Looking back at the list, Kamath said he was surprised to find himself among the businessmen being watched at a time when Zerodha was still a much smaller company.
“When Jio was getting ready to launch in 2015, I remember being petrified to find myself on this Economic Times list of 10 businessmen to watch in 2016. Mukesh Ambani was number one, and I was number six, mainly because we had just made delivery brokerage free. We were, and still are, ants compared to Reliance and Jio,” he said.
What stands out to him now, he said, is not only the scale Jio eventually reached but also how much it changed the way businesses operate in India.
“Looking back, what's phenomenal isn't just how big it has become. It's how much it has changed India and helped so many businesses start and grow,” Kamath said.
How Jio helped businesses such as Zerodha
Zerodha was among the businesses that benefited from the digital infrastructure that developed over the past decade. The entrepreneur credited Aadhaar and UPI, while also pointing to Jio and Airtel for making mobile data affordable and bringing millions of Indians online.
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“Zerodha wouldn't be what it is today without Aadhaar and UPI. But just as important was Jio, along with Airtel, bringing millions of Indians online with affordable data,” he said.
That expansion of digital access also helped create the conditions for the rapid growth of India’s capital markets after Covid, according to Kamath.
“Together, all of this made the huge expansion of Indian capital markets after COVID possible. Without this digital infrastructure, many online-first businesses would be much smaller, and a lot of today's consumer business models might not exist at all,” he said.
From 2 crore investors to more than 13 crore
Kamath pointed to the growth in the number of Indians investing in the markets as one measure of the change.
“In 2016, India had roughly 2 crore unique investors. Today, over 13 crore Indians invest in the markets, and Jio played a big part in that,” he said.
He did not say whether investors should apply for Jio’s upcoming IPO. Instead, Kamath highlighted the irony that the digital ecosystem helped by telecom companies could now support Jio’s fundraising through the capital markets.
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“I can't tell you whether to apply for the upcoming IPO. But both telcos have played a huge role in enabling an entire generation of Indian businesses like ours. And it's nice that the capital markets they helped grow can now help Jio raise money,” he said.
Kamath ended his post with a broader observation about the infrastructure behind successful businesses.
“From the outside, it's easy to miss how much of our success depends on infrastructure built by others,” he said