I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean shaven. He is a careful listener and measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conversation with him for over two hours. That’s enough time for both of us to pick and read cues from each other.

Think about it. Can you spend two hours in a room having a truly open-ended, candid and widespread discussion with another person about their life, their business, their colleagues, their company and its culture, and even their family, without getting to really know them?

I’d been wanting to have Vidit as a guest on First Principles for a while, even during our first two seasons. But as it turns out, things clicked only in 2025. I’m glad though, because I do feel Vidit’s and Meesho’s journey are a wonderful opening to Season 3 of First Principles.

There’s a lot of good stuff we talked about. Why Vidit is so eager for Meesho to build for a long-term view, why he values problems way more than solutions, the humility and willingness to be led to new places by customer insights, the much talked about zero commission model, and building products for users who aren’t the top 5% of India.

Let’s get started with the conversation, shall we?

Welcome to season three of First Principles.

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If you’re a premium subscriber of The Ken. You can listen to the full conversation with Vidit Aatrey right now using this link.

Write to us [email protected] with your feedback, suggestions and guests you would want to see on First Principles.

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Full transcript:

(The transcript is auto-generated and there may be occasional errors. Please cross-check.)

Rohin Dharmakumar: [04:26:27] Vidit, I want to start by asking you, what’s your favorite animal? Not, not an animal that you probably have or want as a pet, but broadly across the animal kingdom, what’s your favorite animal?

Vidit Aatrey: [04:39:27] You know, no one’s asked me this question. It’s a, it’s a tough one. Which animal do I like the most?

Rohin Dharmakumar: [04:47:34] Or admire? Or I’ll come back to that. Who’s your favorite superhero?

Vidit Aatrey: [04:53:14] Oh, my favorite superhero is Spider-Man.

Rohin Dharmakumar: [04:55:38] Why?

Vidit Aatrey: [04:56:55] I don’t know.