Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath recently opened up about his first paycheck and how humble his beginnings were compared to investor-author Ruchir Sharma’s meteoric start. Appearing together on the WTF podcast , the two compared notes on their early careers, and the difference was striking.

Kamath recalled taking night shifts at a Bengaluru call centre in the early 2000s, where he earned just $1,000 a year, about Rs 88,000 now. He described it as a “modest but formative” experience that taught him discipline before he ventured into entrepreneurship. “Five years after that I was earning $1,000 a year at a call center in Bangalore called 24 bar 7,” he told Sharma, who was intrigued.

Sharma’s start could hardly have been more different. At 22, fresh out of college, he joined Morgan St

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