{"id":1016591,"date":"2026-06-24T08:39:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/?p=1016591"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T03:17:20","slug":"kunal-shahs-elevation-once-again-underscores-indias-paradox-producing-leaders-not-global-tech-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/2026\/06\/24\/kunal-shahs-elevation-once-again-underscores-indias-paradox-producing-leaders-not-global-tech-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"Kunal Shah\u2019s elevation once again underscores India\u2019s paradox: producing leaders, not global tech giants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Meta\u2019s decision to appoint Cred founder Kunal Shah as the next head of WhatsApp, alongside a $900-million investment in the fintech company, is being seen as a milestone for India\u2019s startup ecosystem. It certainly is. WhatsApp is one of the world\u2019s most influential digital platforms, with more than 3 billion users and India as its largest market. <\/p>\n<p>The appointment signals that Indian entrepreneurs are no longer viewed merely as operators in a large emerging market but as leaders capable of shaping products used across the world. It is also a recognition of how central India has become to the future of digital services, from payments and commerce to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meta\u2019s decision to appoint Cred founder Kunal Shah as the next head of WhatsApp, alongside a $900-million investment in the fintech company, is being seen as a milestone for India\u2019s startup ecosystem. It certainly is. WhatsApp is one of the world\u2019s most influential digital platforms, with more than 3 billion users and India as its largest market. The appointment signals that Indian entrepreneurs are no longer viewed merely as operators in a large emerging market but as leaders capable of shaping products used across the world. It is also a recognition of how central India has become to the future [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,64,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-telecom-the-financial-express","category-the-financial-express"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016615,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016591\/revisions\/1016615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}