‘Not here to have a nice time’: Ola CEO’s response to hostile work culture

During an event at the Ola Campus in Bengaluru, Aggarwal said that Ola is for people who want to leave behind a legacy by being part of the electric vehicle revolution in the country.

“We are a very hardworking company…We are not here to build me-too product or company. We’re not here to have a nice easy time and make money, obviously, all those things will happen. But we are here to follow our dreams and follow our mission,” Ola co-founder said on Saturday.

Recently, a Bloomberg report alleged a hostile work culture at Ola. The report quoted some former and current employees alleging that Aggarwal often loses control.

In meetings, Aggarwal ripped up presentations because of a missing page number, directed Punjabi epithets at staff, and called the team “useless,” according to current and former employees quoted by Bloomberg.

Executives said in interviews that meetings scheduled for an hour often lasted 10 minutes because Aggarwal would lose patience over a superfluous sentence in a memo, a crooked paper clip or the quality of printing paper.

The report also mentioned that an employee at Ola Future Factory was asked to run three laps round around the several-acre plant after Aggarwal spotted a shuttered entryway that should have been left open.

On Saturday, Aggarwal told media, “My style is more aggressive than probably the average new-age entrepreneur. We have a culture of impact, merit, high quality, and execution,” he said.

Aggarwal added the opportunity given to the firm is immense in creating a future and paradigms which the world will follow.

“True business creation is very similar to sports. And a sports environment is not where you have a nine-to-five (work). Ola is a place for truly ambitious and aspirational people who want to leave behind a legacy for themselves and, after a few years tell stories about how they were part of an (EV) revolution,” the Ola boss said.

At present, Ola Electric is ramping up production of its e-scooters and is parallelly expanding capacity at its factory in Krishnagiri in Tamil Nadu.

The company, which launched its new S1 Air electric scooter at an introductory price of ₹79,999, said it will also make a foray into electric motorcycles by next year.

“We are working on some very exciting concepts. Next year, we will definitely launch…”I’m personally very excited about the motorbike segment and you will see some very major promise next year on that,” he said.

The company, which in August last year made a foray into the green mobility space with the launch of its electric scooters, S1 and S1 Pro priced at ₹99,999 and ₹1,29,999, respectively, had postponed delivery timelines for its much-anticipated products citing global semiconductor shortage issue.

The company, after opening reservations at ₹499 in July last year for S1 Pro and S1, started online purchase process in September 2021 and initially planned to start deliveries in October but was later pushed to November and then again to the second half of December last year.

In January this year, the company had communicated to customers that it would prioritise production of the S1 Pro model and S1 manufacturing has been shifted to late 2022 with Aggarwal stating that it was upgrading all of its S1 customers to S1 Pro hardware.

Later, in September it resumed sales of the S1. Apart from delays in deliveries, instances of the company’s electric scooter catching fire led to consumer disquiet. In April this year, Ola Electric recalled 1,441 units of its electric two-wheelers after a fire incident.