India, startups, design, culture, travel, motorcycles rides, food and all things beautiful.
Bengaluru, India
Joined March 2008
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Zishaan Hayath retweeted
For most of us, "I will start investing next month" has become a way of life.
I've been building products long enough to know that when people put off something that's innately good for them, it's not because of a lack of information. We have held back because of friction. Investment today requires scrambling through too many steps and processing too much jargon. As a result, most of us even hesitate to talk about investing.
@sipseapp is our humble effort to clear all of that away so that taking the first step feels as easy as saving.
[Mutual Fund Investments are subject to market risk. Read all scheme related documents carefully.]
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
You guys are gonna accuse me of hyperbole again, but as a work of art, everything about this song- the lyrics, the chorus, the score, the video- is up there with the greatest works of Rumi / Picasso / Homer. Thousands of years of civilization led up to this exact moment.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
The Gateway of India was built in Bombay. The Taj Mahal Palace opened in Bombay. Marine Drive became the Queen’s Necklace in Bombay. Victoria Terminus, the Rajabai Clock Tower and Bombay’s extraordinary Art Deco district emerged from Bombay’s evolution as a global city.
Bombay gave India Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Homi Bhabha, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Farokh Engineer, Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and great industrialists from the Tata legacy. It nurtured a world-class financial centre, a textile revolution and the Hindi film industry.
Bombay’s identity has been shaped by the Kolis, Parsis, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Marwaris, Marathi communities and diverse communities from across India. Bombay is a city, a culture and an emotion, built by generations of people who built it and called it home.
The 1995 renaming was a political decision. It cannot make that history disappear, or render the identity of millions who knew it as Bombay any less legitimate.
Call it Mumbai if you wish. But don’t force me to. And don’t reduce the history of a great city to serve a single community or a single political narrative.
I genuinely have a question to all those who still call the city as Bombay and not Mumbai.
It has been 30 years since the city is renamed as Mumbai. And still the non-native speakers insist on calling it Bombay. Some of the native speakers also go by the same name while speaking in Hindi or English. I see that in reels, filmy people conversations, college kids' conversations, and everywhere else too.
I don't really have an issue with whatever you wanna call the city but the insistence of calling it Bombay is like disrespecting the local identity and language and feelings of the original inhabitants. And though Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city, it has its own language, culture, food, identify. The local flavour needs to be RESPECTED.
And don't give me a political argument.... Some of you weren't even born when the politics around it happened. Apart from that, what is the reason?
Why is this either-or? Set up the startup incubators. Let the market decide.
Shutting b-schools can’t be a pre-condition to setting up incubators.
"I Teach at a Business School, It's Time to Shut Them Down" says Prof Chris Marquis from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.
I agree entirely and have been saying this for 2 decades. India would do well to close down business schools and focus on startup incubators. We need large scale startup formation and a lot of experimentation.
Worth making a trip to Patna just for this, I guess.
I am not surprised that Bihar Museum has been ranked ninth globally and first in Asia in Worth a Journey’s World’s 100 Best Museums 2026 list. It’s truly magical.
I had the opportunity to visit recently and was completely bowled over by its beautiful spaces, remarkable sculptures and the thoughtful way in which Bihar’s rich history and culture have been brought alive.
Walking through the galleries, I felt how beautifully a museum can connect us to our past and make history engaging, accessible and deeply personal. India deserves many more world-class museums, places where our extraordinary heritage can spark curiosity, inspire pride and nurture a love of learning for generations to come. A wonderful achievement for Bihar. Do visit and experience its magic in person.
#BiharMuseum #Bihar #Museums
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
Wow! That's Ramit from @thepeeinghuman 🔥
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
My Nana Patekar story
The year must have been 2006. My band Sankara had been having a great year. Earlier that year we'd opened for Rabbi Shergill and Indian Ocean and things were going great.
One day Koko (of Agnee fame and at the time our lead guitar player) calls us and says he guys gig tonight? Sure, we all said. Where?
Turns out it was the closing ceremony of a qualifying tournament for the World Equestrian Championships which was being held at the NDA. The venue was an open field outside NDA, overlooking Pune. A beatiful if somewhat rustic venue, but no matter there would be old monk and an animal being roasted on a spit as one has at Army parties.
Sankara, oh I wish y'all could have heard Sankara. The best damn band that India never got to know. We were all mongrel musicians (with the exception of Koko) and had somehow managed to put together a semi decent band (remember the mongrel part for later).
And our set was all originals or improvised covers of obscure songs. We'd take a Mirza Ghalib poem and set it to music and then we'd jam on it for a quarter of an hour. And all our shows were improvised as well and there was one rule - the music never stops whatever happens.
so there we were playing our set when we were told that the Chief Guest would say a few words and we turned and there on the side of the stage was Nana Patekar waiting for the band to stop so he could give his speech. But the music never stops right?
So the band, which at that point had developed some sort of weird telepathic communication system I can't fully explain dropped the volume and morphed whatever we were playing into a nice chill trip-hoppy trancy vibe and gestured to Nana to begin.
Nana steps onto the stage and in that glorious baritone of his begins to deliver his speech. What a moment it was. Gentle breeze, cool Pune evening, under the stars, smell of meat roasting, a crowd of faces shining and the gentle music underneath it all. Nana liked the vibe and rolled with it as well. He had enjoyed our little tasteful disobedience :-)
Later, during the dinner break he comes up to us and is very nice. He says "one word of advice. you all have to stay together. ladho, jhagdo lekin ek dusre se alag nahi hona. what y'all have is magic and don't fuck with it"
then he goes on to ask a favor of us. He tells us that he has a childhood friend, a classical singer. And this friend and his son used to perform together. And there had been an accident some months ago when they were on tour and the dad survived but the son died. He says that his friend hasn't sung since that day but he feels that if he meets us, his friend will sing. And would we accept an invitation to dinner at his house, along with our instruments?
which is how we find ourselves on Nana's balcony at his apartment on Law College Road where hi lived with his mother. Nana recited poetry for us. His friend was there. We drank. We played. And then Anoop asked his friend to join in on one of our songs called Lil Ojas which was straight raga Hamsadhwani and the friend turns to Anoop and says - app ki woh doosri taar thodi chadh gayi hai (your second string is out of tune)!
Goddamn mongrel musicians.
The gentleman did sing and Nana was very grateful. I never met him again even though he was lovely and would not have minded.
In that brief encounter I saw a very lovely human being. A deep soul. There are rumours that he was capable of tempers and worse but I never saw any of that in him. I met a thorough gentleman and a loving soul.
RIP Nana. Ishwar aapki aatma ko sadgati de.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
The footpaths of 12th Main, Indiranagar are a mess.
- Piles of rubble rivalling conflict zones
- Trees doubling as dustbins
- Missing/broken slabs
- Inexplicable craters
Billions in venture capital have been deployed in this part of town. The footpaths could use some love too.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
Jessica bought me a fabulous watch from my favorite vintage watch shop (Somlo) and conspired with them to have it in the window when I walked by. Of course it was the first one I noticed. But instead of a description, the label said "Happy early birthday Paul." I still didn't get that it was for me, because one of the guys who works there is called Paul. I turned to Jessica and said that he must have a birthday coming up too, but why would they put his watch in the window? Then I noticed she was grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
The Election Commission of India is under fire like never before.
The SIR has struck 13 crore names off draft rolls, putting the EC at the centre of intense public debate over its role in deciding who gets to vote — and who doesn’t.
HOWEVER, what nobody knew: through that same period, some of the sharpest questions were being asked from inside.
Out today, after months of work. Our #ExpressInvestigation 🧵
(1/10)
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
Top 10% of Indians earn 57% of national income.
The remaining 90% earn 43%.
GDP per capita of India is about $2,700.
If you set aside the top 10%, the balance 90% has an implied GDP per capita of only about $1,300. That is below the national averages of Pakistan and sub Saharan Africa. It shows how much the national average is pulled up by the top.
If you are not among the top 150 million and are part of the remaining 1.3 billion, daily life is extremely hard for a very large share of people.
Because 150 million is itself a huge number, the country looks more prosperous than it is for most citizens.
As the Indus Valley report from Blume Ventures pointed out, around 1,000 million Indians have almost no room to spend beyond very basic needs. They are not a market for discretionary goods. Public support matters a great deal for survival at that level.
As a country, we have a very long way to go.
Loving the country does not mean ignoring reality. Some people say that in every country only the top 10% thrive and the rest struggle.
That does not make India typical. India is unusual in both the depth of poverty and the concentration of income.
I mentioned that the top 10% of Indians earn about 57% of national income. In countries such as Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and France, household survey data put the top 10% closer to around 25% of national income. Even in the United States, survey data put that share near 30%.
Below are approximate GDP per capita figures for 10 large rich countries. The first number is the national average, meaning total income of the country divided by its whole population.
The second number is a rough figure for the bottom 90%, meaning what the average looks like if you leave out the richest tenth.
In these countries the second number stays high. In India it collapses.
United States: $89,105 and $68,800
Germany: $55,911 and $47,100
United Kingdom: $54,949 and $45,100
Canada: $53,558 and $45,800
France: $46,792 and $41,200
South Korea: $34,642 and $28,000
Japan: $33,956 and $27,900
Italy: $41,091 and $33,700
Australia: $64,547 and $52,300
Spain: $36,192 and $31,900
We not only create less income and wealth per person, and what we create is far more concentrated.
Shocked and deeply saddened to lose @KhadimBatti. You will always be remembered for your kindness and helpful nature.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
Some late observations:
1. Students love a good fight. Esp. when it’s unfair and they are the underdogs. Plus they love community - a highly valuable state of mind available to the modern human only for a few years of youth. No money can buy those hormones.
2. Sense of humour is a great weapon against fanatics. It disarms the opponent and heals the oppressed. And most importantly, gets you Instagram views.
3. Father figures, constantly telling a nation what to eat, who to marry, who not to love etc, are easy to dislike and unite against.
4. Mainstream media committed a mass-sepukku by agreeing to peddle just the govt. narrative over the last decade. So much so that on most policy issues, they are more conservative and bigoted than the government itself.
It did two beautiful things - one, a big chunk of population started switching off, and two, the government itself ended up dumping them in the end, by negotiating with genuine protests already labelled as aatankwaadi by the news TV. On most occasions they make govt’s job more difficult than easy.
Today - watching news TV is seen as one of the most uncool, low IQ things by a majority of the population.
5. Cuss words are no longer the underground culture they were a decade ago. (Even Gangs of Wasseypur was like 14 years ago.)
Access to international rap, desi hip hop, more than 100 Indian comedians not censoring their language, even when they censor their thoughts, and in some cases political patronage to the cuss-heavy influencers have made sure that the language on the street is no more purist/sanitised. The more it shocks the authority figures, the more it will be used.
6. An aura - carefully built over a decade - took a fortnight to burst into smithereens. That’s how flimsy it was.
Zishaan Hayath retweeted
Never thought this is how my face reveal would happen after 11 years of making content.
But worth it ✊🏽🇮🇳
Last evening (and this morning), @kunalb11 evoked multiple emotions - pride, surprise, admiration, shock, regret, envy, vindication, awe - in many of us. But I guess it was just another day for Kunal. One of a kind guy.
Pleasantly surprised to see the humble Osmania biscuit dressed up in premium packaging and sold as “Osmania Cookies.”
Growing up in Hyderabad in the ’80s, many neighbourhoods had an Irani cafe serving the timeless pairing of Irani chai and Osmania biscuits.
If this is VC’s standard clause, then there should be no problem in naming them. And if there is no name, then it probably didn’t happen. Just bs for X engagement.
There’s an Indian VC (based there, invests there) who I won’t name. Every term sheet he writes — even $1M checks — includes this: founders must return 5x, he keeps full anti-dilution AND his equity on top, and if they don’t hit it in 3 years, he gets to fire them. 😂😭
I told him, “dude, I can’t invest into this structure, it’s insane.” His response: “JJ! No no, you don’t understand — this is totally normal in India, man! We want you to invest!!”
LESSON: Any founder in India who’s been handed this — email me. I’ll personally make sure you get introduced to VCs who aren’t actively trying to fuck you over.