I know your salary
The real reason salaries stay hidden.
Why are salaries secret?
There is a simple reason I found acceptance in the world of personal finance.
Because I treated money as something that should never have been “personal” in the first place.
So I put my own numbers on the table.
My business income.
My investments.
My performance.
My salary.
My mistakes.
All of it, shared with brutal transparency.
Not to impress.
But to show what clarity looks like when you stop hiding.
We are conditioned to believe money is private.
And most of that conditioning comes from institutions that benefit from secrecy.
Take salaries, for example.
Companies spend absurd amounts of energy hiding salaries, which everyone already knows.
Because the truth is uncomfortable.
Their salary decisions are often arbitrary.
A 30 percent hike at a rival company magically translates into a 30 percent counter-offer.
With a “your salary is confidential. Do not share it with anyone.”
It is not confidentiality.
It is a lack of a coherent system, dressed up as policy.
I refused to play that game.
At my startup, everyone’s salary is public.
(you can check it here)
Not because it sounds noble, but because it forces discipline.
When we hire:
1. No one is asked to take a pay cut.
2. We never ask for previous salary. Only expectations.
3. We benchmark the role, and if we can’t meet the expectation, we walk away.
4. If we do make an offer, the candidate knows exactly why.
5. If there is a mismatch, we withdraw the offer respectfully.
Transparency is not a moral stance.
It is a systems stance.
If your foundations are weak, secrecy feels convenient.
If your foundations are strong, secrecy becomes pointless.
(Share on X)
Kids from 957 cities and 525 schools are playing the India Genius Challenge!
We were checking the latest stats on my latest project IGC (India Genius Challenge) - it’s been 10 days since we launched.
In the last 10 days:
• 40,000+ challenges played
• 4,300+ students joined
• From 957 cities
(Fun fact: Top 10 include Pune, Patna, Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow)
• Across 525 schools (DPS, DAV, KV lead)
This is so amazing! And gratifying!
Visit India Genius Challenge.
Book I read this week
Finished reading Click Here by Alex Schultz (Chief Marketing Officer at Meta). Should be curriculum reading for all marketing and data students.
Here is a list of all books I have shared in this newsletter since Day 1.
Question of the week
What feels more rich to you?
Someone using iPhone 17
Someone using MacBook
(and see the results of others, too)
Results of last week's question
I asked people which of these options feels more rich to you.
Here are the results:
When young, driving a luxury car feels more rich. Because that’s a lot of money upfront. As you age, you realize business class flights are more rich because they add up to a lot more than what a luxury car would cost over its lifetime.
My response:
Someone taking a business class flight.
3-2-1
3 pics from last week
Was in Mumbai for an event with Asana, the project management tool we use at wariCrew - here with the entire Asana team that pulled it off (Leona, Shannon, Vishnu, Jo).
Then in Jaipur for 3 back-to-back book events for Beyond The Syllabus - my book for teenagers.
And finally, we attended a wedding in Jaipur. All in a week :)
2 quotes I wish to share
If you suffer your way to a goal, don’t expect joy when you reach it.
You are remembered not for the rules you break.
But the ones you broke and they worked out.
1 new thing I learnt this week
India has 2,600+ registered political parties, registered with the Election Commission. Wow! I couldn’t name more than 10!
🎙️ My top content from last week
🏦 YouTube Finance: India's savings crisis
📹 YouTube Career: Is your engineering degree useless?
📱 Instagram: What should be my networth?
🐥 Twitter: What breaks me
You can, of course, always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter.
I love reading all your emails, even though I may not be able to reply to them all.
Yes! I READ ALL MY EMAILS. ALL OF THEM.
(Sardiyon ki dhoop mein laetne ki kasam)
Have a lovely weekend and week ahead all you lovelies! :))
until next week
stay awesome | stay focused | do epic shit
warikoo