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Two By Two Fri, 14 Nov 25 |
An abridged, narrative version of the latest episode of Two by Two, The Ken’s premium weekly business podcast. |
What will bring ambition back from the dead?. The personal vs. corporate fix for career fatigue
| 7 min read |
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“Nothing about work fazes me anymore. Absolutely nothing,” said a senior executive at a consumer-tech company who’s in his early forties. His financial comfort means: “Anything can happen and I don’t bat an eyelid. And I can’t remember ever feeling this way.”
He didn’t say that to me, though.
That quote is from Arundhati Ramanathan’s workplace vibe-shift story from just over two weeks ago, “Indian tech companies are spawning an ‘ambitionless’ generation.”
Arundhati called the prevailing mood “corporate nihilism.”
Naturally, we could not pass up an opportunity to apply the Two by Two lens on the topic–not to simply re-discuss what Arundhati had already reported and explained so well, but to go beyond it.
How do you solve for lack of ambition? Should we even?
We invited three guests for the episode, including, of course, Arundhati herself. I mean, I don’t want to be accused of manstealing her story.
Our second guest was Vipul Nanda, director of product marketing at Databahn, an AI company. Vipul has over a decade of experience across companies like Cashfree and Razorpay. He is also the co-founder of a community for product marketers in India and holds an advisory position with Antler.
Our third guest was also a returning one–Gaston Schmitz. Gaston is a partner/executive and founder coach at the Asian Leadership Institute, guiding senior executives at Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startup founders across 30+ countries.
And then there was my co-host Praveen Gopal Krishnan, himself a former product manager and recovering MBA.
As it turned out, I, a Gen X-er, was outnumbered 4-to-1 by Millennials in this episode.
Arundhati’s story captured the crisis at the centre of this episode.
Ambition is the force that propels careers and companies forward. “It’s that last shot of adrenaline that helps them blow past constraints,” said a senior executive at a public consumer-tech company. But professionals are now seeing a drain in that energy.
“I don’t care anymore. I have to pull off miracles to be able to grow in my career. And I’m not willing to do what it takes,” said a 38-year-old product manager in a multinational ride-hailing company.
Jaded by hustling, anxious about AI, shaken by frequent and random layoffs—all for meagre hikes—means employees are increasingly subscribing to a “what-is-the-point” school of thought.
But is this a systemic failure or a personal crisis of meaning? Is it the company’s job to reignite the flame, or does the responsibility lie with each of us to find our own “fire in the belly”?
This episode of Two by Two doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, we discussed the very nature of motivation and ambition. Do we need to replace them with something more resilient and personal?
Here are some excerpts.
The case of the missing drive
The problem isn’t a loud rebellion but a quiet, creeping sense of apathy. “Ambitionlessness” is subtle, showing up in conversations where driven professionals suddenly question the point of it all.
Arundhati: It didn’t make itself obvious, this ambitionlessness that we’re talking about. It was not obvious at all. I think in different pockets of conversations you would hear, you know, people who you thought of as ambitious suddenly saying that, ‘Hey, I don’t see the point of all of this.’ Nearly 600 people took that survey. And the results were quite stark. Almost 30% identified themselves actually as saying that they are not as ambitious as they used to be. And another 30% saying that their definition of ambition has changed. That’s when we felt like this is, there is this insidious sense of ambitionlessness creeping in India’s workforce.
Vipul: I think that impacts how people are thinking about why they’re doing what they’re doing. I’ve seen… there’s a community I’m a part of, there are colleagues that I work with who are Gen Z, they’re millennial, and across both sets of people, I keep seeing the idea that they just don’t care that much anymore.
The finite game is over
For decades, a career was a series of finite games—pass the exam, get the job, earn the promotion. Each game had clear rules and a predictable outcome. But today, that gameboard has been flipped. With AI able to do the “monkey work”, layoffs becoming routine, and all digital products converging into a state of “averageness”, the old signals for success are broken.
Praveen: I feel like a lot of what was earlier described as ambition is just a function of outcomes that people felt that they had control of… And I feel like what has happened is a lot of these things have sort of gone away. And I feel like as a consequence what’s happening is people are no longer able to look outside at what gives them meaning and they’re now forced to look inwards… and many people are probably doing it for the first time in their lives.
Vipul: The signal and response equation is broken. What people now perceive as productivity or good work doesn’t seem correlated to the same inputs that I learned growing up were essential to being ambitious, right? Like I chased the promotion, I chased the higher salary. Now I don’t know if that is going to be a function of me, you know, ruining my personal life or not spending time with my family.
Praveen: I have been interviewing for product managers and product designers right now, right? I am quite struck by the fact that if you look at every single UPI app in India, they all look exactly the same… So if you’re a product manager, all you’re doing is just taking what everyone else has and creating the average of everything. This feeling of averageness and medianness and being safe is fundamentally what’s taking meaning out.
Beyond ambition: the search for an inner fire
If external ambition is failing, perhaps the solution is to look inward. Executive coach Gaston Schmitz argues that we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of solving for “ambition”, we need to solve for our “energy sources”. He proposes a powerful framework of three intrinsic motivators that can sustain us even when the external world is chaotic.
Gaston: The first one is progress. The number one thing that people get motivated by is actually just progress… The second one is purpose… contributing to something bigger than just your own small sense of self. And the third one, which I really like, is play. Once you realise like what I’m doing at work feels like play, it feels like fun, it’s enjoyable, like that’s an incredibly powerful energy source… Now what’s interesting is when progress drops… it forces people to think and reflect on what really matters, and I actually think it’s a great thing.
Rohin: I love that analogy. How to get the fire back in the belly.
Gaston: It’s not bad to have those goals. It’s the attachment to the goals that makes it tricky. I had one of my clients just sell his company for a lot of money last week, and he said ‘The first lesson I learned, Gaston, is, you know, it’s so simple, but yeah, money doesn’t buy happiness necessarily.’
Whose job is it to reignite the flame?
This is the core conflict: is it the company’s responsibility to create a motivating environment, or is it up to the individual to find their own meaning, regardless of the circumstances?
Gaston: What he realised, every speaker in that conference was talking about what the company needs to do for the people, but they weren’t addressing what people can do for themselves to bring more meaning, purpose, and drive to their day-to-day work… It’s also important to ask yourself as an employee, how do I create purpose and meaning in the work that I’m doing? How do I increase my level of engagement and motivation irrespective of what’s currently happening?
Vipul: I think that disconnect… is the starting point of Arundhati’s article, was that our earlier heuristic or mental model of ambition is broken… Let these companies stop selling the Kool-Aid, be more self-aware, and help people be more self-aware. They should be asking the questions Gaston is asking, right? Why are your employees doing what they’re doing? How can you motivate them within that structure instead of trying to transplant them into this idealistic dystopia?
Praveen: There is this board and it says Temet Nosce or something in Latin which basically translates to know thyself. So, I think fundamentally what she’s trying to say is that it doesn’t matter if you are the one or you’re not the one, I don’t have all the answers, you just have to know yourself. But I will say, [it’s a] very, very hard time right now to know yourself.
You can listen to the entire episode here.
Hello, this is Uddantika. This week, we’re experimenting with a new section where we’ll feature listener critiques, rebuttals, and alternative takes on our episodes—as and when we receive them. Let’s extend our discussion beyond the podcast.
Our first counterpoint comes from Ashish Laghate, responding to the episode published on 26 September, “Firstclub wants to be the Costco of quick-commerce.” In that episode, our co-hosts spoke with Ayyappan R, CEO and founder of Firstclub which is a curated, high-quality quick-commerce platform targeting India’s top 10%. Unlike the speed-and-scale race dominating the sector, Firstclub bets on quality and trust as its core differentiators.
Haven’t heard the episode yet? [Listen here] or catch up on the key takeaways in [the newsletter].
Ashish Laghate is a senior e-commerce and D2C leader with global experience across India, the US, and Asia. He has led end-to-end product and operations for marketplace, fulfilment, and customer experience, consistently driving scale, efficiency, and customer obsession. His work spans consumer tech, logistics tech, and next-gen digital commerce ecosystems.
His take:
TL;DR: Firstclub is trying to import Costco’s membership economics and Myntra’s “discovery UX” into a category where, at scale, Indian consumers only want Amul milk in 10 minutes. Neither playbook fits today’s mass-market grocery reality, and prior attempts demonstrate just how hard this thesis is to execute.
Why I believe Firstclub’s model faces real hurdles in India:
Membership economics don’t translate to quick commerce – Costco’s US success rides on bulk shopping, high average order value, and economies of scale. In India, quick commerce means low-ticket, high-frequency orders. A Nielsen/Redseer study shows average urban grocery basket sizes are INR 400–600 with 7–8 items, not the INR 10,000+ fill-the-car style of Costco. Why would Indian consumers pay a membership fee just for access when Blinkit or Instamart can deliver trusted brands instantly with no gate fee?
Discovery belongs in lifestyle, not staples – Myntra made discovery work because fashion is aspirational and non-repetitive. Grocery is the opposite. For 90% of orders, the real need is procedural: “fill the fridge now.” Milk, flour, eggs, and veggies are not categories where people browse. They’re predictable, routine replenishments, not sources of joy or surprise.
Quick commerce is urban utility, not an emotional brand – Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart have trained customers that quick commerce is infrastructure, like electricity or water. You don’t love your electricity provider. You just need it to work. Expecting customers to emotionally attach to a discovery-led quick commerce brand is over-romanticising a utility category.
What I admire – Firstclub’s stance on ingredient bans and raising food standards in India is laudable and strategic. Every push towards stricter safety and transparency does move the market forward. But, based on precedent and current market data, I’m skeptical this alone will convert deeply ingrained habits in grocery/FMCG purchasing.
We want to hear from you! You can either comment on our website or app, or email us with your take and a short bio to [email protected]. Your counterpoints and critiques will be featured in our upcoming newsletters–let’s keep this discussion going.
Regards,
Rohin Dharmakumar
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Rohin is Co-founder and CEO at The Ken.
He hosts The Ken's leadership podcast, First Principles, and is the lead writer of the Sunday newsletter on mental models, careers and personal growth, also called First Principles. He is the co-host of the Two by Two and Zero Shot podcasts. He is also a columnist for The Ken's AI series, Zero Shot.
Rohin holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and an engineering degree in Computer Sciences from the R.V.C.E., Bangalore.
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