The Second-Owner Decade
India's next ownership wave may be built through used cars, reliable transfers, and support that makes ownership easier to enter.
Building Cars24. Rethinking what a company can be.
I co-founded Cars24 to transform car ownership. We now operate in India, the UAE and Australia. I’m rebuilding the company around AI and Flatland, with the ambition to build a $100 billion company from India. I write about what we are learning along the way.
Start here: The Second-Owner DecadeWhy We Are Not Selling CarsThe Paranoid Survive. The Regulated Thrive.
Writing
Essays
The EMI Comes Before the Car
India's used-car market grows when financing makes ownership reachable and lenders can understand the car they are backing.
The Greenest Car May Already Exist
Keeping existing vehicles useful can reduce the need for new manufacturing, but reuse only works when buyers can trust the vehicle and its history.
What India Must Learn From Its Road Deaths
Drivers make mistakes. India needs road-safety systems that can see what happened, respond, and learn before the same failure kills again.
Why We Are Not Selling Cars
The lasting business in mobility is not moving a vehicle once. It is making ownership more certain.
Companies Scale at the Speed They Learn
Hiring can add capacity, but a company scales well when it can see reality, learn, and change as complexity grows.
AI Changes the Shape of the Company
Adding AI to an old workflow can make it better. The deeper change is to rebuild how a company carries context and makes decisions.
We Deleted Every Title Except Builder
Cars24 changed its old title system. The deeper question is how to give people closer to a problem the context and responsibility to act.
The Conversation Before the Postmortem
Delay and weak accountability often show up as process problems. Some begin earlier, when people do not trust one another enough to speak plainly or commit to a decision.
AI Will Let India Export Consumer Companies
SaaS helped Indian companies sell software around the world. AI may make it easier for India-born consumer companies to carry operating knowledge across markets.
The Paranoid Survive. The Regulated Thrive.
Stay alert to the work and steady in yourself. Andy Grove gave us half the sentence. The other half is what helps us keep our judgment.
Who Taught You to Want This?
Much of what we call ambition is shaped by peers, rivals, and status systems before we recognize their influence. Asking where a desire came from can help us choose what to pursue.
Before You Call Someone Careless
We often explain our own behavior with context and other people's with character. That shortcut can make us miss the pressures and conditions that shaped what happened.
By Email
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I publish infrequently. Email is the cleanest way to hear when a new essay is live.
No cadence for the sake of cadence. Just new essays when there is something worth saying.
Interviews
AI Is 100x Bigger Than the Internet
On Young Turks Reloaded: the internet-to-AI shift, rebuilding Cars24, Flatland, and the ambition to build global consumer companies from India.
He Built India's Biggest Car Selling & Purchasing Platform
A wide-ranging conversation on building Cars24, leadership, hiring, scaling, and lessons learned from Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Meet Cars24 Founder
A conversation on the early journey behind Cars24, ambition, and the mindset required to build through uncertainty.
How Cars24 CEO, Vikram Chopra Built a Rs 27,000 cr used car startup
A detailed conversation on growing Cars24, the used-car market, early company building, and the journey from Raebareli to scaling a large business.
Talks & Panels
Playing the long game: what it takes to build generation defining companies
A panel on building enduring companies, with Vikram Chopra alongside Asish Mohapatra and Varun Alagh.
Elsewhere
How this Indian CEO is saving 50% time with AI use
A conversation on using AI agents, a second brain, and shared context to change how I work and how Cars24 operates.
Cars24 scraps job titles and hierarchy in AI-era organisational overhaul
Coverage of Flatland: removing titles and grades, calling everyone a Builder, and organising work around ownership and impact.
#UNTOLD | Cars24, Vikram Chopra & The Man He Refused To Become
A long profile by Rajiv Singh on the childhood promise, early failures, self-work, and operating choices behind Cars24.
My livelihood comes from cars. For my child’s future, I ask government to restrict cars, anything that poisons our air
My column on clean air, the cost to our families, and why public health must come before the interests of the car industry.
What You're Actually Paying For When You Buy a Used Car Online
A detailed argument about pricing, trust, and what buyers are really comparing when they evaluate used-car platforms against local dealers.
How we use AI will determine our success
An early articulation of Cars24's view that appraisal quality, pricing accuracy, and AI-driven learning would determine who wins the used-car market.
The world is in a bad place this year, but I need to take a long-term view
A conversation on navigating a funding winter, reducing burn, and making decisions with a multi-decade view of the business.
'Political Will' Is India’s Biggest Failure in Air Pollution Control
An argument for uncomfortable public-policy action on pollution, even when that stance cuts against the immediate interests of the car industry.
Rising Strong: The Art of Failing Forward
A short reflection on failure, resilience, and the emotional work required to keep moving after setbacks.
Embracing Discomfort for Growth
A note on choosing discomfort deliberately as a condition for growth, ambition, and better judgment.
Cars24 Culture
Flatland and values
The operating notes behind a flatter, faster Cars24.
