, and what it actually feels like to hold power. Full episode drops soon.#NikhilKamath – Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter/X: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/Nikos Christodoulides – President of the Republic of CyprusLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikos-christodoulides-660b02139/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikoschristodoulides/?hl=enX: https://x.com/ChristodulidesWatch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Martin Escobari is the co-president of General Atlantic, one of the largest growth equity funds in the world, and he says entrepreneurs and gangsters have more in common than we admit — so few make it, so many die early, and the ones that survive are almost always wounded in some specific way. He grew up in Bolivia in the 80s through 35,000% inflation, eleven presidents in ten years, and three coups; his family lost everything in a revolution; and he now believes America is converging towards the volatility he escaped, not the other way around. I brought in Arian, a 21-year-old founder who cold emailed Sam Altman from India, and asked Martin to allocate $100 billion across three industries with a blank slate today — AI, healthcare, energy transition, and the rise of the new consumer in the global south. We got into why India hasn't produced a truly global company, why four out of seven frauds in General Atlantic's entire history happened here, why the next generation of Indian founders has to build without shortcuts, and why fiction makes better investors than non-fiction. The most interesting two hours I've spent at a dinner table this year.Timestamp:00:00 Introduction05:14 Engineering a happy life08:22 Surviving Bolivia's hyperinflation12:19 Trauma as the engine behind every entrepreneur20:17 Built-for-turbulence companies and spear fishing the storm25:31 Is America still worth the journey, and what is wealth for31:00 Capitalism, communism, and learning to think critically37:19 Submarino, the IPO crash, and the India that almost was43:02 Aryan's story: cold-emailing Sam Altman from Mumbai51:18 The four mega-trends and where to put 100 billion1:01:53 Why India has never built a global company1:10:25 How General Atlantic is built: perpetual capital and pooled bets1:16:14 Manifestation, the 8-second rule, and the checklist for great companies1:24:23 Failure, dead ends, and the courage to change your mind1:28:36 The venture-to-IPO value chain, monopolies, and young revolutionaries#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: x.com/nikhilkamathcioInstagram: instagram.com/nikhilkamathcioLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcioFacebook: facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio#MartinEscobari — Co-President and Head of Global Growth Equity at General AtlanticLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/martin-escobariTwitter: x.com/MartinEscobariWatch 'WTF is' Podcast on SpotifySpotify LinkWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on SpotifySpotify LinkWatch 'WTF Online' on SpotifySpotify Link#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Martin Escobari is the co-president of General Atlantic — one of the largest growth equity funds in the world, with over $5 billion deployed into India. He grew up in Bolivia in the 80s with 35,000% inflation, eleven presidents in ten years, three coups, and a family that lost everything in a revolution.I sat him down with a few Columbia Business School students and a 21-year-old AI founder named Arian and asked him the questions a 20-year-old and a 40-year-old would each ask differently.Full episode drops soon.#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and GruhasHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: x.com/nikhilkamathcioInstagram: instagram.com/nikhilkamathcioLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcioFacebook: facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio#MartinEscobari — Co-President and Head of Global Growth Equity at General AtlanticLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/martin-escobariTwitter: x.com/MartinEscobariWatch 'WTF is' Podcast on SpotifySpotify LinkWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on SpotifySpotify LinkWatch 'WTF Online' on SpotifySpotify Link#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Ajay Banga took Mastercard from a $30 billion company to $360 billion in a decade, was the frontrunner to run Citibank's quarter of a million people, quit to become CEO of a company with 4,000 — and today runs the World Bank Group, a $120 billion-a-year institution that was originally built to rebuild Europe and Japan after the Second World War and now exists to kill poverty by creating jobs. He says 600 million people in Africa have zero electricity and he doesn't mean inadequate electricity he means black none, that 1.2 billion young people in the developing world will turn 18 in the next 15 years with only 400 million jobs projected for them, that if you don't give them hope the demographic dividend stops being a light at the end of the tunnel and becomes a freight train, that the five sectors governments should obsess over are infrastructure and smallholder farming and primary healthcare and tourism and value-added manufacturing, that India gets fewer tourists a year than a country a fraction of its size and cultural weight, that the World Bank financed Japan's bullet trains and France's nuclear plants and helped create HDFC, that every dollar invested in tourism creates more jobs than a dollar in any other sector, that fossil fuels aren't going away but energy security is becoming a national security question, that small AI delivered on a phone to an illiterate farmer matters more to the developing world than large language models, that life is 50% luck but most people leave their luck on the station platform and forget about it, and that the only way to put a nail in the coffin of poverty is to give somebody a job because earnings are not just subsistence — they are hope and optimism and the belief that tomorrow will be better than today00:00 Introduction02:26 AJ's career journey across industries09:00 Consumption patterns and consumer insecurity15:00 World Bank's five-part structure explained22:00 Killing poverty through job creation29:00 Primary healthcare and farmer empowerment35:00 Wealth concentration versus societal prosperity spread42:00 Demographic dividend becoming freight train49:00 Five sectors driving future jobs56:00 Decency quotient over IQ EQ1:03:00 Energy security and nuclear opportunities1:10:00 Forward thinking beats historical grievances1:17:00 Luck flexibility and taking risks1:23:00 Closing message on optimismNikhil Kamath Entrepreneur & InvestorHost of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' PodcastTwitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-world-bank-group/X - https://x.com/WorldBankGroupInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/worldbankgroup/Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4nsm4eznWatch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/yme92c59Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotifyhttps://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline