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Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath says Bengaluru's 'paper rich' have no real wealth

'Bengaluru has the most paper wealth and very little expendable wealth'

Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath | Wikimedia Creative Commons

Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath said Bengaluru has the largest paper wealth, giving only an apperance of wealth, and those who became rich through paper wealth earned money from cash-strapped tech companies.

"It's not real money. Bengaluru has the most paper wealth and very little expendable wealth," Kamath said in an interview with The Print's Editor-In-Chief Shekhar Gupta. "The paper rich from here made money in tech companies and tech companies have no cash. Paper money gives you the appearance of wealth."

Talking about being a school dropout after Class 10, he admitted to being insecure" when he saw his friends go to college. "My friends didn't drop out and I felt insecure about them going to college."

His first salary was Rs 8,000 from his job at a Bengaluru call centre at the age of 17. "...So at the age of 17, I was feeling really good about myself as I could earn a bit of money. You start feeling unnerved when your friends graduate from college and get their first job," Kamath told the outlet.

"There is a societal stigma for a job and it could be any job. So when my friends graduated and became doctors or engineers, then it impacted me in a certain way," he added.