Dec 25, 2017

Outliers Season 1 Finale: Vijay Shekhar Sharma on the life of a founder

BYPankaj Mishra

So who is Vijay Shekhar Sharma?

Depending who you ask in India’s technology and startup ecosystem, the answers will range from “that crazy guy” to “overly obsessed entrepreneur”, “trying to fight too many battles at the same time”, “a desi entrepreneur”, “rags to riches story” and so on.
If you ask us at FactorDaily, we’ll perhaps point you to our Code of Conduct that names him as one of the three investors backing our media startup.
But this podcast isn’t about what we think of him; it’s about who he really is.
And as I sat down with him for this special episode Outliers Podcast Season 1, I realised he’s no different from many important entrepreneurs in these times — at the core, they all want to make it big, are inspired by Elon Musk or such, and are very, very lonely.
“When I lost my father few weeks ago, I also lost the only one who understood what I really do. Now, I have no one who understands me, and that will remain a gap forever,” he says.

FactorDaily’s journalism is produced by some of the best brains in the story-telling business. If you like our body of work – deep reportage, domain specialist write-ups, data stories, podcasts and the like – consider supporting the FactorDaily journey.

Support FactorDaily

Pankaj Mishra is a writer of FactorDaily.