Episode
Part 1: Manish Sabharwal of Teamlease on creating great ancestors, India’s development journey and ‘regulatory cholesterol’
- Podcast
- First Principles
- Published
- Jun 24, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 3872
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/b7435ecf
Actions
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Summary
Check out our corporate subscription plan: https://the-ken.com/corporate-teams/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=corporate-subscriptions Premium subscribers of The Ken have full access to ALL our premium audio. They are available exclusively via The Ken ’s subscriber apps. If you don’t have them, just download one and log in to unlock everything. Get your premium subscription using this link . Not a Premium subscriber? You can subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel includes ALL our premium podcasts. - Manish Sabharwal isn’t an easy man to nail down. By that, I don’t just mean it was hard to nail down a time on his calendar to meet me for the podcast, which it was. Like with most founders and guests on First Principles, the gap between when I first invite them and when they finally appear is usually measured in months, sometimes years. I had first emailed Manish for First Principles in January 2023. But I’m saying Manish is hard to nail down also because he defies - resists - categorisation. Sure, he co-founded Teamlease, one of India’s largest recruitment and human resource providers. It employs over 400,000 people, is listed on the stock exchanges, and is a great barometer of broader employment trends in India. But Manish is no longer involved with the day-to-day operations of the company, while still being the largest individual shareholder. Instead, he leads a “portfolio life”, dividing his time serving on the boards of think tanks, regulatory bodies, universities, non-profits, and even private companies like Phonepe; advising companies and the government on a host of topics like labour markets, regulation, employment, education, economic policy and reforms; being a columnist;…