Nikhil Kamath prefers Bengaluru to Delhi, Mumbai: 'Rich people walk in chappals'

Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha

Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath said he prefers Bengaluru to other metro cities such as Delhi or Mumbai because the southern city has no brash displays of wealth. “I have seen fiercely rich people walk in chappals. You will never see that in Mumbai,” he said in an interview with Mashable India.

“People in Bengaluru are less competitive,” Kamath said, adding that people may think that being “less competitive is a bad thing” but it is actually the “best thing”.

“People don’t rise on the backs of others in Bengaluru unlike the other cities,” the CEO of the country's largest stock brokerage firm said. Kamath added that there is a special factor about Bengaluru which has worked out. "Maybe it is the timid upbringing of being a south Indian."

Nikhil Kamath, who topped the 'IIFL Wealth Hurun India 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List 2022' with a net worth of Rs 17,500 crore, had earlier also opened up about how his journey started with a Rs 8,000 a-month call centre job.

Kamath started trading in stocks while he was working with the call centre and it wasn't until a year later that he took up trading seriously. The Zerodha co-founder said that he began stock trading properly when his father gave him some of his savings and told him to "manage it".

"He just had blind faith," Kamath said.

After that, he even convinced his manager at the call center to do the same. "It worked for him, he told others. Eventually, I didn’t go to work at all, but I was marked present because I was managing the entire team’s money," Kamath added. "And then I quit to start Kamath Associates with my brother and in 2010 we launched Zerodha!"