Nikesh Arora, the IITian who became one of the world's highest-paid CEOs, reveals a 'cheat code' to building a company

During a podcast with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, Nikesh Arora spoke about how evolving technology is transforming the way companies are built today.

"If you're looking for a 10, 20% improvement, don't bother, because things are about to move 10x. So, I think self-reflect on the idea. If your idea is not 10x-worthy, you're solving the wrong problem," said Arora to Nikhil Kamath.

"So, all I can advise people out there is: teach us something — because some already have it figured out. But more importantly, I believe the wave of technology that's coming will enable people to build businesses faster, with greater agility, using fewer people, and with a fundamental rethinking of how things are done," said Arora.


Who is Nikesh Arora?
Arora, 57, has been serving as the CEO and chairman of the board at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks since June 2018. Before taking on this role, he was an angel investor between 2016 and 2018. Prior to that, he held various senior leadership positions at SoftBank Group Corp from 2014 to 2017.

Earlier in his career, Arora spent nearly a decade at Google, where he held several top operational roles from December 2004 to July 2014, including senior vice president and chief business officer from January 2011 to June 2014.

Notably, SoftBank made significant investments in Uber in 2018 and 2019, becoming its largest shareholder at one point. SoftBank sold a third of its stake in the ride hailing platform in 2021 and offloaded the rest between April and July 2022.

Arora currently serves on the board of directors of Switzerland-based luxury goods holding company Compagnie Financiere Richemont S.A. Earlier, he had also served on the board of companies such as Aviva, Bharti Airtel, Sprint Corp, Colgate-Palmolive and Yahoo!.