'Egos and misunderstandings come into play but...': Nikhil Kamath on dealing conflicts with Nithin at Zerodha

Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of India's largest brokerage firm Zerodha, has candidly admitted that running the company with his brother, Nithin Kamath, isn't always a smooth sailing experience. In a recent interview, Nikhil revealed that despite their close familial bond, there are instances when personal egos can interfere with their professional relationship.

In a podcast episode titled WTF is the Next Gen Thinking?, Kamath mentioned that 65 percent of startups fail because of conflicts between founders. He credited much of Zerodha's success to the fact that it is run by him and his brother, highlighting their strong partnership as a key factor.

"We have an added advantage of being brothers and we do completely different things," Nikhil Kamath said. "All my time is spent doing stock market-related stuff, all his time is spent on people and broking-related stuff so we don't get into each other's way. We just happen to compliment each other, but that being said, there are times when egos come into play. There are times when misunderstandings happen. Luckily for us, things that really helped was that from the very beginning we had everything on paper."

The younger Kamath brother explained that despite facing many ups and downs while running the company, one key factor in their success is that they have never brought in any outsiders. This close partnership has helped them navigate challenges together.

"We have not had investors, we have not had debt, we have run it like an old school shop in the farce of a modern company. That helped, but still, there will be misunderstandings and neither of us generally agree whenever there is a misunderstanding but if it's anything to do with stock market, investing, trading-related stuff, I take the final call. If it's his part of the business -- anything related to people, product, broking all of that, he takes the call," Nikhil Kamath said.

In an earlier podcast episode, elder brother Nithin Kamath mentioned that he realized early on that his brother Nikhil was the better trader during their initial days in the trading business.

“I quickly realised that Nikhil is a better trader than I am because at that point of time we were trading money and I was also doing this side hustle of broking business. In 2008-09, I said if he is better at trading than me then why not he continue trading and maybe I can go to broking permanently," Nithin Kamath said in the episode of WTF is Health?

Nithin Kamath reiterated in a LinkedIn post how his younger brother Nikhil's trading success played a key role in building the company. He wrote, "Nikhil is a much better trader than me. When we started, the plan was for him to trade while I focused on building Zerodha. If it didn't work, I would go back to trading. Luckily, it worked, and Nikhil still trades full-time. His profits in the first two years helped us build the company without needing venture capital."