Shane Parrish is one of the interesting persons in the world of Finance/Blogging/Podcasting. I first discovered him through his website/blog called Farnam Street. It’s an excellent resource for a lot of interesting articles/blogs and insights. I have also subscribed to his newsletters. The internet rabbit hole is such that once you like someone you can easily figure out who are the people who are similar to the person you like or those who talk about the person you like. I discovered Shane because he is a big fan of Charlie Munger. I discovered Charlie because of Warren Buffett. So when I noticed that Shane also follows Charlie and has written a book on Mental Models, I immediately picked it up (the kindle version).
Then he started another interesting initiative called The Knowledge Project through which he talks to intelligent, successful people with deep understanding of many things. It turned into a youtube channel by the same name – The Knowledge Project. I do watch it regularly.
Then there is another interesting Indian entrepreneur named Kunal Shah. He was the founder of FreeCharge and successfully sold it a decade ago and made hundreds of millions of dollars. Just 4-5 years back he started his next venture called CRED (now CredAvenue). You must have seen crazy, funny, sometimes irritating ads of CRED during IPL.
Kunal Shah is just below 40, and has already built two unicorns and has been an investor in many other start-ups. He is probably the only Unicorn founder in India who has studies humanities (he is a Philosophy graduate), unlike others who are either Engineers or MBAs or Chartered Accountants. So his insights are often philosophical – sometimes bordering on preaching and making unsubstantiated claims (which he himself acknowledges).
I had a short banter with him on Twitter, when I, as an angry CRED user, criticised him and he send me direct messages on Twitter to discuss, and eventually diverted the discussion into he assessing my personality and blaming me for the criticism. That was the philosophy graduate cleverly dodging the questions related to gaps or flaws in his start-up and taking the other person for a ride through his verbal diarrhoea. Anyways, since then my opinion about him as a person has not been good. And his CRED app is a scam, or at least an overhyped venture that mis-sells on false promises.
However, I also admire and follow Kunal for his interesting takes on many things.
So when he did an interview with Shane for The Knowledge Project, I was curious!
While most of The Knowledge Project interviews/podcasts are 1.5 hours long, this one with Kunal went on for almost 2.5 hours. And it was really nice! Hence thought of posting it here. Shane is a great interviewer, who lets his guests speak without interruptions and when he asks questions he adds great value and takes the discussion forward. I really liked their chat. Check if you like it too…
ekoshapu 