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Bhavish Aggarwal

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Bhavish Aggarwal
Born (1985-08-28) 28 August 1985 (age 39)
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Alma materIIT Bombay (B.Tech)
OccupationEntrepreneur
TitleCo-founder and CEO of Ola Consumer
Founder and CEO of Ola Electric
Founder of Krutrim
SpouseRajalakshmi Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal (born 28 August 1985) is an Indian entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Ola Consumer, founder of Ola Electric[1] and founder of OlaKrutrim, a large language model artificial intelligence (AI) company which became India’s first AI unicorn in 2024 an estimated valuation of $1 billion.[2][3]

Aggarwal was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. [4] With a net worth of $2.3 billion, Aggarwal is one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world.[5][6]

Early life

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Aggarwal was born and brought up in Ludhiana, Punjab.[7][8] He completed a bachelor's degree in computer engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2008.[9] He started his career with Microsoft Research India as a research intern and later got reinstated as an assistant researcher.[10]

Career

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He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents and published three papers in international journals.[9] In January 2011 he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.[11]

Ola Consumer (formerly Ola Cabs)

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The idea for a cab company struck Aggarwal when he had a bad experience with a taxi, which led him and Ankit Bhati to co-found Ola Cabs in 2010.

In May 2020, Ola Cabs announced a huge layoff of around 5000 employees in a move to survive the economic repercussions of COVID-19. It had suffered an overwhelming loss of revenue by about 95%.[12] In a webinar addressed to the students of Bennet University, Bhavish said that the COVID-19 pandemic was about to accelerate the innovations in technologies. He claimed that the markets might move towards more car rentals and subscription-based ownerships of cars.[13]

In April 2022, An internal email to Ola employees was sent out, announcing that Bhavish Aggarwal would be stepping down from day-to-day operations of the company to focus on the future of Ola’s venture into electric vehicles and quick-commerce.[14]

In August 2024, Ola Cabs was rebranded to Ola Consumer to offer a broader range of consumer services.[15]

Ola Electric

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Personal Views

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Views on Work Culture

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In 2022, Bhavish was criticized for creating a toxic work environment, with reports of him tearing up presentations over missing page numbers, using Punjabi epithets, and making an employee run laps for a minor mistake.[16][17] It was allegedly due to his 'aggressive' behaviour that company saw a string of high profile exits, such as Ola Cars CEO, Ola CFO, Ola Electric’s chief marketing officer, among others.[16] He defended his 'hostile' behaviour as his personal style and reportedly said that, "passions and emotions run high and we are not on an easy journey." He reportedly also said that he is not building a 'me too' company.[18][19]

Bhavish made his support for N. R. Narayana Murthy public supporting his views for 70 hours work per week and made remarks against the concept of work–life balance.[20] Some doctors noted that 70-hours per week might cause pre-mature death among other problems due to overwork and 70-hours of work a week only profit the CEOs.[21][22][23] He said that he instead believes that people who enjoy their work, will find happiness in work and life, and both will be in harmony.[24]

He also said that doesn't believe in the concept of working of 5 days a week and said that weekends are a "western concept".[25]

Views on the use of gender pronouns

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In May 2024, Bhavish made remarks via his Twitter/X account.[26][27]

Hoping that this “pronoun illness” doesn’t reach India. Many “big city schools” in India are now teaching it to kids. Also see many CVs with pronouns these days. Need to know where to draw the line in following the west blindly!

— Bhavish Aggarwal

He termed the use of preferred gender pronouns as a "western illness", which caused an online backlash from some on X with some users labelling him as homophobic, transphobic and conservative.[28][29] LinkedIn removed his posts on "gender illness" citing community guidelines,[30] following which Ola Consumer switched cloud services from Microsoft Azure.[31]

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ Das, Purba (16 January 2016). "#Startup India:Ola Cabs' Bhavish Aggarwal is conscious that security is a concern, more measures need to be taken". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  2. ^ Singh, Manish (26 January 2024). "Ola founder's Krutrim becomes India's first AI unicorn". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
  3. ^ Pandey, Mohit (12 April 2024). "Ola Krutrim Makes History with In-House Cloud Infrastructure, Skips AWS and Azure". Analytics India Magazine. Retrieved 29 April 2024.
  4. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal: The World's 100 Most Influential People". Time. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  5. ^ "'India's Elon Musk' Bhavish Aggarwal doubles his net worth with Ola Electric IPO listing".
  6. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal". Forbes. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
  7. ^ "Punjab to New York: Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal's red carpet journey". rediff. 26 August 2018.
  8. ^ Arora, Prashasti (27 August 2018). "From Ludhiana to UK via Australia: How Bhavish Aggarwal drove to success". The Economic Times. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Bhavish Aggarwal & Ankit Bhati: The men behind Olacabs". The Economic Times. 25 October 2014. Archived from the original on 28 October 2014.
  10. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal - Yo! Success". Yo! Success. 12 August 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  11. ^ "Leader in the spotlight-Bhavish Aggarwal". Live Mint. 4 November 2014.
  12. ^ "Ola lays off 1,400 people, co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal explains the move in a letter to survive Covid". Financial Express. 20 May 2020.
  13. ^ "Covid-19 accelerating innovation in mobility, says Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal". Times of India. 19 October 2020.
  14. ^ "Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal to focus on future businesses like EVs; step away from day-to-day management". TimesNow. 12 April 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
  15. ^ Bhatnagar, Rishabh (15 August 2024). "Ola Cabs Rebranded To Ola Consumer, To Launch 100% Automated Dark Store". NDTV Profit. Retrieved 11 September 2024.
  16. ^ a b "Tearing presentations, making staff run laps: How CEO Bhavish Aggarwal made Ola a 'toxic' workplace". Firstpost. 19 October 2022.
  17. ^ "'Toxic' work culture at Ola? 'We're not here to have nice easy time', says CEO". Hindustan Times. 23 October 2022.
  18. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal defends hostile behaviour with employees, says they aren't at Ola for a good time". Free Press Journal. 24 October 2022. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  19. ^ "What has turned Ola Electric into a toxic workplace?". Quartz. 19 October 2022. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  20. ^ "'I Don't Agree With Work-Life Balance': Ola CEO Backs 70-Hour Work Week; Doctor Warns of Premature Death". News18. 12 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  21. ^ Jain, Sanya (13 July 2024). "Ola CEO calls for 70-hour work week, doctor warns of health risks: 'even premature death'". Hindustan Times.
  22. ^ "'70-Hour Work Week Exploitative, Increases Risk of Stroke': Doctors Differ With Ola CEO's Work-Life Balance Remark". News18. 15 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  23. ^ "'I Don't Agree With Work-Life Balance': Ola CEO Backs 70-Hour Work Week; Doctor Warns of Premature Death". News18. 12 July 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  24. ^ "From Narayana Murthy to Bhavish Aggarwal: Indian entrepreneurs who believe employees don't deserve work-life balance". Indiatimes. 19 September 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  25. ^ "Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal's 3 controversial statements: 70-hour work week to Saturday Sunday debate - Bhavish Aggarwal opinions". The Economic Times. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  26. ^ Sharma, Anoushka (6 May 2024). "Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal Sparks Debate On Gender Pronouns, Calls It "Illness"". NDTV.
  27. ^ "Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal: Better to send this illness back where it came from ..." Times of India. 8 May 2024.
  28. ^ "Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal calls non-binary gender pronouns 'western illness'; draws online flak". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 8 May 2024.
  29. ^ Karan, Rewati (12 May 2024). "They/them and everything in between". Financial Express.
  30. ^ "Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal reacts after LinkedIn removes his post on 'pronoun illness': 'Rich of you to call...'". MoneyControl. 9 May 2024.
  31. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal vs LinkedIn: Ola to switch from Microsoft Azure to its own Krutrim Cloud". Hindustan Times. 11 May 2024.
  32. ^ "ET Awards 2017: The best and the brightest". The Economic Times. 28 October 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2018.
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