Founder @WebVeda, Content creator @wariCrew, Speaker, Author. Eternal Optimist.

My overarching mission is to empower people to make choices in life from a point of awareness, not ignorance.

Over the past 17 years in the internet and technology space, I’ve had the privilege of working on several ventures - founding some, investing in others, and learning from all. 

Over 16 million people follow my work across social platforms, where I share my experiences and insights on career, mindset, startups, personal finance, and relationships.

Today, my main focus is building WebVeda, an online school helping young professionals develop practical life skills across entrepreneurship, personal growth, and career management.
We have over 480,000 paid students worldwide with an average completion rate of 72%.

I have also launched a nation-wide search for the brightest kids in India, offering them a Rs. 10L scholarship, through a program called the India Genius Challenge. 

I’ve also written five bestselling books that have sold 1Mn+ copies worldwide across 63 countries and translated into 17 languages:
- Do Epic Shit (2022)
- Get Epic Shit Done (2023)
- Make Epic Money (2024)
- Build An Epic Career (2025)
- Beyond The Syllabus (2025): for teenagers only

It’s been a journey shaped more by reflection and exploration than certainty, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ankur Warikoo

From my very first day at ISB, the definition of success was already decided for all of us.

- If you get through consulting, you are successful

- Day 1 job, you are successful

- Top 10% of the class, you are successful

- A 3X multiple on your incoming salary, you are successful

- Dress well, speak well, you are successful

This happens to us since the day we were born.

The world is constantly imposing its definition of success and failure on us.
That it's the only definition of success.

So much so that we rarely stop to ask ourselves:
What is MY definition of success?

Try these 3 frameworks to explore your definition:

1. Energy audit: For one week, notice what drains you and what fills you up (activities, people, projects)

Is your current path draining you more than filling you?

2. Regret test: Imagine you're 80, looking back at your life.
What would you regret NOT doing? That's your success.

3. Fundamental identity: Strip away everything external - the salary, the designation, the house.

Now ask: Am I proud of who I'm becoming?

If the answer is no, your definition of success needs rewriting.

The only definition that matters is the one that lets you sleep peacefully at night.

Image credit: 6secondseq on IG

Founder @WebVeda, @IndiaGeniusChallenge • Speaker • 5X Bestselling Author • 16M+ community

10 luxuries not connected to money:

1. You sleep peacefully every night.

2. Your body functions without any pain. 

3. You have someone to grow old with.

5. You have friends who can share your sorrows and joys.

6. You have the permission to say no - without any fear, pressure, or the need to explain.

7. You have the mental space to think, create, and dream. 

8. You get to work on something that feeds your soul.

9. Your parents are still around and you can call them, visit them, and tell them things you never said before.

10. You are your own best friend; you can spend time with yourself without a phone, book, music, or anyone else. Just you.

Inspired by Justin Welsh’s quote on modern luxury!

3 things you can’t control:

1. Consequences of your actions
2. Inflation
3. ‘Log kya kahenge?’ / ‘What will people say?’

3 things you CAN control:

1. Inputs you put into your work
2. Investing in assets that beat inflation
3. Living life on your own terms

Jokes aside - I didn't realise how emotionally free I would feel once I accepted this.

If you divert energy towards what you cannot control, you will feel helpless, naturally.
There is no winning there.

But if you commit time and energy towards what you can control, you reclaim your power.

It shows up in the way you work and how light your days are.

Life is not a perfect picture that needs to get clicked in one go.

Life is a jigsaw puzzle of that perfect picture, where you have to fit the pieces one by one.

You won't get it right the first time.
But you will get it right eventually.

If you want to stay average, say, "Show me."
If you want to grow, say this:
–

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by magic.

Magic forces you to understand human psychology and emotions.

Growing up, one of my cousins had a whole army of card tricks.
Every time he said, "Nandu, I've learnt a new trick," I'd light up.
"Teach me!" I exclaimed.

(Yes, fun fact: my pet name is Nandu.)

I look back at that moment often because it taught me something far bigger.

Whenever we encounter something new in life, we react in one of two ways:
We either say, "Show me."
Or we say, "Teach me."

And that small difference changes everything.

"Show me" comes from curiosity.
But "teach me" comes from humility.

One makes you an observer.
The other makes you a student.

Observers watch, react, comment, and move on.
Students absorb, reflect, retain, and grow.

If you want to grow, ask people to teach you.

- You accept you don't know
- You accept you are willing to learn
- You acknowledge the opposite person for what they know

Be a student. Forever!

PS: This is a reproduction of my weekly newsletter which I send every Friday to 118,000+ subscribers. In this newsletter I share pics, books, quotes, fun facts and a thought of the week.

Sign up from the link in comments.

An entire generation is being raised with the belief that starting up is the cool thing to do.

Founders becoming millionaires and billionaires.

I don't have a problem with that.

I have a problem when people believe that starting up is the ONLY thing smart people do.

To the extent that those in jobs are ridiculed for being unambitious or for not taking control of their lives.

There is nothing wrong with having a job.
As long as you are happy with it and find meaning in it.

What matters is what you want.

You want the stability and structure of a job – go for it!
You want the rush and excitement of a startup – go for it!
You want a life where you do not want to work – go for it!

Your race is not with the world.
It is not with the one who looks cooler, happier, or is more famous.

Your race is within.
The race is who you were yesterday.

And if you win that race everyday, if you are better than who you were yesterday…
You are truly at peace!

"They are good at coding. I am not."
"They are good at public speaking. I am not."
"They are good at sales. I am not."

This is the most frequent remark I hear when it comes to career growth.

And the most limiting way of looking at one's career!

Most of us think success = being the absolute best at one thing.
That path exists - but it’s not the only path.

A more realistic path is:

Become very good (top 20%) at several skills that rarely overlap.
You’re stacking value.

Am I the best teacher in the world? No.
The best speaker? No.
The biggest creator? No.
The best leader? No.

But I am the sum of all of these. 

Someone who is a teacher, speaks well, has a decent social media following, has a dedicated team whom I care about. 

Individually, these are good-to-have. Nothing extraordinary.
But together, they are valuable.

When you focus on becoming useful, adaptable, and hard to replace, success finds you.

Image via Justin Wright.

I have a friend who's a brilliant designer. 
But she spent months waiting for the right clients to "discover" her.

Because she was invisible online.

I told her:

With the leverage social media gives you, waiting to be found is a missed advantage.

You need to create opportunities.

So she started posting her work, her process, and her perspective on industry news.

Now the work comes to her.
Inbound leads. Speaking invitations. Brand collaborations.

On platforms like LinkedIn, people don't discover talent in a single moment.

They decide after seeing someone's thinking show up often enough that it feels familiar and dependable.

That's how trust forms before the first conversation.

And that trust usually comes down to two things:

Being clear about who you're speaking to, and what you want to be known for.

That's the foundation of Learn to LinkedIn, which covers the full system of how I got 2.5 million followers on LinkedIn.

Join 3,776+ students from the link in comments.

They don’t teach this in school, but they should.

These 10 visuals helped me think clearer, lead better, and move faster.

They taught me:

- Why writing is a thinking tool, not just a communication skill
- How high performers aim higher (not lower) when they fall short
- That leadership isn’t about control; it’s about presence and encouragement
- How disciplined struggle can create real freedom
- And why better questions lead to better lives

Visuals via Pejman Milani.

Founder @WebVeda, @IndiaGeniusChallenge • Speaker • 6X Bestselling Author • 16M+ community

10 Visuals to Help You Think Clearer!

The simplest yet powerful tool for success:
Listening.

Struggling to understand someone?
Listen.

Wondering why they behave the way they do?
Listen.

Trying to uncover their true motives, fears, or desires?
Listen.

People are constantly revealing who they are, if we truly listen.

Not just through what they say, but through what they avoid, repeat, and emphasise. 

And something surprising happens when you listen deeply to others:

You begin to hear yourself more clearly too. 
Your reactions, your patterns, and your blind spots. 

Listening outward sharpens your inner awareness.

Thanks to Justin Wright for this lovely graphic!

Gentle reminder:

You are living someone else’s dream life.
And that someone could be your younger self too.

Don’t wait for the good days to pass by to see how beautiful life is.

Make happiness a routine.
Find gratitude every day in all that you do - because there is truly so much to be grateful for ♥️

Thanks to Jade Bonacolta for this beautiful list.

What a privilege...

Every single day, I get emails from people in well-paid jobs, working with great brands, in envious roles. Yet unhappy.

Because their boss doesn't respect them.
Because their team members do not help.
Because people around them do not inspire.
Because the team is dysfunctional.

And it reminds me why some companies are able to achieve phenomenal growth, while others simply can't:

What separates these companies is not ambition or intelligence.

It is how people are made to feel.
Because that drives how they act.

I've seen teams with average skills on paper outperform star-studded ones, simply because people felt respected.

I've also seen incredible talent shrink when the environment felt unsafe.

So the next time you are looking for a job, don't just pick the highest salary or the best brand.

Do your research.

Ask during interviews - how do teams work, how does feedback flow, why do people leave, why do they stay?

Find out what it will be like to live in this team, before you actually live in the team.

How you feel in your job is going to matter a lot more than how much you earn in your job.

PS: This is a reproduction of my weekly newsletter which I send every Friday to 122,000+ subscribers. In this newsletter I share pics, books, quotes, fun facts and a thought of the week.

Sign up from the link in comments.

These 10 books will unsettle you - in a good way.

The assumptions you have about success,
The trade-offs you’ve been making,
Where your time and energy flows,

They’ll question what the world has taught you and urge you to ask the right questions.

To build a life *you* love.

If you’ve read a book that has fundamentally changed your way of thinking, share it in the comments!

10 Books That Change How You Think About A Good Life

IQ isn’t the biggest determinator of success.
EQ is.

It’s like chess - you are dealing with unpredictable experiences and emotions every day.

Your emotions and others’.

Choosing the right move can make all the difference.

This list of 9 EQ skills by Justin Wright will transform how your career compounds.

9 Rare Emotional Intelligence Skills

The best things we desire in life - wealth, skill, trust, work, relationships - don’t respond to speed.

They respond to time.

But that’s not our default way of thinking.
We’re taught to optimise for the next goal and quick results.

Better outcomes often stem from long-term thinking.
Being patient where others rush.
Building where others react.
And these 9 books will make you think long-term with patience and clarity.

9 Books for Results That LAST!

Hero Housing Finance

	Leading, streamlining processes since inception of company and recommending setting up of various benchmark
	Driving complete Hero Eco system through Cross-Sell while directly reporting to Business- Head
	Administering Employee Home Loan & Dealership program through Cross-sell business
	Targeting viable contenders from Herocorp Fincorp for housing loans
	Managing, guiding & leading a team of around 80  members around 11 locations
	Steering overall gamut of activities at call-center and running various programs such as BT Top up and Pre-approved Loans depending on the audience targeted
	Maintaining, analyzing & evaluating record of 2 years of intended audience and then finalizing approved loans
	Working on getting data scrubbed and analysis
	Strategizing on dealership and performing root cause analysis on how to map dealers to right match as per the domain, monitoring the number of dealers and sub dealers and so on
	Utilizing the results of RCA and plot the result on map to analyze the benefits and provide food for thought to sales team as to which areas can be targeted 
	Collaborating, negotiating with general insurance & life insurance organizations to cover risk and premium by including property insurance and customer insurance in the package
Achievement:

National Business Development Manager- Partnerships

Easy Bill Pvt. Ltd. - Hero Group Company

	Drove entire product of SBI from establishing the back-end to acquisition at the front-end; implemented roadmap for SBI BC business from successful launch to execution at the field level    
	Supervised traditional / DMT business designing of the product layout, pricing strategy and field management                
	Launched SBI in Delhi, Rajasthan, Bangalore, Haryana, Mumbai, Odisha and Punjab  
	Interacted at various Circle level LHO’s of SBI like Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Bangalore, Patna and Odisha 
	Worked with BI’s(Bill issuers) for opening up of new circles in their regions for additional business & revenue streams
	Streamlined complete P&L for both traditional and SBI business, top line and bottom line
	Managed interaction with SBI Corporate center for additional business & opening up of SBI Circles for future business
Achievements:
	Employed 800 CSP’s in one year and activated 370 with a business of 140M per month
	Observed appointment of new distributors & retailers for traditional business in Tier B & C for additional revenue

National Sales Head

Triotech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

	Directed complete product design, development and launch for new product in mobile wallet space called SBI-Mobi cash, in association with BSNL and SBI
	Crafted and implemented complete roadmap for successful launch and execution of the product by November 2015
	Liaised with both the PSU organizations for confirmation of commission structure, process flows and product features and resolved long pending issues to ensure smooth execution
	Negotiated with SBI for commission rates and slabs for the retailers, franchises and all stakeholders and execution features for the launch of SBI-mobicash
	Managed & coordinated with existing BSNL channel consisting of 2000+ distributors and 6,00,000+ active retailers for promotion and launch of the product
	Catapulted money remittances business for DOP (Department of Post) from INR 2.5 crores to INR 5 crores per annum through 45000 transactions
	Launched & activated 15,000 post offices for mobile money transfer services
	Initiated & rolled-out web-to-mobile money transfer services in over 20,000 post offices

Vice President- Business Development

Oxigen Services India Pvt Ltd

	Managed 4 states-Haryana, Punjab, H.P & U.P for distribution & dealer network comprising 240 distributors and 15K retail touch points 
	Contributed as Project Manager to run a pilot project for UIDAI to cater to remittance market of Orrisa, Bihar, Jharkhand & UP East in April 2014 
	Led monthly business of INR 800M for mobile & DTH recharge & 2400M for remittance 
	Selected 170 distributors across North for PAT & financial services products such as mobile, DTH recharge, mobile wallets, ICICI CSP, and SBI service points for remittance 
	Launched kiosk banking and assisted SBI to decongest non-home remittance in UP, Haryana, Jharkhand & Rajasthan by sustaining 270 urban kiosk points contributing INR 2B revenue 
	Assisted in start-up of Oxigen Money Transfer Services-Mobile Wallet in Rajasthan, Haryana & Punjab targeting migrant labor for money transfer bringing in INR 25M daily with 600 active RO base 
	Employed Pre-paid instrument business by touching a value of INR 60 million per day pan-India
	Appointed 2700 CSPs for SBI at village level ensuring financial inclusion across North & East India and managed territory for new acquisitions business, generating INR 400M revenue

AVP- North

BIRLA SUNLIFE INSURANCE CO LTD

Sr. Manager Sales

ICICI Securities Ltd.

Reported to SVP; led 65-member team, including 8 direct reports to render financial sales/ services to various clients w.r.t. life insurance, mutual funds & general insurance products.
	Headed 8 centres in East Delhi & Ghaziabad with 57-member team; additionally managed 14 centres in North Delhi for 7 months in the absence of the Cluster Manager
	Established the cluster amongst top 6 pan India for life insurance in 2009
	Played a key role in generating INR 3.2M p.a. revenue through online Mutual Fund (MF) business and recognised as Pan India Topper in SIP Contest in Dec 2008 & Jan 2009
Awards & Honours:
	Recognized as Top Cluster Manager among top 3 out of 57 CMs pan India for 2 years
	Won ZH Trophy for highest achievement in life insurance business in a quarter in 2009
	Awarded as top performer pan India in FD, ensuring highest mobilization worth INR 100M for 5 consecutive months in 2008-09
	Cited as consistent performer in establishing the cluster amongst Top 4 pan India in revenue and awarded as Highest Equity Revenue Achiever for attaining INR 1.9M in Apr 2008
	Ranked No.1 pan India for 4 months in 2007-08 for highest micro banking loan disbursal
	Awarded as consistent performer & topper pan India 4 times for new client acquisition

Sr. Manager

Infomedia India Ltd.

Reported to Regional Head (North); led 110-member team, including 20 direct reports to manage overall operations for 7 branches inclusive of Delhi & NCR. Additionally administered the telemarketing team and yellow line, a 24 hours information service for seamless operations.
	Played a key role in generating highest revenue of INR 27.5M p.a. by initiating cross-city bookings and INR 17M by selling corporate space of premium positions
	Contributed in increasing region’s overall turnover from INR 118M to 123M through cross booking &  corporate space selling of premium positions
	Enhanced 18% client base for premium page by implementing different techniques & models
	Ensured higher revenue growth by optimizing INR 15M marketing budget
Award & Honour:
	Appreciated for efforts towards manpower retention by conducting various rewards & recognition programs while motivating and retaining executive level employees

Manager- Business Directory Division 

Continental Sureksha Pvt. Ltd

Sales Head- Delhi

Cholamandalam Investment & Finance Co Ltd

Branch Head

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co Ltd

Agency Manager

	Skilled, multi-dimensional professional with 22 years of extensive experience; remaining on the cutting-edge, driving new business through key accounts and establishing strategic partnerships & dealer relationships to increase channel revenue

	Domain expertise in sales and distribution management in FMCG, Insurance, NBFC, financial inclusion and PPI industry 

	Developed the strategy & plans for organization’s business operations; conceptualized & developed new business strategies which led to an increase in turnover & profitability of the organization; crafted & implemented strategic roadmap for complete product life cycle from product design to launch

	P&L Driver & Revenue Accelerator: drove the sales & marketing operations for the organization, employed a pragmatic approach and catapulted profits

	Proven track record of achieving / exceeding targets, opening new & profitable product /services markets and setting up business operations in emerging markets along with skills to liaise with government officials, and establish relations with key players & clients

	Leader & Organizational Change Agent, delivering business results focused on improving business processes to improve reliability, increase simplicity, and enable scalable growth

	History of excelling in introducing new organizational change, expanding markets and leveraging the knowledge base with internal resources to facilitate business excellence for achieving organizational goals


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The Battle

Ankur Warikoo

Dipesh Thacker

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The Battle

Ankur Warikoo

Dipesh Thacker

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ankur Warikoo's LinkedIn Performance

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