Nitin Verma

I'll admit this might sound odd coming from me, maybe even clichéd. But it's something I've been sitting with for a while, so here goes. When I started out, like most people, I had a simple wealth goal. I'd actually written it down: hit ₹5 crore, retire in Goa, beach shack, done. That was the dream. After the Zerodha journey, I find myself on a very different side of that equation, and the dark inequalities of wealth and opportunity are harder to ignore than ever. We all know the numbers on inequality. The concentration of wealth among the top 1% is severe and getting worse, and it's even starker among the top 0.1%. The post-2008 era of rising asset prices has likely made this worse, because the people who hold financial assets are, by definition, people who already have money. This isn't unique to India. Barring a few exceptions, it's a global phenomenon. I'm cautious about attributing every socio-political problem we face today to inequality, but it's hard to deny the role it's played in the political upheavals we're seeing across the world. History rarely shows that sustained, extreme inequality ends well. To me, it increasingly feels like sitting in a car with the brakes cut, watching a cliff approach. Btw, all of this even before AI, which has a non-trivial probability of making things worse. I'll stop short of prescribing solutions. It's too easy to reach for simple answers to complicated problems, and that's a separate conversation entirely. But I think we need to collectively acknowledge this: wealth that just sits in financial assets whose value keeps compounding upward doesn't do much good for anyone beyond those who already have it. And if that wealth isn't in motion, if it isn't doing some social good, the fabric that holds us together will only continue to fray and lead to cynicism, resentment, and worse yet, nihilism. We're already seeing all of it. What I am saying is that even if a portion of that wealth were channelled into things that could materially improve lives, that seems worth doing. Hoarding wealth, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really help anyone.

Asked someone from the industry whether foreign investors are still interested in allocating to India. The TLDR: Interest has pretty much died out. India is seen as geopolitically exposed, especially to an oil shock. There are no real AI plays. Valuations are rich. And the rupee situation doesn't help. On top of that, investors who were sitting on gains have taken money off the table and are now looking at markets like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Europe etc instead. He also pointed out that our LTCG/STCG structure and the increase in STT have made India less attractive compared to other markets that are seeing inflows. If we need to attract FPIs back, and we do, fixing this feels like pretty low-hanging fruit.