I don't think Indian e-commerce companies have an evolved

Host: The city was a blaze of screens and steel, an orchestra of horns, advertisements, and ambition. From the balcony of a glass-walled office tower, the night looked mechanical — not alive, but humming. Down below, a million deliveries darted through traffic, glowing with the logos of a dozen startups, each promising the future.

The rain had stopped, leaving streaks of water across the windows, distorting the lights into long, trembling rivers of color.

Inside, the boardroom was half-shadow, half-harsh white light. Jack stood by the window, his hands in his pockets, staring down at the neon labyrinth. Across from him, Jeeny sat at the conference table, scrolling through her tablet, the light painting her face in cold blue.

The quote was projected on the wall behind them, crisp and clinical:

“I don’t think Indian e-commerce companies have an evolved business model.”
— Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

The hum of the city bled faintly into the room — a mechanical heartbeat, steady and ironic.

Jeeny: “You know, it’s strange. The man said that years ago, and yet it feels truer now than ever. Everyone’s building castles out of apps, but no one’s figured out where the ground really is.”

Jack: “He wasn’t wrong. Most of them still burn cash faster than they earn trust. They’re not building businesses; they’re building bubbles. You can’t run on investor sentiment forever.”

Host: Jack’s reflection in the glass looked like a twin made of smoke — solid in posture, hollow in certainty.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the point of innovation? You burn before you build. Look at Amazon. For years they bled. Now they own half the digital planet.”

Jack: “That’s the myth everyone tells themselves. Amazon was a marathoner. These new guys are sprinters. They want valuation, not value.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s just evolution — faster cycles, riskier bets.”

Jack: “No. That’s impatience dressed up as progress.”

Host: The city lights flickered below them — delivery bikes speeding through puddles, scooters with oversized boxes strapped like burdens. The modern worker-ant colony.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve lost faith in the future.”

Jack: “No. I’ve lost faith in the people pretending to build it.”

Jeeny: “You think Jhunjhunwala said that out of cynicism?”

Jack: “No. Out of clarity. He understood the oldest law in business — profit is reality, everything else is a story.”

Jeeny: “And yet stories drive markets.”

Jack: “Until the story ends.”

Host: Jeeny leaned back, crossing her arms, her eyes sharp, her tone steady.

Jeeny: “But what if we’re still in the middle of the story? You judge evolution before the species is done mutating. Maybe these models aren’t broken — just incomplete.”

Jack: “Incomplete is a polite word for unsustainable.”

Jeeny: “You say that like sustainability is the only metric that matters. What about reach? Inclusion? The number of small-town kids who can now buy books, clothes, or even start businesses online? That’s social evolution, not just economic.”

Jack: “Social evolution doesn’t pay warehouse bills. You can’t feed a billion dreams if you can’t balance your ledgers.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you can — if the dream feeds the ledger later.”

Jack: “And if it doesn’t?”

Jeeny: “Then it fails — and something better rises. That’s how progress has always worked. Creative destruction.”

Host: The rain began again, softly this time. Tiny drops streaked down the glass like the quiet descent of logic meeting reality.

Jack: “Destruction is easy. Creation isn’t. Everyone wants to disrupt; no one wants to sustain.”

Jeeny: “You sound like a man tired of revolutions.”

Jack: “I’m tired of illusions. You think calling a loss-making company a unicorn changes its nature? You can polish a stone all you want — it doesn’t turn into a diamond.”

Jeeny: “You’re missing something, Jack. Maybe the value isn’t just in the profit. Maybe it’s in the infrastructure they leave behind. The logistics networks, the tech ecosystems — they’re scaffolds for what comes next.”

Jack: “You think evolution accepts scaffolds as legacy? It erases them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the erasure still leaves outlines. Look at India — ten years ago, no one trusted online payments. Now even chai vendors use QR codes. Isn’t that evolution?”

Jack: “That’s adaptation — not success. The foundation’s still cracked. If the funding dries up tomorrow, half these ‘innovations’ collapse overnight.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s okay. Collapse teaches faster than stability.”

Host: A long silence stretched. The rain intensified, blurring the skyline into watercolor streaks.

Jack: “You know what bothers me most? We talk about disruption like it’s noble. But what’s noble about dependency? These companies teach people to click, not to create.”

Jeeny: “That’s unfair. They connect artisans, farmers, small sellers — they open doors.”

Jack: “And then they charge rent to walk through them. It’s digital feudalism, Jeeny. The platforms are the new landlords.”

Jeeny: “But landlords, at least, build houses. Isn’t that better than letting the field lie barren?”

Host: Her words hung like static — unresolved, electric.

Jack walked closer to the window, tracing the outline of the city with his gaze — the warehouses, the bikes, the endless hum of delivery vans threading through neon arteries.

Jack: “You ever wonder what the endgame is? How long before convenience consumes meaning? Before buying becomes breathing?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it already has. Maybe that’s the evolution you’re resisting — a new kind of human instinct: need on demand.”

Jack: “That’s not evolution. That’s surrender.”

Jeeny: “Or transformation.”

Jack: “Transformation without wisdom is just mutation.”

Host: The lightning flashed, illuminating both their faces — his drawn and skeptical, hers calm and illuminated by conviction.

Jeeny: “So what do you want, Jack? For everyone to stop building until they have a perfect model?”

Jack: “I want them to remember that technology isn’t a substitute for understanding. You can’t algorithm your way to empathy. Or integrity.”

Jeeny: “You can try. You can fail. That’s still discovery. Every system stumbles before it walks.”

Jack: “And some never get up again.”

Jeeny: “Then they become lessons. Every fallen company is a blueprint for the next builder.”

Host: The storm softened. Below them, the city lights shimmered, their reflections breaking and reforming in the wet glass — like ideas dying and being reborn.

Jack: “So maybe Jhunjhunwala wasn’t condemning them. Maybe he was challenging them — saying, ‘Evolve, or perish.’”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Every criticism is a mirror, not a wall. You look into it, or you vanish behind it.”

Jack: “You always find poetry in capitalism.”

Jeeny: “Because beneath profit and loss, it’s still human ambition — messy, flawed, magnificent. We fall, we sell, we build, we dream. Evolution isn’t corporate. It’s emotional.”

Host: Jack turned, his expression softer now — the storm inside him ebbing with the one outside.

Jack: “You really think there’s something noble in all this chaos?”

Jeeny: “I think chaos is just progress in disguise.”

Jack: “And if you’re wrong?”

Jeeny: “Then we’ll start again — with better mistakes.”

Host: A smile cracked through Jack’s fatigue. He lifted his glass of water — a small, ironic toast to failure, perhaps.

Jack: “To evolution, then.”

Jeeny: “To learning — even when it looks like losing.”

Host: The rain stopped completely, leaving the city glistening, reborn. In the reflection of the glass, their faces appeared side by side — logic and faith, skepticism and hope — twin architects of a civilization still learning how to stand on digital legs.

And outside, the neon veins pulsed brighter, like the world itself whispering through the static:

Evolve — not perfectly, but perpetually.