Radhika Ambani

Rishabh Shah: Firstly, thank you for doing this. Radhika Ambani: Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm so excited. Very few times am I the oldest person in the room, so excuse me if y'all don't get my references.

Rishabh Shah: No, you have one person who's slightly older than you. Radhika Ambani: You. Rishabh Shah: I didn't want you to say that, but now that you've said it... You studied at NYU, studied pol science.

You decided to come back to India. Why so? You could have chosen a life out there with better AQI and a very different world. Radhika Ambani: So the world was different when I graduated almost 10 years ago.

I'm gonna be an alumni for 10 years next year. So I went to college in 2013 to 2017. So think about what was happening in America at that time.

So Trump was just becoming president, the election campaign was going on, and there was protests all the time. So we had Take Over Wall Street, we had the Not My President movement. And I went to NYU.

NYU is probably one of the most liberal places you could be in this world. We had Bernie Sanders, when he was running for president give his speech from my campus

At Washington Square Park. Of course, Hillary's stronghold was Wall Street. Again, my campus. So things were really in turmoil at that point.

And then think about what was happening in India at that time. The BJP was coming in with a huge mandate. We had unbelievable public infrastructure in terms of Aadhaar, UPI.

Jio had come into effect, and it felt like the country of growth. So who remembers Achhe Din Aayenge? I don't know if y'all were too young.

But basically, our honorable prime minister, he came to America, and he did this rally in in Madison Square Park, and I went for that. And it just seemed like there was going to be so much promise in India, and there was all these buzzwords at that time, like ease of doing business. Things like that. So India felt, and we were growing at about 8.5% at that time.

And they were growing at, like, 2 or 3%. So these were vital decision points. And AQI and things like that are great assets.

I think there's an emotional infrastructure to life as well. Rishabh Shah: And that is India. Radhika Ambani: That is your parents.

That is the community around you that has built you. I think to be able to build with an emotional infrastructure and to be able to carry out your life, it's a much bigger asset than to have roads and railways, in my opinion. As a person, it depends on your moral standing.

I had a huge feeling of responsibility to build for the country. Rishabh Shah: As I keep mentioning, you've got 800 million people below the age of 35. So technically, you've got the largest youth population in the world who is in India.

So when you're building for India, there are already so many consumers who are going to consume from India. So it only makes sense to come back to India, understand India per se, and then build for India. Radhika Ambani: Of course. Build for India from India, for Indians by Indians, all of the above.

Rishabh Shah: What does it mean to be locally rooted? What does it mean essentially, to preserve Indian culture? Radhika Ambani: We think in systems and environments

And not as individuals first. So we have a responsibility to our families, our society, our country. But because of these generational roles that we play, I'm very confident that I'll be able to have my kids and leave them with my mother or my mother-in-law.