How this 34-year-old chess champion became India’s youngest new billionaire

How this 34-year-old chess champion became India’s youngest new billionaire

Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit" may have popularized chess for modern audiences, but Nikhil Kamath liked the game way before it was cool.So much so, that he dropped out of high school at 14 to play full time."Chess teaches you how to work under a structure, in a system, but yet try and be creative within that system," Kamath told CNBC Make It.That was the starting move in a sequence of events that would eventually earn him billionaire status as part of India's answer to trading platform Robinhood.The opening moveNo one was going to hire me without a college degree, which meant I had to do something which didn't require one.Nikhil Kamathco-founder and chief investment officer, ZerodhaBut when the school dropout began trading at 17 years old, that wasn't the strategy: Having played chess internationally but fallen short of a professional career, he simply needed a backup plan. Inspired by his elder brother, Nithin, he took to stock trading, and taught himself on the go."No one was going to hire me without a college degree, which meant I had to do something which didn't require one," said Kamath.Nikhil Kamath, co-founder and chief investment officer at Indian brokerage Zerodha, trades at home.ZerodhaIt