How This School Dropout Became India's Youngest Billionaire

"From being a 14-year-old school dropout, to working at a call center, from Zerodha to True Beacon, I've figured out the two-three things I know how to do well, and stuck with them," says Nikhil Kamath.

Nikhil Kamath is today famous as one of India's youngest billionaires and the co-founder of Zerodha, the country's largest trading brokerage, but what many don't know is that Mr Kamath began trading at the age of 17 after dropping out of school. The 34-year-old spoke about his childhood and the journey to becoming India's youngest billionaire in an interview with Humans of Bombay. Mr Kamath spoke about why he disliked school as a young child. "Nobody told you 'why' you should do something, you just 'had' to do it; it was inhibiting," he said, adding that over time, he lost interest in formal education and started playing chess.  Nikhil Kamath started his first business at the age of 14 with a friend - they bought and sold used phones. However, that business was shut down unceremoniously when his mother found out about it. "She thought I'd given up on school to do a phone business and flushed the phones down the toilet!" he told Humans of Bombay. "By then my school had started hating me back; they didn't want me to give my boards and asked to meet my parents. Basically, they wanted me to feel sorry about myself...that's when I dropped out," said Mr Kamath.