BYJU’S boss Byju Raveendran said that the edtech giant is the largest start-up employer in the country. Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2023, Raveendran said, “Everybody talks about the 2,500 people we had to layoff in those three months (October, November and December) but nobody talks about the 25,000 people we hired in the last 12 months.”
In February 2023 itself, BYJU’S hired about 2,000 people, Raveendran claimed. “We are the largest start-up employer in the country with over 55,000 people working with us,” he said.
He said, “I am not justifying (the layoffs) but when we acquired companies, there were a lot of redundancies. At a time when the world was looking at efficient growth, we had to do this.”
2022 was a difficult year for the edtech giant. From delayed results, widening losses to the recent allegations imposed by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, the most valued start-up in India found itself in the middle of several controversies this year.
Raveendran also addressed the Lionel Messi controversy saying that the deal was in process for several months and unfortunately, the announcement of it coincided with the layoffs. “You can’t sign Messi in a week,” Raveendran said.
BYJU’S onboarded the football legend as the brand ambassador of its education-for-all program.
Raveendran also revealed how he met his wife Divya Gokulnath who later became his co-founder. “She was one of my students who would ask the maximum number of questions,” Byju revealed.
The duo also spoke about the scope of the edtech sector in the Indian market. “The Indian edtech market is growing at 40 per cent annually whereas the global market is growing only at 16.4 per cent,” Gokulnath noted.
She also said that when they started out, it was like “painting on an empty campus.” But now when their presence is spread across 120 countries and territories, they can say they have built a “global champion out of India.”
"Wars will not last forever, interest rates will not rise forever, but India's growth story is here to stay," said Divya Gokulnath.
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