Time For a Revolution

Hi Everyone, This post is about the Toxic Co-Founder of Quantiphi (Mr Toxic Asif Hassan). Reasons: 1. Work-Culture has become Toxic, People in Project are working since 5 weekends without any single leave ( No Extra Pay/No Comp-offs/ No weekend Leaves) and that to 13-14hours a day Straight. 2. People in my project who have raised voices have been told (" You know what options you have and I have "). Indirectly saying if you revolt either i will fire you or you resign immediately. 3. People facing issues with Clients(Canda's BigTicket Insurance Firm) paying a huge amount for an un-realistic deadline project were told by Asif. If you have any problems that don't come to me, i want only solutions( He doesn't want to listen to Anyone). 4. People were forcefully told to come to the office ( Some people who had some genuine issues e.g. one of our colleagues recently got blessed with a baby) was told by Asif you are not the one caring for the baby, So you have to come. 5. All our advanced leaves are cancelled, People who are taking Sick leave are being told either bring your backup or work with your Illness, we don't care. 6. Issues raised with HR, HR says "We cant do anything". 7. In the last 7 days many senior people and colleagues were either Forcefully resigned / got Laid-Off. 8. The people suffering the most are the ones directly in touch with the client or the developers reason being Asif bashes Managers and Managers Bash us for No fault of ours because of the un-realistic deadlines set. 9. People revolting are put on the bench and are laid-off the next day without any reason. The Moral of the whole team is near to Zero and many of us are thinking to voluntarily Resign from this toxic workplace. Guys do suggest, should we call out these kinds of toxic Co-Founders and Companies or not. I need to help me reach this post to a wider audience. Happy to hear comments.

Link: https://inc42.com/buzz/unacademy-fires-another-250-employees-to-turn-profitable/

Most startup’s are not founded with great altruistic purpose to elevate human condition. Most startup’s are founded where founders know they can make money or earn status points through little schemes of leveraging their network of investors. Most of them know they can earn more income by just raising some money from friends or VCs. Build a small tech tool and burn through money trying to acquire and retain customers. All this while hiring 100s of employees selling false narratives. What bugs me the most isn’t the thousands of people getting laid off, salary corrections or bankruptcies, it is the mafiaesque organisation built to “create wealth for some by exploitation of countless others” Most startup founders use brute force of content and media coupled with ignorance of people to perpetuate this cycle. It’s the virtue signalling and holier than thou attitude of most founders and VCs justifying all their mindless brutality in the name of strategy and growth which destroys aspirations and outcomes for the many. It’s more relevant in India because of large scale ignorance about money and large scale trust on educated individuals with the right college tags! If you have seen sopranos, most founders are like Anthony soprano - summarily violent, manipulative and ruthless behaviour primarily driven by selfish greed but juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability and struggle justifying his action with a facade of providing for his family. *Replace Anthony soprano with your founder/ceo name* 1. VSS was playing fast and lose with rbi regulations resulting in stock crash and layoffs 2. Byju’s systematically destroyed his own company and wealth of his employees just to ensure he retains majority control 3. Ashneer G and his wife manipulated company books 4. Zerodha founders cheated in chess match or lied about their system failures which lost a lot of capital PS: I refer to most founders because there are few exceptions who don’t fit into this narrative.

One of the old employees dropped a bomb of an e-mail against the entire leadership of PhonePe Mass Offline leadership addressing about mental harassment, hostile comments, threatening to sack, and pushing employees to have no work life balance. This mail was sent to the Founder Sameer Nigam and the HR Head.

I am a L4 manager in amazon. My entire team has been asked to go, now i am concerned about my carrer. It ia so sad that our Indian government doesn't support us. My future is now uncertain. I wish we had someone to stand up for us.

Rant alert : Have some really sensible friends (thought so) and we banter about startup business follies. Now I don’t want to be friends with them. What got to me recently was few of them proudly boycotting people from Byjus, Unacqdemy, upgrad or any of the startup’s who were in news for irregularities/bad culture. I thought this was quite insensitive and cruel. I mean - seriously really - let alone trying to make any changes or raise voices, how many of the employees would have had any knowledge of the unethical practices. They can’t even leave the company because of arsehole holier-than-though leaders will reject the resumes as quick hops. Not at all saying there should be a sympathetic view to them, but a fair chance to everyone is warranted. Why treat the employees as some pariah! Such rotten people and it’s ridiculous they talk about empathy the next min. Everyday we are seeing a new level of downfall of startup’s and way of businesses. Why not change the pseudo intellectual, egomaniacal, elitist clannish attitude that founders/leaders used to exhibit.

As we know tech companies and startups are laying off people left and right irrespective of making profits 🤑💰. It's understandable if the companies are out of funds but doing this when you are enjoying profits is not acceptable. And u guys are also not any less. Stop being a victim and fool. Stop complaining about layoffs on social media platforms as everyone will forget them with time. It's time to do cutoffs on your behalf. Cut off subscriptions to big tech companies and startups. Join this wave of cutoffs to see the news of subscription revenue down by 10% or 20% rather than companies cutting off workforce by 10% or 20% The change should start with you. Stop subscribing to Amazon Prime, YouTube Premium, Spotify and others. Encourage your peers to do the same and see the change yourself by the end of this quarter

I am so frustrated by observing how some Indian startup founders have been mistreating employees. This is happening literally in all the startups and corporates. Many of us invest their precious time and money obtaining degrees, only to become corporate employees. India won the WC on Saturday night, and since then, I have seen numerous rant posts from people complaining that they missed this moment because they were overworked. The rate of employee exploitation is alarmingly high, as founders often believe they have alot of options and are driven by their greed for money. Look at the plight of startups, the top management says they do not have money so they lay off the whole departments without any prior notice. Yet they spend so lavishly on showing investors or on their socials how cool they all are. We are bloody engineers, not their family bound slaves. Why do we suffer ? I believe it is high time that we establish a union for employees working in the IT industry. This exploitative culture needs to come to an end.