“Dropout of school had its drawbacks…”: Nikhil Kamath talks about the challenges behind Zerodha’s success

Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha, has built an empire in India’s financial scene, but his path has been far from traditional. After leaving school at the age of 15 or 16, Kamath has publicly discussed the challenges and fears that came with skipping formal education.

“Leaving school and not pursuing formal higher education has its drawbacks,” Kamath admitted during a conversation with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. He admitted that the absence of a structured educational framework forced him to work harder to gain credibility and knowledge. “Reading widely has allowed me to compensate for my lack of formal education,” he said.

Kamath’s aversion to traditional academics was evident early on. “I hated school. I always did,” he said, reflecting on his rebellious teenage years. When Kamath was still in ninth grade, he found his first business venture: cell phone trading. After making a profit on the first sale, he reinvested the profits He increased his side hustle.

However, his budding business ended abruptly when his mother discovered his activities and destroyed his stock by flushing the phones down the toilet. “That was the end of my first job,” Kamath said, looking back on that moment with humor and perspective.

Despite this setback, Kamath’s decision to leave school led him to adopt a disciplined approach to self-education. Feeling the need to overcompensate, he devoured books and sought practical knowledge to fill the gap left by formal education. “I was a rather insecure young boy because my classmates at the time were in college,” he said frankly.

This relentless drive to learn and grow eventually paved the way for his collaboration with his brother Nithin Kamath. Together they founded Zerodha, a venture that revolutionized India’s stock broking industry and made Nikhil one of the country’s youngest billionaires.