- Kunal Shah appointed global head of WhatsApp after Meta's $900M investment in Cred
- Shah studied Philosophy, dropped out of MBA, and values practical learning over degrees
- He started doing odd jobs as a teen to support his family financially after his father's business collapsed
Cred founder Kunal Shah is the toast of startup town after Meta-owned Whatsapp appointed him as the global head of the messaging platform after a $900 million financing round into the Indian fintech major led by the Mark Zuckerberg company.
Shah is among a rare breed of startup founders. Grounded, empathetic, and witty; a man who started to hustle around the age of 14/15. He worked several odd jobs to support his family after it went bankrupt following the collapse of his father's business. By age 16, Shah had achieved financial freedom through jobs as a delivery boy, data operator, mehendi cone seller, cyber cafe operator, pirated CD seller, and computer skills tutor.
In 2021, this writer asked Shah if these experiences made him more empathetic as a person and a leader?
In his signature grounded style Shah said: "I've never really thought about it. I do believe that to create something big through the effort of many people coming together, empathy is not a choice."
"It's almost like a compulsory thing to have, right? You cannot expect to change consumer behaviour or have a team that will be inspired to change things if you are not empathetic to what they personally feel. And I think anybody who's trying to build anything does not have a choice to really be not empathetic for a long period of time."
Shah had told me that he's seen companies do well without an empathetic leader but only until a point, before it all came crumbling down.
"You are trying to create an institution that outlasts you in many ways, right? And, for me, this is that quest... all the people who have built Cred, it could last beyond that. And I think therefore, fundamentally the mindset is much more long-term in nature."
It's almost as if Shah was gazing at a crystal ball, as he's stepping down as the CEO of Cred to take on the top role at WhatsApp. He'll however continue to retain his personal shareholding.
Cred currently has 17 million monthly active users, and its business was built as a members-only platform which rewards users for paying credit card bills on time.
In a statement, Zuckerberg said Shah built Cred into "one of India's most important technology companies" and brought the "builder mentality and global perspective" needed to run the world's largest messaging app.
Also read: CRED Founder Kunal Shah To Lead WhatsApp Globally
The Philosophy Grad & MBA Dropout
Unlike most other celebrated Indian startup founders who have IIT-IIM degrees, or at least technical education, Shah studied Philosophy at Mumbai's Wilson College. In 2024, Shah told Info Edge (the company behind Naukri.com) Founder Sanjeev Bhikchandani that the reason to pursue Philosophy wasn't necessarily due to an interest in the subject or lack of grades to make it to any other course - it was the only subject where the classes were from 8 am to 10 am. During the rest of the day he would hustle at his odd jobs.
After college Shah enrolled for an MBA at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, but dropped out before finishing the degree. "I realised that I was better off learning on my own than through a structured programme, because the curriculums and theories were a lot more designed for scoring marks and not really understanding things. So to me MBA as a format did not work," Shah told this writer during their interaction in 2021, at the height of the pandemic.
However, he was quick to clarify that although it didn't work for him, it's not that he doesn't see the value of an MBA for others.
"It's not that I don't recommend people doing MBAs, I do believe that there is value in it. To me, it just felt like the practicality of things was not there, the topicality of things were not there."
"For example, if you are learning a concept that has become irrelevant in some ways and you are not kept up to the evolution of that, and people are just mindlessly writing that as an example and scoring marks, I don't know if people are truly understanding what is going on." he said.
The Man Who Never Believed in Degrees
One of the senior leaders at Cred is only a Class 10 pass, Shah had told me during our interaction. He's one who's never cared for degrees while hiring instead choosing to focus on people who are multi-faceted and come from diverse backgrounds. There have been instances where people have landed internships at Cred after cold tagging Shah on LinkedIn.
He's also someone who doesn't like to take himself too seriously and has always encouraged the same culture at the workplace; Cred's had internal meme channels where employees were encouraged to make fun of each other including Shah. "We do not appreciate anybody who takes themselves too seriously in the company," Shah had told me.
Before starting Cred in 2018 with a personal investment of $1 million, Shah built FreeCharge - one of India's early digital payments startups - which was sold to Axis bank in 2017 for around $60 million.
Meta's 20% acquisition in Cred now values the company at $4.5 billion. Shah will be succeeding current WhatsApp global head Will Cathcart, who is transitioning into a new role within Meta to focus on AI- powered consumer products. At Cred, Miten Sampat who oversaw strategy and finance will take on the role of interim CEO.
India is WhatsApp's largest market, with more than 500 million users; the app's global base is 3 billion+ people. India is also a crucial market for Meta for building its next phase of growth through business messaging and digital payments. Shah's appointment is being seen as an attempt to bolster these efforts.
