Outliers 2025: Honouring Bold Entrepreneurs, Not Privilege

In a world conditioned to bet only on the successful, it is never easy to find support for an idea that is untested and uncertain. The same pattern repeats everywhere. In films, the best scripts go to established stars. In business, investors and banks prefer founders with pedigrees, degrees from elite institutes or a proven exit in the past. Human civilisation, by nature, seeks to protect itself from failure.

The business media, too, has fallen into the habit of celebrating the already celebrated, turning recognition into routine and success into repetition.

Every few months, the world is served another list of the “best” leaders and “richest” visionaries, compiled by consultants who turn ambition into spreadsheets. The names rarely change. The biggest balance sheets take the biggest bows, rewarded not for courage but for the comfort their scale affords. In celebrating them, we mistake privilege for vision and forget that it is risk, not resources, that moves a nation forward.

At Outlook Business, we choose to see the world differently. A developed India in 2047 will need a generation of entrepreneurs and companies willing to take risks when the outcome is uncertain. The nation will need outliers who trust their conviction, go against the tide and prove others wrong. That spirit of risk-taking and resilience will define the next leap in innovation and self-reliance.

With this belief, we present our first annual “The Outliers" issue. Every year, we will feature 10 companies that dared to back their ideas early, when success was far from certain and have now set new trends for others to follow. Among them, one company will take the cover position as the first among equals for making an extraordinary bet that reflects courage, conviction and an all-or-nothing spirit.

In “Outliers 2025”, Wockhardt leads the list for choosing to invest heavily in R&D for new antibiotics despite falling fortunes over the years, a decision that is now stoking its turnaround (pg 52). AU Small Finance Bank is present for becoming the first small finance bank in the country to secure a universal banking licence. Rapido, Physicswallah and Groww join the list for flipping the playbooks of their sectors to disrupt incumbents who once looked invincible.

Every name in this issue was chosen after long deliberation within the Outlook Business editorial team. Each company here marks a moment of belief, a moment when doubt would have been easier but conviction held firm. Every profile has been refined through several rounds of editing to bring alive not just achievement, but the struggle, vision and resolve that shaped it.

Our choice for the cover was reached after careful thought. We wanted a stark portrait of the 83-year-old Habil Khorakiwala. And for this we chose a fashion photographer, not a conventional corporate one. The black and white, and duotone palette brings out the character of a man who refused to junk his belief.

At the outset, we decided that no company would be repeated for the next two years. This decision keeps us on our toes to find new models, bold experiments and fresh bets that deserve recognition in future editions of The Outliers.

We hope this issue inspires readers to look beyond the obvious and celebrate the dark horses who have braved uncertainty, challenged incumbents and shown new paths for others to follow.