Byju Raveendran breaks silence on toxic work culture claims: ‘Just a small percentage’

In an interview, BYJU'S founder Byju Raveendran also discussed the alleged toxic culture at his company

BYJU'S founder Byju Raveendran opened up about the toxic culture which was reportedly prevalent at his ed tech startup in an ANI interview, but claimed that it was only a small percentage of outliers which were inflated by social media posts.

Byju Raveendran had declared Byju's valuation at zero, citing financial crises and investor withdrawals. (Instagram/byju.raveendran)

Speaking about the work culture at BYJU's, Raveendran was responding to a question about social media posts that claimed that his workers were pushed to pitch the company aggressively to students and their parents.

"We have made mistake but all of that was in the initial years, we have corrected all of that by having guardrails. We had 15,000 sales people at the peak, even if 1% of them sell aggressively.... We had 6 million students but the complaints are in the thousands. Just a small percentage. On social media, things get blown out of proportion," he said.

‘Post-traumatic growth’

Raveendran claimed that he was not willing to walk away from what he built and promised a comeback even though the company's collapse took its toll on him.

The BYJU's founder also acknowledged that the edtech company's decision to raise a ₹1 billion term loan despite having equity options was a mistake. "We shouldn't have taken it when we had enough equity options," he said.

Edtech giant Byju's, which was once valued at $22 billion, has seen a steep decline driven by financial troubles, regulatory scrutiny, and ongoing legal challenges.