Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Info Edge, the company behind Naukri.com, 99acres, Jeevansathi, and Shiksha , and one of the very few people who can genuinely claim to have shaped how India works, lives, and learns.
Beyond building Info Edge into one of India's most valuable internet companies, he made two of the most consequential early bets in Indian startup history , backing Zomato and PolicyBazaar long before either was considered obvious. He is also a co-founder of Ashoka University, one of India's most respected liberal arts institutions.
Sanjeev is widely regarded as a founding father of India's startup ecosystem , someone who was building internet businesses before India had meaningful internet access, and whose patient, conviction-driven approach to both company building and investing has become a reference point for a generation of founders.
Background & Journey
Sanjeev studied Economics at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. He worked briefly at Glaxo before leaving a stable corporate job in 1990 to start out on his own, running early ventures from a servant's quarter with borrowed resources.
Naukri.com launched in 1997, years before India had the internet penetration needed to make a jobs portal viable. That patience, building infrastructure for a future that had not arrived yet , is the defining feature of his story. Info Edge went public in 2006 in what became a landmark listing for Indian internet businesses. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020.
On Dilse Omni Talks
Sanjeev Bikhchandani recently appeared on Dilse Omni Talks with host Saurabh Agrawal, where the conversation explored “The real growth playbook behind India's earliest internet businesses, and what Sanjeev Bikhchandani would do differently if he were starting today.”
3 Key Takeaways from the Episode
● Being early is a deliberate strategy, not an accident. Sanjeev launched a jobs portal in a country that barely had internet access, and the patience that required , continuing to build when most people thought it was pointless , is the actual competitive advantage his story teaches.
● Founders back founders. His investment thesis in Zomato and PolicyBazaar was never primarily about spreadsheets , it was about conviction in the people and their ability to navigate uncertainty. That belief in founder quality over model perfection is a consistent thread across his best bets.
● Building institutions outlasts building companies. His work with Ashoka University reflects a much longer view of what an entrepreneur can leave behind. The most enduring impact of great founders is often not the company itself but the people, culture, and institutions they create around it.
