Part 1: Vidit Aatrey on building a problem-first mindset into Meesho's culture

First Principles

I met Vidit Aatrey, Co-founder and CEO of Meesho, on 14th February, exactly two months ago. We met at Spacebot Studios in Indiranagar. Vidit is tall, lean and clean-shaven. He is a careful listener and a measured speaker. When you ask him a question, you get the sense he’s spending time parsing all its meanings, and then playing out a few versions of responses in his head, perhaps doing a little bit of editing, before replying. Of course, all of this happens in a few seconds, so it’s easy to miss unless you are, well, having a conversation with him for over two hours. That’s enough time for both of us to pick and read cues from each other.

Think about it. Can you spend two hours in a room having a truly open-ended, candid and widespread discussion with another person about their life, their business, their colleagues, their company and its culture, and even their family, without getting to really know them?

I’d been wanting to have Vidit as a guest on First Principles for a while, even during our first two seasons. But as it turns out, things clicked only in 2025. I’m glad though, because I do feel Vidit’s and Meesho’s journey are a wonderful opening to Season 3 of First Principles.

There’s a lot of good stuff we talked about. Why Vidit is so eager for Meesho to build for a long-term view, why he values problems way more than solutions, the humility and willingness to be led to new places by customer insights, the much talked about zero commission model, and building products for users who aren’t the top 5% of India.

Let’s get started with the conversation, shall we?

Welcome to season three of First Principles.

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