Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia, your host and co-founder of Neon Fund, a B2B SaaS fund that invests in the most enterprising SaaS companies coming out of India for the globe. Today I have with me Alok Sama, founder of The Money Trap. Alok, welcome you to The Neon Show.

You have such an incredible journey, Alok. So eager to discuss that today. Money Trap is one of the very few books that, you know, I picked up and finished in one single day.

Alok Sama

Wow. Okay.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So it was like, you know, your journey was on, it almost looked like it was on steroids and, you know, I loved reading it being an entrepreneur.

Alok Sama

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for having me on your podcast.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So about Money Trap, this is a book that describes, it’s a memoir that contains five years of your life, particularly. And those were the five, I would say, most intense years of your life.

Alok Sama

I think that’s fair. And not just professionally, but from a personal perspective as well. A lot happened.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And, you know, you took up a role in SoftBank as a CFO and then as a president. Once you had crossed 50, right? So I imagine people are usually looking for more easier roles when they reach that milestone in life, right? What motivated you to take that role?

Alok Sama

You know, I stumbled on it and I described that in the book. One of my closest friends and someone I have tremendous respect for professionally, Nikesh Arora, who’s now the chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. And he joined SoftBank as the anointed successor to Masayoshi Son and felt he needed someone with my background and asked me if I would consider joining.

And initially, as I described in the book, I started off as a consultant, then met Son San and was not just impressed, but captivated by his charisma and his dynamism, you know, kind of in terms of, you know, he had this intangible quality, futurist, very rare. I think those are few and far between in the world of technology and signed up permanently. So it was quite a journey.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So there are three main characters in this book. There’s Alok Sama, that is you, there is Nikesh Arora, and this is Masayoshi Son. How do you describe these three characters?

And, you know, if you have to summarize them and, you know, the overlaps between them and the conflicts between them?

Alok Sama

Well, it’s a memoir and Nikesh, a lot of people feature my parents, my wife, et cetera, but you’re right in as much as Nikesh is a very prominent part of the story. I think the standout quality about him, from my mind anyway, is his processing power, analytical horsepower, and maybe I over-index in terms of how I rate that as a quality, it was just absolutely awesome. It was just a pleasure to work with him.

If you were in a room with him and you were keeping pace with him, you felt that that made you feel good. And, you know, the few occasions when I was able to be slightly ahead of him, I took a lot of pride in. So he was crazily smart.

Son is different, extraordinarily intelligent in terms of processing, analytical, mathematical, but he had this intangible quality, which I referred to earlier, which you don’t very often see, which is he was a true futurist. I think that whole, you know, visionary, that expression is thrown around a little bit too loosely, but Son Sam is the real deal. He’s the real deal, I should say, because, I mean, take AI, for example.

It’s all hype right now. Everyone’s talking about it. He was talking about it in 2014 and he’s got this track record now of making these brilliant futuristic bets, whether it’s smartphones or the internet for that matter, you know, that 2000 is when he became the richest man in the world and kind of first erupted on the world stage.

So he’s got this track record of getting these mega-tech trends right. And those are the standout characteristics I’d throw out about those guys. And as for me, I mean, I’m a kind of a lifelong learner, 17, 16 years at Morgan Stanley.

I survived there. Banking can get quite boring. I kind of reinvented myself doing different things every few years.

And the SoftBank journey, likewise the same. Writing was an ambition that I had for a long time, kind of working out completely different set of muscles. And late in life, I ended up doing a master’s degree in creative writing and writing is something I want to commit myself to.

And so that’s kind of what drives me, intellectual curiosity, just learning and kind of posing new intellectual at times, creative challenges for myself.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And in the book, you describe yourself as something who cannot be impressed easily upon, right? You by default, like I said, consider people as, you know, with lesser processing power as I would say for the better of words, stupid. So is that the trait that you were looking for in the people that you work with? Extremely high processing power?

Alok Sama

No, actually, no. I think that that is somewhat commoditized. A lot of people have that.

And a lot of people you end up interviewing hook coming out of the top business schools or IITs or whatever, processing power intelligence is something you can take for granted. I personally look for intellectual curiosity. So I’m more impressed with someone who is, might be an accomplished coder, but is equally interested in Bob Dylan and Shakespeare.

I just picked randomly two of my favorites, but I over-index on that intellectual curiosity. And by the way, I mean, I’ve had this discussion with a number of my colleagues in senior roles, and they would agree with that because, and particularly when you’re dealing with the world of technology, which hopefully you will relate to, things change so fast that if you have the ability to be malleable, can think on kind of different levels, that’s just an extraordinarily useful characteristic.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And you haven’t described in the book, maybe that’s for part two of Money Trap, the 10 years of entrepreneurship in your life, once you quit Morgan Stanley. Tell us a brief about that, what you did.

Alok Sama

Yeah, it’s kind of lightweight entrepreneurship, I would say, because from my perspective, it was really setting up an investment management business. And it was a business focused on India, incidentally. And it was, I think, a great idea. My timing was terrible because I set it up in 2006, 2007 in partnership with a very close friend of mine from college and with the Bear family out of Zurich, and we set that business up. The backer was the Dubai government, which is one of those classic, great ideas, but the timing was terrible. The back desk, but then in 2008 happened, and they were actually unable to back us in the fashion that they wanted to and had committed to.

What are you going to do? I mean, they had their own compulsions in terms of how things unfolded for Dubai, all entities in Dubai. And it never really scaled up to the extent that I would have liked, performance was fine.

We had a hedge fund, long-short equity business, but just that period, it was just really, really tough to scale. So, which is why when Nikesh came along and kind of held this out as a proposition, initially I was apprehensive, wasn’t sure if I wanted to kind of jump back into that pace of life. Wasn’t sure how I’d handle it, but ended up really enjoying it, first few years anyway.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And why did you name the book Money Trap? Because the only trap that you prominently describe in the book is the honey trap set for Nikesh.

Alok Sama

Yeah. Money trap rhymes with honey trap, right? Well, it is perhaps a bit of a cliche, but it’s a reference to people being caught up in the pursuit of money, money becoming an end in and of itself.

So, that’s the reference. And it was something that my publisher felt would resonate as a title. So, I just, I went along with it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But as in your book you describe, I thought it, when I first picked up the book, I thought it will be something maybe bashy about SoftBank, how it’s all about money. But never has Masa or SoftBank came that they’re in it to just make money, right? They were in it to change the world, right? To create more happiness.

Alok Sama

That’s part of that’s part of why I people often ask me that, Alok, you’re cynical or you seem cynical about Silicon Valley and Wall Street, but you seem to put Masa Son on a pedestal. And that’s exactly what you said, which is there was within this sense of wanting to change the world, make a dent in the universe.

And that’s a special quality. It’s not something I have. And as a result, when I see it in someone, I admire it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And in your book, there are various chapters you know that remind me of Wolf of the Wall Street.

Alok Sama

Really? Okay.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Elbate drugs, hookers and cheating.

Alok Sama

No, no, I have to say I disagree with that. No, that was not my experience, certainly at Morgan Stanley. It was a kind of, we were, it was a very staid culture.

And likewise, at SoftBank, I mean, I had this absurd smear campaign I had to deal with. Maybe that’s what you’re referring to. That was something that was right out of a movie.

You couldn’t make that stuff up, being under surveillance, et cetera, et cetera. But otherwise, I mean, it was unusual in many different ways, but not, Wolf of Wall Street was…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

The private jets, the parties, the opulence…

Alok Sama

Well, the private jets, certainly I made it a point that I didn’t hold anything back in terms of what life was like. I mean, you want to be authentic. You don’t want to mislead people. And I say a lot of things in the book in terms of things I do, others do that I’m not necessarily proud of. And I don’t present it as a role model or as a path to anyone, but I just want to share it in a very honest way, everything I saw and everything I did.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. So glad we could live a part of your life through the book, The Pill at Ibiza. So one of the core things in your book is that there’s always a tension in the book that where you feel that, hey, things are going to blow up, things are going to blow up, but they never do, right? Because it’s running at such a high intensity. At time, the WeWork deal is going on at the same time, or in a parallel universe, the Arm deal is going on, right?

And I think the SoftBank journey was like that. At one point of time, Masa was considered God in the tech world. And other time, when WeWork blew up, right?

Everybody did say, this is all because of too much dumping of money.

Alok Sama

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think factually, that’s absolutely true. I mean, there was just a tremendous amount going on. And I mean, that’s just a basic fact of working alongside Masa Son, firing on all cylinders.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So where does Masa, if you think you have worked with him for five years, get his motivation from? Because he’s come from Japanese culture, you describe him, you know, how he respects the Japanese warriors, right? There’s a particular seating order at the table.

Alok Sama

Yeah. I mean, so a lot of those are Eastern norms. It’s important to, one of the keys to understanding him, I think, is he’s not really Japanese, he’s Korean. And for those among your audience in India who may not be familiar with this, it’s being Korean in Japan is the equivalent of what, hopefully, I’d like to think things are better, being almost an untouchable. I mean, you were second, third, whatever you want to say it, it just was not a happy position to be in. And his father had to deal with that.

And Son San himself had to deal with that. And I have to believe that’s part of what shaped him. But he was very un-Japanese.

But at the same time, you’re right, he had this Japanese idol, Ryōma, this idealist Japanese samurai warrior who wanted to change the world and was a real role model for Son San. And some of the norms, cultural norms, how people sit, how they conduct themselves, the fixation on hygiene, on politeness, on punctuality, those are all very distinctively Japanese traits. And almost all without exception, at least for me, positive, right?

I mean, you look at the… People often wondered through COVID, why infection rates so low in a congested metropolis like Tokyo. I could explain it very easily.

I mean, you could… I actually talk about this in the book, you could spend a day in Japan and not really touch anything. I mean, other than my Apple devices, I didn’t touch anything.

Doors open themselves, you don’t really shake hands with people, you bow. Very Japanese characteristics. There’s a lot to be said with being punctual, to like the last second, Son San was like that. And all very positive characteristics. Yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And you describe a particular story in the book many times. And it’s the story that when Masa was 10 years old, he saw his parents struggling with the coffee shop and he decided…

Alok Sama

The freemium model.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

The freemium model.

Alok Sama

Yeah, well, that’s very popular in the world of technology, you know, kind of the extreme, the idea of blitzscaling.

Reid Hoffman introduced that into the vernacular, you know, the idea that you just grow at all costs. And that’s something that works brilliantly for platform technology models, right? Where you don’t worry about profitability, it’s all about scale.

And when you have network effects, that flywheel works in your favor. And eventually, when you’ve reached that critical mass, you start to dial up the profitability engine. And the anecdote you’re referring to is Masa and his parents and the coffee shop and the idea that, you know, the so-called freemium model, that you give away coffee and the hope is that people come in for the free coffee.

But once you’re in the store, you end up buying a premium priced pastry, for example. And that is, it’s the idea of a lost leader. I mean, these are kind of basic concepts which Sun San perhaps picked up in his very early days.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And I was looking forward to one particular thing in the book. Your last one year at SoftBank. Can you describe in details what led, you know, to you taking the decision that, hey, I want to part ways?

Alok Sama

Well, again, you know, remember it was, as you pointed out, it was an unusual thing to jump into relatively late in life. I was 50 plus anyway, right? So it’s not, it’s not a job I was, it’s not a role I was seeking.

I wasn’t in the mode where I was looking for power and money, right? In our Vedic philosophy, we have this notion of stages of life. I was sort of past that point.

And the opportunity came along, thanks mainly to Nikesh, and went along. And after he went on, I had a terrific couple of years. But then, you know, I’ve had this tendency throughout my entire career, in four to five years, I want to do different things.

I tend to get bored. And that whole kind of part of what drives me, intellectual curiosity, wanting to do different things, different experiences. This writing thing was something I wanted to do.

This smear campaign was, was, was, was just painful to deal with, to say the least. So, you know, it’s like, what’s the point? I mean, you’re not progressing in terms of your life goals, meaningful life goals. You’re not happy, time to move on.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And describe your relationship with Nikesh, right? How did you guys meet? Would love to hear that story. And how did the relationship develop over the period of years?

Alok Sama

Yeah, Nikesh, I met in my days as a banker at Morgan Stanley in London. And he had met with one of my colleagues, very accomplished colleague, I relate that story in the book, who went to a meeting with Nikesh, and probably came unprepared. And Nikesh, as sharp as he is, kind of saw through that. And he asked me for help. And there’s this tendency to assume that, which is actually true, that as Indians, you know, kind of, we tend to connect with each other. And I went and I met him. And as it turned out, we were both from Delhi. I met him casually at a cocktail party. And we hit it off.

And we started to spend a lot of time together socially. You know, we vacationed together, we used to golf together, talk about how we took our daughters to a Taylor Swift concert. And that relationship grew over time, always kept in touch.

And as I described in the book, when he, or as we just discussed, I mean, when he joined SoftBank, I was with him, we were on a long weekend break in Ibiza, and he kind of sprang this on me. And after a little bit of trepidation, and after consulting with the family, I kind of came along in a consulting role, and that developed very quickly into a permanent position.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And your five years at SoftBank, right? How did you describe it? You were well prepared to get into that role?

Alok Sama

Well, a lot of what I was doing was deal-making. And that’s what I, that was my professional skill. I was an investment banker for a long time.

So, that came very naturally. And that’s a lot of what I was doing. I have to say that there’s a lot you have to, or I had to unlearn, because the analytical skills you pick up, valuation, for example, are frequently not that meaningful in a technology investment universe.

So, there was a little bit of, a fair bit of unlearning to do. And because it’s frequently, once again, as I described in the book, you’re kind of putting a price tag on dreams almost.

Got it. And you are essentially a Delhi boy at heart, right? You described the first 21 years of your life…

Alok Sama

Yeah, very much, yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

…in Delhi. Now you’re settled in London, right? Do you miss the life here? Do you think of coming back?

Alok Sama

I come back as much as I want to, and that’s a beautiful position to be in, kind of to have the freedom to spend as much time here or in New York, for that matter, where both my children are. So, yeah, I mean, always a treat to be here.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Did Nikesh and Masa read the book and get back to you?

Alok Sama

Nikesh certainly did. Son San tends not to read. I don’t believe he’s read the book, but a lot of his senior most colleagues have, and they’ve loved it.

And I think, loved it in the sense that they believe that it captured Son San in my experience there in a very authentic fashion. It was true to the experience and true to the people.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And would love to learn from you, though you have described it in parts in the book, the vulnerabilities of the three characters. You have described the strengths. What are the vulnerabilities?

Alok Sama

I mean, for me, vulnerability, for me, certainly, I’m not as tough as I should be for someone who, and I didn’t really, for someone who aspires to power and money, if you want to play that game, you’ve got to be tough. I never really had that, but to be fair, I never sought that. So treat it as a vulnerability, if you want.

And to the extent there’s messages in the book, maybe that’s something you want to take away from. If you want to play that game, you’d better toughen up because people will do all kinds of wicked things in that world, right? I mean, there’s that famous quote from Michael Douglas in Wall Street, 80s movie, but it’s a classic, great quotes.

On Wall Street, need a friend, get a dog, right? So you better get used to that. So that’s kind of my vulnerability.

With Son San, it’s interesting. He unpacks it himself wonderfully. I think his exact words, if I’m not mistaken, I quote this in the book, he made the comment after the setbacks of 2021.

His exact words were, I am ashamed of myself for being elated by the successes of the past, right? And there’s something we can all learn from that. It takes a lot of wisdom and self-confidence to make a statement like that.

Something we should all learn from that, which is don’t get carried away. It’s a natural tendency when you’ve been as successful as he has, you do get carried away and you scratch self-confidence into pride and that’s when you inevitably make mistakes. So that’s something he talks about himself.

And I think that’s important to keep in mind. With Nikesh, man, that guy was cool. Does he have any vulnerabilities?

With him, it is this incessant focus on wanting to be number one and wanting to be successful. And he’s been enormously successful. He’s been phenomenally successful as a CEO.

But you got to ask yourself the question, is that the pathway that leads to the happiest Nikesh? And as one of his closest friends, it’s a discussion I might have with him and see where it leads him, but he’s doing phenomenally well. And I think life is working so wonderfully well for him that I wish him nothing but the best.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And there’s a dichotomy in some of the best entrepreneurs, even like Steve Jobs, they find happiness in their suffering.

Alok Sama

Yeah, that’s a bit of a cliche. I don’t know. Do people really find happiness in their suffering?

I will say that dealing with failure, as Masa has done, Icarus flying close to the sun, burned, crashed, pick yourself up, fly again, burned, crashed, and now he’s flying again. So that’s something you can all learn from. But the idea of desirable suffering, I don’t buy into that at all.

You hear stories about people like Son San who crashed and burned, picked themselves up. You don’t hear stories about people who just crashed and burned. There’s nothing desirable about that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

There’s a graveyard effect.

Alok Sama

Yeah, exactly. Well, there’s a selection bias. You only hear the stories because they’re better stories about people who pick themselves up and fly again. Someone who just burns is like, somehow that’s like, yeah, okay, obviously that’s what’s going to happen.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And describe the role of luck in the lives of all the three characters.

Alok Sama

Well, certainly in my case, my life has mostly been a case of mostly fortunate accidents. I mean, going to the US, I do talk about that in the book, was a…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Your uncle coming.

Alok Sama

Well, not uncle. He’s just someone I met. My father met and it was an accidental meeting. And he’s someone who did his homework on my track record as a student and felt that I was someone he wanted to support, that helped me go to the US to get into the Wharton School.

I’d gotten to Morgan Stanley thanks to making a very positive impression on one of the only senior Indian managing directors there. So, there’s a lot of serendipity in all of these things. And I think that’s true for, it’s probably true for Nikesh as well.

His meeting with Son San was a result of the work that he was doing, putting together a partnership with Yahoo Japan while he was at Google. And one thing led to another. And maybe leaving South Bank was a setback, but look what he’s accomplished since.

Likewise with Masa. I mean, kind of crashed and burnt, but picked himself up. Hopefully, he learned a lot and has kind of vindicated his status as a futurist.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So, why I’m interested about the characters is because you describe their interwoven journeys throughout the book. And as you said, the strengths, the weaknesses throughout the book. And clearly, right, what comes out as…

Alok Sama

Less about strengths and weaknesses to me, it’s more the complexity.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

The complexity of those characters. And one thing you also share about what drives Nikesh, for example, he wants to be number one in whatever he does, right?

Alok Sama

He wants to make an impact. He wants to make an impact. It’s less about number one is a very superficial way of putting it.

He wants to make an impact. He’s not just a processor, but he’s a great leader too.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. Like for example, his journey at Google, right? I think he was a number three or four guy, but for him, it was to be the CEO, right? And it’s same thing.

It was his deal with Masa when he joined that. When Masa turns 60, he will hand over the reins to Nikesh.

Alok Sama

That’s right.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And I think life…

Alok Sama

And it is, we all want to kind of fulfill our talent. Otherwise, we don’t feel happy.

We don’t feel satisfied. And for him, being in that leadership role is something that fulfilled him. And he’s just so good at it that he should be.

It’s a very legitimate aspiration and I’m glad it’s being fulfilled.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. But what about the core driving factor of the other two characters, you and Masa?

Alok Sama

Well, I think I’ve talked about this. I mean, for me, it’s just intellectual curiosity, intellectual engagement. That’s kind of what drives me.

And with Son San, it’s this sense of idealism, right? He, the corporate mission, South Bank is happiness for everyone, which maybe sounds amusing to most people in the Western world, but I think what he’s really getting at is this notion of idealism and wanting to change the world, using technology to change the world in a positive way.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But at the same time, Son San is, as quoted in your book, giving as much money to Ritesh from Oyo that nobody stands in his way. So that’s a conflicted character at heart.

Alok Sama

Is it? In what way?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So for example, if he wants to make sure that Oyo is the only thing that remains, then others have to suffer for it.

Alok Sama

I don’t think it’s a case of, I don’t think Masa, when he makes a comment like that, means it in a destructive way. Of course, I mean, business at the end of the day, it is a competition and you have to fight against whoever is in the fray with you, whether it’s Airbnb or Bhavish, you’re fighting against Uber. So that’s just the nature of doing business.

But I think what he was getting at is when he gets behind an entrepreneur, he backs the entrepreneur all the way and says, look, I believe in you with Bhavish, sorry, with Ritesh. You mentioned Oyo. It was a case of Ritesh being someone who reminded Masa when Masa himself was young.

And I want to back you with capital. I want you to achieve what you’re capable of, to realize your potential, for your company to realize its potential.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

When you’re working with somebody, such a strong force of nature like Masa, am I describing the work correctly? Strong force of nature?

Alok Sama

He is a force of nature.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

You realize that no matter how much decision you help them make, they are finally going to take their own decisions.

Alok Sama

Of course, as they should. As they should. I mean, if he started making all his investment decisions based on advice like people like me, I don’t think he would have done the Alibaba deal.

The arm deal, which I’m closely associated with, I can’t claim credit for going out and buying that company, merely the execution, because I probably wouldn’t have seen beyond the fact that the stock is expensively valued and you got to pay a big control premium. You have this vision of this company becoming something very different and that’s happened. It’s a phenomenal gain. So that to me is fairly fundamental.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But you also mentioned in the book that you were always very cautious of Adam Neumann at WeWork because…

Alok Sama

Well, to me, the disconnect was I think what Adam was always onto something. I think millennial work habits, living habits, he recognized that and created something that played into that, which is give him credit where it’s due. I think that’s certainly the case.

My disconnect was that it just wasn’t a technology company. And even as a real estate business model it had this issue with asset liability mismatch, right? I mean your leases are very long term and your tenants are frequently very short term and that leaves you vulnerable in a downturn.

So that was my issue with the business. Not a technology company, so valuation too expensive and then this asset liability mismatch too.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And one lesson that Masa held to his heart was he missed Facebook.

Alok Sama

Yeah, I saw. People make a… Valuations in the world of technology are not as important as you think you might, which is a fairly fundamental learning for anyone who comes out of business school and is fixated on discounted cash flow and hardcore.

Never lose out of the fact that a business has to make money, absolutely. But when it comes to valuation in the world of technology, when you’re dealing with transformational, disruptive business models, businesses that are creating completely new categories. In the case of Facebook, which you mentioned, kind of that becoming a way of people engaging, consuming news, consuming content, the platform effects, how you monetize that in an advertising context, advertising dollars moving towards platforms like that.

Kind of getting hung up on whether it’s six or seven or eight billion is not going to matter for a company that if it proves out the way you think it might prove out its business model or its vision, then it’s going to be worth over a trillion dollars, right? I mean, that’s something you got to keep in mind.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But do you think currently the trillion-dollar companies are overvalued, especially in tech in the US?

Alok Sama

I don’t think they are. Well, they’re not outrageously valued. NVIDIA is the poster child, right?

I mean, that’s the one everyone talks about. And NVIDIA, I haven’t looked at that. I don’t follow stocks on a daily basis, by the way.

I’m not a research analyst or a portfolio manager, but at 35 to 40 times earnings, it’s not an outrageous valuation, right? For a company with 75% margins growing the way it is, not an outrageous valuation. And it has protective modes.

There’s no NVIDIA competitor inside. It’s nothing like the bubble we saw in the year 2000. Cisco as a provider of the plumbing for the internet is the closest comparable.

Cisco is trading at 200 times earnings. So I don’t think we’re in bubble territory in the world of technology yet. I think there are probably excesses in the private markets when it comes to AI, but I don’t think that’s the case with public markets.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And you don’t think AI is a bubble yet?

Alok Sama

It might develop into one. I think it is once again a case of everyone realizing rightly so that this is completely transformational.

It’ll change the way people work as a productivity tool. It’ll change the way we do everything. You’ll just become more efficient.

The business models that come about at an individual level, I still don’t have clarity on. Even at the enterprise level, it’s productivity tools. It’s just less obvious to me how you monetize that.

So every company becomes an AI company effectively. But what’s an AI business model? You’re seeing a few of those.

My good friend, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, they’re invested in a company called Gnani, which is doing some interesting things in terms of voice-based AI platform, which originates and deals with loan collections. Those kinds of things are interesting because enterprise financial institutions will probably be slow to adapt. So an external party, an app comes along and provides them a packaged way to deal with that.

I think that’s cool. That’s interesting. There’ll be a lot of those.

But eventually, every financial institution needs to incorporate AI into every aspect of its business.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Masa was right about AI almost 10 years ago, but he couldn’t, as you mentioned, fully capitalize it because of the structure of the Vision Fund.

Alok Sama

It’s less about the structure of the Vision Fund. He was just too early. That’s the curse of being a futurist, right?

Even portfolio managers, even if you spot trends, it’s just not easy to spot when markets peak and what markets bottom, for example.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But you mentioned in the book that he sold Nvidia too early. He was right.

Alok Sama

He did indeed. He did an interview, which is quite amusing, with Jensen a few days ago. He was laughing and crying about it. So he did exit. Indeed, he did exit.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

It was the same part of the Vision Fund, the $100 billion fund, right? The $3 billion or the $4 billion.

Alok Sama

Yeah. In a leveraged Vision Fund, you went in on a leveraged basis and you made, I think the number was probably at least four times your money, which is a great result, but it could have been 25, 30 times his money.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And the story of the Vision Fund would have been very different, I believe, if Nvidia would have still been a part of the portfolio.

Alok Sama

Well, the returns would have been different. That’s for sure.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yes. Yeah. Now, I think SoftBank as a fund, not as a company, the company Masa is full back in glory, but it’s nowhere as to being as ambitious where it was.

Alok Sama

No, I don’t think that’s right. I mean, you hear… Well, look, I mean, I’ll just quote Masa at his own AGM.

I think his exact comment was, everything else I’ve done is a warmup act. So I think he’s back bigger than ever. I don’t know what he’s done.

I’m not an insider anymore, by the way, and I’m not going to speculate on what he might do. But I think he has a war chest track with leverage capacity and with cash on hand is certainly north of $50 billion. I don’t know what he does next, but knowing Son San and his fixation on AI, I’ll probably be in that space and it’ll be big.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And I can’t imagine like, Masa is above 60 right now, right?

Alok Sama

Yeah. Yeah. It’s closer to 70 than 60.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah, closer to 70. And he’s so, so driven now about AI and betting big on AI. So he’s seeing the next 10, 20 years of his life.

Alok Sama

Yeah. I don’t know why anyone ever thought he’d retire.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

He’s crazy.

Alok Sama

Well, crazy in a nice way. He wants to change the world.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And he’s so close to solving these problems as a founder himself that, you know, I can’t imagine Masa ever handing reigns over of SoftBank to anyone else until he’s alive and body.

Alok Sama

Yeah. Yeah. Like a SoftBank without Masa is like a church without Jesus, I think is what I say, which is very appropriate.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. One of the reasons you described that you joined SoftBank was you wanted to be cool in front of your son.

Alok Sama

Oh, yes, absolutely. It’s amazing when you get to be, when you get to have like, you know, kind of kids in their, you know, teen years or twenties, like it’s impressing them, or at least having them think that you’re cool or doing something, something interesting is like, it becomes disproportionately important, right?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Do you think that’s also, I have a five-year-old son, but he’s yet, like I’m still 39 years away from him turning 18. Yeah. But do you think that’s still true for other dads also in your peer group?

Alok Sama

I think it is. I made that comment in the book, and a lot of people immediately said parents, they said, yep, we relate to that. Having your kids think that, you know, because as a parent, you’re kind of a, you represent authority, you represent discipline.

It’s what you’re most likely as a child to rebel against. But if they start to think, well, my mom is cool, or my dad is cool, then your relationship is on a bit of a different plane. Then you begin to have, then you begin to relate to them in a very different way.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

I think the only regret that you describe in the book is not spending enough time with your kids. That’s it, right?

Alok Sama

Actually, yes and no. There is no such thing as spending enough time with your kids, but that has not hurt me. I think I have a terrific relationship with my kids, and to the degree I’ve spent probably less than I should have, I’d like to think I’m made up for it.

Yeah. My regrets are more kind of not spending time, not reaching out more to my parents. And that’s the, a little bit of it is probably my personality in terms of not being open enough.

And a lot of it is, and that’s something that people can perhaps take away from this memoir, is it’s easier now, but when I left this country, how do you even communicate? I mean, to make a phone call to India cost a fortune. And so, you lose touch, you disconnect, and then later in life, you just don’t make enough of an effort.

You’re just so caught up in your own life, in your professional life, in your own family life, that you leave that behind. And that’s a bigger regret.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And thank you for sharing vulnerably those 111 days then when your both the parents you know, passed away and how terrible…

Alok Sama

Yeah, it was tough. And a lot of people appreciate that. And I think I’ve probably been more vulnerable and exposed myself in writing than I have been in person with most people.

And it felt cathartic to do that. Yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What is right now driving your intellectual curiosity? As you said, you’re driven by that.

Alok Sama

It’s reading and writing. It’s early days for me. This is a first book.

In many ways, this is something that’s autobiographical is like the natural first book, but in many ways, it’s also the natural last book. In my case, it’s turned out to be the first book because I was able to pull it together as a narrative. But I do want to get back to after I’m done with the process of somewhat tedious process of marketing the book.

I want to get back to what I really do enjoy, which is writing.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What are the other topics that you’re super passionate about?

Alok Sama

Boy, writing takes on a life of its own when you have, well, not quite a piece of paper these days, but a keypad in front of you. Lots of issues I want to unpack, this whole issue of money and happiness and chasing money, this issue of identity, racial identity, ethnic identity, art, the value being in the eye of the beholder, lots of issues that I want to try and unpack. And I think the best way to do it is not write blogs, but it’s to tell stories and hopefully extended form stories in the form of a novel.

And I got to really, I have a few ideas, but need to find uninterrupted time to focus on it probably for a period of a couple of years.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And London is a good place to write because you’re not distracted by a lot of what’s happening around the world.

Alok Sama

Well, that’s true. I mean, you’ve got to create your own discipline and write. So whether it’s New York or Connecticut, which is where we spend time, or Delhi or Dubai or whatever, I mean, you just got to kind of have the discipline to detach and start to focus on.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And apart from writing, you are a senior advisor to Warburg Pincus.

Alok Sama

I do. Wonderful people that the degree of thematic expertise they have is absolutely phenomenal. And I find myself not adding a lot of value to their thinking in terms of how they think about different industries.

It’s just so good. They’ve got a phenomenal track record investing in technology, great track record investing in India led by Vishal. I do chair a small venture capitalist fund.

Again, really, really bright guys. They do their own thing in the world of deep tech and a lot of other industries, Dough, Gen Z type industries, psychedelics, for example, gaming, which I don’t have any expertise in, but I try and help them think through the issue. But I enjoy that engagement and a few board roles, perhaps, that keep me engaged with the world of technology, with the world of investing, but really writing is my first love.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And how do you see India evolve? Because even at your role at SoftBank, you’ve seen Masa being passionate about Indian entrepreneurs and backing them ferociously, be it Ritesh from OYO, Bhavesh from Ola, right?

Alok Sama

Well, with India, I think Masa’s original thesis still remains intact, which is, he called it the time machine, which is the idea of investing in technology models in emerging markets, technology models that have been successful in the Western world, in the US, and bringing them to emerging markets like India. And in India, where there’s lesser by way of legacy infrastructure, you’ve just got a long, long runway, you can keep running forever. And you look at, Swiggy comes to mind just because it’s in the news.

Is it a technology company? I mean, it’s really kind of that whole wave of people buying stuff online, ordering stuff online, getting stuff delivered. That’s kind of mainstream almost, but you call it a technology company.

But I think those business models will just go on and on and on for a very long time. That’s just a great investment thesis. I’m told there’s interesting things going on by way of AI-oriented business models, to give that one example.

I’m keen to learn more, but the great thing about India is no shortage of entrepreneurial talent, no shortage of capital to back them, huge market. So it’s all that. People at times, I say that, but at the same time, I say that having lived through a few cycles with a little bit of caution, because the Indian consumer is unbelievably price-sensitive.

You probably appreciate that more than I do. And some of these numbers don’t scale, some of these businesses don’t scale the way people think they might, because there’s twists and turns along the way. We talked about the freemium models.

I think your average Indian consumer, I probably behave like that. I’ll just go take my free coffee and run. Do you know what I mean? So you have to Indianize these models a little bit.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But you mentioned that in your previous entrepreneurial role, you were a little early from a timing perspective.

Alok Sama

Well, a little early, a little late, you could look at it either way. Those funds were launched pretty close to the top of the market. And that’s the irony of investing.

It’s the easiest time to, what is the easiest time to raise money is almost never the best time to be investing.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. But do you think right now, do you see a trajectory of India to a 10, 20 trillion dollar economy?

Alok Sama

India has always been on a trajectory towards a 10, 20, that will not change in my lifetime. It’s the pace and the twists and turns along the way that you can’t completely predict, but that’s true for, that’s true of any economy.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And some of the things that you describe in the book, right? For example, the different cultures, the Japanese culture that you define, the Silicon Valley culture. What do you think where India isn’t right now in terms of entrepreneurship culture?

Because you have been closely associated with it and now still are with Warburg Pincus and others.

Alok Sama

Well, I think the standout characteristic for me with youth in India in particular is this overwhelming desire to learn. I’m just blown away in the most positive way by the question people ask me and the desire to learn. Even when they read my book, it’s quite touching.

On the one hand, you could criticize me for talking about literary references or words that people don’t understand. But over here, people take that as a huge positive because they see that as an opportunity to learn. And that appetite to learn, the search for gyaan, as they call it.

You look at books that sell well in India, it’s completely dominated by books that have an element of imparting knowledge. So that is absolutely fantastic. The desire for upward mobility to become successful, to become rich, there’s no stigma associated with that.

The desire to become an entrepreneur to be successful. It’s fantastic. It’s not stigmatized.

It’s encouraged. You’re a role model if you do that. I think that’s terrific.

You know the Western world, you look at it, the US is probably going to be a little bit close to immigration. There’s very little of note. Sadly, that’s happened in Europe by way of entrepreneurial businesses.

It’s just never, the environment has never been conducive to entrepreneurs. China is not really going anywhere. It’s kind of waffling on how committed it is to capitalism.

Japan never really had that much of an entrepreneurial culture. Man, I mean, I’ve just talked myself into kind of believing India is probably the greatest place in the world to be investing in. But I really mean that.

I mean, India’s just got so much going for it that I think setting up and just going with businesses in India is just a great bet for the next 20, 30 years. It may be slightly overdone in the short term, but the good news is public markets anyway, a lot of it is driven by domestic money as opposed to overseas money.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. And do you think you would like to have captured some more part of your life in the book, but you were restricted by length?

Alok Sama

No, it’s not a very long book. It’s sort of under 80,000 words, under 300 pages, which is, for me at least, that’s the sweet spot in terms of how a book should be. And that’s what I was targeting.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people say they read it in a day and there’s a side of me that says, well, as a writer, that’s a great compliment. And it is, by the way. And I worked very, very hard to make it a book that’s easy to read.

But there’s a side of me that says, well, look, slow down. I mean, there’s a lot to unpack. And some books are, this sounds like a very pretentious statement, but I actually think there’s a lot of merit in going back and trying to read between the lines.

There’s a writer who I respect a lot, Vladimir Nabokov, and he made the comment that you never read a book, you only re-read it. And there’s a lot to be said for that. Read between the lines, and there’s a lot you can unpack that’s perhaps not completely obvious in a first quick read.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So you would like your readers to go again?

Alok Sama

Read, read slow, or maybe re-read it. You get more for your money that way, by the way.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Well, thank you so much, Alok.

Alok Sama

Thank you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

I love this conversation.

Alok Sama

Thank you. Enjoy the conversation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Thank you so much for writing the book. I got a chance to live your life through the book, what I can say more.

Alok Sama

Good. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you.