Saifuddin Badani

Had a technical interview scheduled, got two missed calls, and I straight up blocked the number thinking it was spam Now I got this mail... and found out it was the company’s HR calling😭

🚨 Vrutika Patel, an 'AI'-generated influencer, has over 1 lakh followers and earns ₹119,700 monthly from 300 subscribers on Instagram.

Her name is Malavika Hegde. In July 2019, her husband VG Siddhartha walked onto a bridge near Mangalore and told his driver he would be back shortly. He never came back. Siddhartha had built Cafe Coffee Day into India’s largest coffee chain. 1700 cafes. 25000 employees. He had also buried the company under Rs 7214 crore of debt. The board panicked. Analysts wrote CCD off. Nobody had accounted for Malavika. She was an engineer. A mother of two. She had never run a company in her life. Her father SM Krishna was a former Chief Minister of Karnataka. She could have lived in that shadow comfortably. She chose the debt instead. In December 2020, she took over as CEO. In the middle of a pandemic. Her first act was a personal letter to all 25000 employees. She wrote the CCD story is worth preserving. I will fight for this brand. Then she got to work. She called every lender personally and renegotiated terms. She sold Global Village Tech Park to Blackstone. She closed every loss making outlet. She exported premium Arabica beans from her own 20000 acre farm to international markets to generate fresh revenue. She never raised the price of a single cup of coffee. By 2021, the debt was down to Rs 1731 crore. By 2023, it was Rs 465 crore. A 93 percent reduction in four years. Today, CCD runs 423 cafes and 55733 vending machines across India. Netflix is developing a web series on her life. Business schools are teaching her turnaround as a case study. She had no playbook. She had no mentor. She had grief and 25000 people depending on her. That was enough. Follow for real stories India never makes headlines about.

This house is less than ₹5cr (£0.5M). Less than 30min commute to anywhere in central London. Indian property markets makes no sense to me after seeing the market here 🥲 (+ has huge backyard, kids can play football in)

Rich influencers in India often pretend to be 'middle class' to sound relatable! They frequently share sob stories (most of which are fabricated) of 'humble beginnings' to appeal to the masses. Comedian Vir Das has recently claimed that he came to Mumbai with 'very little' and made it big in life. Wow, a beautiful story of introspection! For those who don't know, Vir Das is the grandson of India's first ambassador to Bhutan. Brajbir Saran Das was a politician, diplomat and an IPS officer. He served in top positions at Air India and the Airport Authority of India. His grandson Vir Das went to 'The Lawrence School in Sonawar', where the annual fees are over ₹10 lakhs (as of 2026). This comedian went to the United States for his bachelor's degree in the 2000s. Of course, he had 'very little' when he came to Mumbai. Vir Das once did a comedy special about '2 Indias.' I come from the other India. My grandfather fled East Pakistan to escape religious persecution during Partition and lived as a refugee in India. After losing centuries of generational wealth overnight, my family worked tremendously hard to go from a refugee rehabilitation camp to having our own house. The upbringing I received was starkly different from my grandfather's lived reality. I was privileged to study at an English-medium convent school, pursue higher education at DU without taking an educational loan or worry about living costs in Delhi. This is a privilege which is still not available to millions of young men and women in this country. I understand this perspective and so have never claimed to have 'very little' of anything. Do you think a socially aware comedian like Vir Das doesn't understand this? He does and still tells you sob stories of his 'humble beginning' at Bandra studio apartment. But he isn't the first one. I have seen one of my favourite YouTubers, Ranveer Allahbadia (who went to Dhirubhai Ambani school), talk deeply about his 'struggles'. We have all watched the infamous interview of Ananya Pandey deliberating about her 'struggles' in the film industry. I know some people would now tell me that everyone has their own set of challenges, despite a privileged background. And I totally agree with it. But the upfront disclosure of privilege is important. In the absence of that, you are trying to convince the masses that you are one of them. You are not.

when you have limited resources on an asymmetric playing field, you probably want to be very clear about what game(s) you’re playing, what the precise win conditions of those are, and who exactly you want to be playing with. so as to avoid misallocating those limited resources

Hit me with the harshest reality truth.

Being self-employed in germany is the endboss. If you can make it here you can make it anywhere. I pay: - 35-40% tax - 1.300€ in health insurance / month Every. Single. Month. Paying for health insurance is like renting a second flat that i never use. This is a ton of pressure for smaller entrepreneurs on top of all the bureaucracy you have to tackle. And no the healthcare system is not as good as you think.