An Entrepreneur Can Never Have Work-Life Balance: Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal Aggarwal was sharing his thoughts on entrepreneurship, and his vision for the country, at TiE India Internet Day event in Bengaluru today
By S Shanthi
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
This is an opportunity for my generation to build, said Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola Cabs, during a fireside chat with Vani Kola, founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital, at TiE India Internet Day event in Bengaluru today.
Aggarwal also added that entrepreneurs are here to build for the nation and that is why they are not destined to have a work-life balance. He believes that they have been given a great opportunity to relentlessly work towards building for the nation. He also spoke about how we should take India's successful Chandrayaan mission as an inspiration and think big.
Yesterday, India became the first nation to land on the south pole of the moon and the fourth nation to land successfully on the lunar surface, joining the ranks of the United States, Russia, and China. "We should focus on moonshots across industries," said Aggarwal, with a sense of pride about the successful mission.
Ola founder's thoughts on Work Culture
Aggarwal also spoke about startup work culture at length. He told Kola that his outlook towards work culture has changed over the years, but he still strongly believes that every company should hire individuals whose ambitions match the culture of the company. He said that he still likes to hire people who have the jazba and junoon that aligns with what the company believes in. "The only culture that matters is what delivers results to your organization. Excellence is the right input for any successful outlook. And, it needs to be driven through an organization," he said.
He also believes that women can 'have it all' if they are given the opportunity. He was sharing his thoughts on the same in the context of Ola's e-scooter factory in Tamil Nadu run exclusively by women. "Aatmanirbhar Bharat requires Aatmanirbhar women! Proud to share that the Ola Futurefactory will be run ENTIRELY by women, 10,000+ at full scale! It'll be the largest all-women factory in the world!! Slightly smiling face," he had said in a tweet in 2021.
What's new at Ola
In a recent interview with ETNow, Aggarwal said that India's first large-scale gigafactory which will be a manufacturing facility for rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EV) will be up and functioning by next year.
Further, on August 9th, Ola Cabs reported a consolidated revenue of INR 1,970.42 crore for the financial year 2022 (FY22), up around 100 percent year-on-year (YoY). It reported a consolidated loss of INR 1,522.3 crore in FY22 up by around 36.3 percent YoY mainly on account of a rise in its overall expenses. In FY21, In FY21, Ola reported a consolidated revenue of INR 983 crore and a loss of INR 1,116 crore. The company's total expenses were at around INR 3,362 crore up by around 67.5 percent YoY.
Aggarwal's flagship company ANI Technologies runs Ola Cabs; Ola Electric Mobility, which runs the electric-vehicle business; Ola Electric Technologies, which focuses on research and development; Ola Financial Services, which was fully acquired by ANI Technologies. And, Ola Electric Charging Pvt Ltd is a subsidiary of Ola Electric Mobility.
Aggarwal has also launched a new company in the artificial intelligence (AI) and computing space. In an interview with YourStory, he said that his latest venture and Ola Cell Technologies, is part of his larger vision to build technologies for the future in India.
