Paras Chopra
51 statements across 3 episodes · 6 bullish · 8 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Jun 7, 2021 by Paras Chopra · said 4 times in 2 episodes since 2024 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Paras Chopra's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
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brought up most by Siddhartha Ahluwalia (4)
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2025 3 mentions in 1 episode
Everything said about Paras Chopra, oldest first
Jun 7, 2021
Jun 7, 2021 neutral
Jun 7, 2021
Jun 7, 2021
Chopra: Set fixed investment targets first and adjust expenses around them
“I think one should look at their monthly investment target and if possible, and to whatever extent possible, adjust their expenses around it. I think a lot of people do it the reverse way. They spend whatever they can and invest whatever that's left. But I fee…”
Jun 7, 2021 positive
Chopra holds a mix of Indian and US index funds for diversification
“It's both a mix of both. I do think one has to, I mean, diversification is the only free lunch in finance. And if you're not diversifying you are taking more volatility, more risk than it's necessary. And having everything tied to India is fine. India is a fas…”
Jun 7, 2021 bearish
Jun 7, 2021
Chopra focuses on zero-to-one innovation over CEO duties at Wingify
“I realized over a period of time, my strengths are in figuring out and building something new. So that zero to one phase is something AI really enjoy. And B, I think I'm good at that. Having done that a couple of times within Wingify with different products an…”
Jun 7, 2021
Chopra: Reinvesting in broken business fundamentals wastes founder capital
“If something is fundamentally broken, if you've not figured out product market fit, if you're, you know, say customer acquisition channels are unprofitable. Just throwing money at it is wasting money. So you have to be like a thinking like an investor first, i…”
Jun 7, 2021 bearish
Chopra views cryptocurrency as a speculative instrument, not an investment asset
“Crypto is not something I I'm very interested in. I mean, I'm interested in from like a cultural phenomena and the technical details point of view, but I don't understand it as an investment point of view. I mean, it to me is a speculative instrument”
Jun 7, 2021 bullish
Chopra: In hindsight, I would have invested 100% in equity immediately
“I would have not also sort of put money into debt funds early on.
I think I had a portion of debt funds.
I think financial advisors talk about that it should be fifty-fifty or some equity debt.
I would not have, I would have gone a hundred percent equity righ…”
Jun 7, 2021 bullish
Jun 7, 2021
Jun 7, 2021
Chopra: An entrepreneur's own company drives net worth more than passive assets
“I think as an entrepreneur, you have to realize that the company that you're working on is the biggest contributor to your future net worth. Because whatever else you invest in, maybe you invest in equity, you may invest in real estate. You don't have as much …”
Jun 7, 2021
Chopra: Investing should be boring; deriving joy from it is speculation
“I think investing should be the most boring thing that you should be doing. If you're trying to derive joy from investing, I think that is speculation and we should call it speculation and it's okay to speculate, but don't call it investing.”
Jun 7, 2021
Aug 25, 2023
Chopra: Financially free people should operate with zero return expectation
“I'm saying what you need to exclude if you're financially free is an expectation of getting paid back. Because a lot of other people are willing to do that job. I'm saying there is only certain roles in society that financially independent people can play. And…”
Aug 25, 2023
Nadhani: Value creation without value capture is just a hobby project
“So in my mind, entrepreneurship, at the crux of it is, hey, I need to build something where I deliver value to people, and I need to capture value out of that. This is actually from Paris' framework, create value and capture value. If you only create value and…”
Aug 25, 2023 positive
Paras Chopra: Intellectual adult friendships differ from nostalgia-based school friendships
“And I think it's not like how your friends with your school friends or college friends, I think there is a healthy mix of professional respect. So so in that sense, it's a different kind of friendship than How would you hang out with, let's say, a school frien…”
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Aug 25, 2023 bearish
Chopra: Pure returns logic leads investors away from deep tech bets
“You know, it's so hard to raise money for, like, a deep tech company, and the reason for that is,
The expected returns are so much lower versus building, let's say, a B to B company.
Like, as an investor, if you're purely going by your, like, returns logic, yo…”
Aug 25, 2023
Chopra: Predictable execution is not entrepreneurship, uncertainty defines it
“I think I would say it's more to do with uncertainty. Wherein, if someone is doing something which nobody expects to work out, that person is an entrepreneur for me. But it's very clear that A will lead to B and will lead to C. It's not an entrepreneur. So tra…”
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Chopra: Stepped down as Wingify CEO because scaling lacked intellectual stimulation
“I think partly it had happened where I felt growing a company was not intellectually stimulating me, and that's one of the reasons I shifted my role from CEO to chairman, and I dived myself in my sabbatical to reading a lot of physics, chemistry, because I jus…”
Aug 25, 2023
Chopra: Philanthropy is driven by status rather than pure selflessness
“It's not all selfless. If it were selfless, we'll not see names on buildings. Charities would be anonymous. So, there is a large extent of status also being involved in the mix, but I think it's a good trade-off if others get balanced and you have a name on yo…”
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Chopra: Product problems are multidimensional rather than intellectually hard
“I wouldn't say entrepreneurship problems or product problems are hard problems in the sense of intellectually hard, but I think they're hard in the sense of being so multidimensional. That the answer is not obvious in the first go.”
Aug 25, 2023
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Chopra: Corporate mission statements always take a backseat to profit
“Missions of companies are good stories.
but they always take a backseat when it comes to companies being in the marketplace, because
Almost always the economic considerations takes the forefront.
So Google's don't be evil, Apple's think different, whatever mi…”
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Aug 25, 2023 neutral
Chopra: No single pursuit provides happiness because over-optimizing causes neglect
“I think evolutionally speaking, happiness is sort of like a signal that things are going well for you. So by this definition, no single thing can be a source of happiness. Because as soon as you try to over optimize it, you know, it just comes at a cost of neg…”
Jul 4, 2025 negative
Chopra: Attaching self-worth to a startup destroys objectivity about failure
“If you are too attached to a project, you end up being you don't end up being objective about whether something is working or not, right? If your identity is attached with your startup and your measure, you feel that your measure of life or personal worth is a…”
Jul 4, 2025 negative
Chopra: Indexing startup strategy on outlier successes like Google is highly risky
“I think indexing on these outliers is, is also very risky for entrepreneurs. In our head, the stories of Google, Facebook dominates, but in reality, what would happen is you will end up making the median B to C app or the median SAS company.”
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025 positive
Chopra: Unquantifiable uncertainty is a strategic moat protecting startups from corporate incumbents
“Uncertainty is actually a moat for startups. And I would differentiate uncertainty from risk. Risk is something that you can model on an Excel file. Risk is what you can say. I have a five percent chance of failure and so on. And if you're able to quantify ris…”
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: Micromanagement happens when managers lack clarity on their own task expectations
“Lack of trust, and I feel also lack of clarity, where a lot of times people who micromanage, they themselves don't know what they're expecting out of a task, and they end up micromanaging because they're learning what the task should be about and what they're …”
Jul 4, 2025 neutral
Chopra: The optimal market entry sweet spot is 1-2 nascent competitors
“As per me, sweet spot is if you're able to find, let's say one or two direct competitors with some customers, That validates the problem exists, but also validates that it's just very nascent where the, if the whole market grows, your company will grow with it…”
Jul 4, 2025 negative
Chopra: Startup success is mostly luck, disagreeing with Peter Thiel's thesis
“There's so much of luck involved. Again, the last chapter of my book is really, you are a lottery ticket. And in that I disagree with, I think Peter Thiel had a chapter and it's intentionally provocative because Peter Thiel in zero to one says you're not a lot…”
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: Diversity of core value systems is actively detrimental in early startups
“Diversity of experiences is very valuable. So if everyone comes with a different history of what they know, then obviously as a team, you know, a lot more than what you would know individually, but a diversity of value system very early on in startup is, is no…”
Jul 4, 2025 negative
Jul 4, 2025 neutral
Chopra: Scaling past revenue milestones requires continuously re-founding the company
“Every stage of the company, let's say you get to zero to 10 to get to 10 to 50, you need to be entrepreneurial again, because you need new sources of revenue. We need to expand the market. And then at 50 to 500, again, you need to be an entrepreneur again from…”
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: Repeat founders struggle by over-indexing on their first success
“A lot of repeat founders, not a lot of, but some repeat founders end up Over indexing on their particular story in the first startup or first product they did. But by the time they do second, the world has changed. The expectations have changed. Everything has…”
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: Founders must treat team delegation like prompt engineering to prevent micromanagement
“As a founder, you need to do prompt engineering with your team, wherein don't let anything be ambiguous because otherwise ambiguity is where this micromanagement comes, right? Where you, if you are not clear what's to be done, how can you expect your teammates…”
Jul 4, 2025 neutral
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: If you are not writing, you are probably not thinking enough
“Writing is, to me, it's just equivalent to thinking. So if you're not writing, you're probably not thinking enough about the problem. Because I just, working memory is limited. How many things can you keep in your head versus how many things can you keep in a …”
Jul 4, 2025
Jul 4, 2025 negative
Chopra: Startups should commercialize existing knowledge, not conduct fundamental research
“Startups are perfect for commercializing what knowledge exists, and that, that's what it should do. But fundamental research, of course, companies like SpaceX exist. But I don't think startups should pursue that.”
Jul 4, 2025 neutral
Jul 4, 2025
Chopra: Violating core business laws guarantees startup failure
“Those laws do not give you a recipe to create a successful startup, but if you go against those laws, then failure is guaranteed. So being aware of these laws, I mean, I'm calling laws their mental models and principles, like in my book, you need to be aware o…”
Jul 4, 2025 positive
Chopra: New business functions must report directly to the CEO
“So right thing would be to hire someone in the outbound, even if it's an outbound STR, but probably report that outbound STR directly to you as a founder, as a CEO.
Because new functions do require that hundred percent attention and focus for them to initially…”