Aadit Palicha, the 22-year-old CEO of Zepto, has weighed in on work-life balance, suggesting he had “nothing against” it. On Wednesday, Mr Palicha said, “I have nothing against work-life balance. In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors.”

I have nothing against work-life balance. In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors

— Aadit Palicha (@aadit_palicha) December 4, 2024

This statement drew immediate attention, especially as it was followed by a clarification: “FYI, not my quote – read it from an interview with Daksh Gupta.”

FYI, not my quote – read it from an interview of Daksh Gupta.

— Aadit Palicha (@aadit_palicha) December 4, 2024

The post was a nod to Daksh Gupta, the 23-year-old Indian-origin CEO of AI startup Greptile, who has been in the spotlight for endorsing long work hours. Last month, Mr Gupta shared similar sentiments on social media, sparking a debate about work expectations in the modern tech industry.

Mr Palicha’s comment quickly generated a range of responses, with many users connecting it to a recent viral Reddit post. In that post, an anonymous user alleged that Zepto’s working environment was “toxic,” claiming it pressured employees with demanding expectations.

The post detailed allegations of employees working exhausting 14-hour shifts, intensifying discussions about workplace well-being in the corporate sector. It also claimed that Mr Palicha starts his day at 2 pm due to difficulties waking up early, which in turn leads to meetings being scheduled at 2 am.

The post also suggested that Zepto hires junior staff to reduce costs and hinted at a significant round of layoffs expected in March, with many departments reportedly suspending new recruitment.

Toxic work culture ft. Zepto
byu/Scary_Split3157 inStartUpIndia

Mr Palicha’s post on X soon sparked a flurry of reactions from users.

One user joked that he “woke up early” to write the post.

so you woke up early to tweet this lol ????

— Sneha (@itspsneha) December 4, 2024

“Ah, burning the midnight oil to dunk on toxic work culture posts on Reddit? Bold strategy! So, what time’s your first meeting today—asking for your coffee machine,” read another comment.

Ah, burning the midnight oil to dunk on toxic work culture posts on Reddit? Bold strategy!

So, what time’s your first meeting today—asking for your coffee machine

— Monica Jasuja (@jasuja) December 4, 2024

Another user chimed in, suggesting, “Anyway, since you’re here, maybe get a few things fixed on the delivery partner’s app too? Not everyone has the voice to rant on Reddit or twitter but they still deserve good experiences. Let’s make that happen.”

anyway,
since you’re here, maybe get a few things fixed on the delivery partner’s app too?

not everyone has the voice to rant on reddit or twitter but they still deserve good experiences

let’s make that happenhttps://t.co/OK6FqBn9sj

— Sneha (@itspsneha) December 4, 2024

Aadit Palicha, along with fellow Stanford dropout Kaivalya Vohra, co-founded Zepto in 2021.

The death of a 26-year-old Ernst and Young India consultant in July 2024 allegedly due to the overwhelming pressures of her job led to a fresh discussion on the work-life balance.

Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy also faced flak for suggesting that Indians must work for at least 70 hours a week.

On Wednesday, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi expressed his disagreement with Mr Murthy, saying, “Employees are not slaves. Working longer hours doesn’t mean better productivity. Several countries have switched to a 4-day work week and are doing better.”

Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra were students at Stanford University, California, studying Computer Sciences when they dropped out of college and chose to build a ten-minute-delivery startup which is now valued at $5 billion. At the NDTV World Summit, Mr Palicha shared how Zepto was built and how his parents reacted to the decision to leave college.

“On the outside, it looks like a very cliched Silicon Valley story, you drop out of college to start a company, but before you took that step, Kaivalya and I were tinkering around for a year and as kids we love coding and we used to build small projects for fun. We were supposed to go to California but during the first wave of Covid, we were put back to Mumbai. I didn’t really see a value in online education in that period, so we took a call to take a year off and build something interesting,” Mr Palicha said.

“Most of our peers at Stanford were doing their internship at Google, and Goldman Sachs, we didn’t have anything of that lined up and we took a call to start experimenting,” he said. 

Read more: “People Ask Me Why Do You Still Work Like This…”: PM At NDTV World Summit

To a question on how he came up with the idea of quick delivery, the Zepto CEO said, “We were sitting in sher-e-punjab in Andheri East in Mumbai, and during the pandemic, you couldn’t get groceries delivered. Offline options were mostly shut and online would take seven days. We started with a WhatsApp group and over a year we kept talking to customers and tweaking the model.”

“We started building out the first version of Zepto a year after the WhatsApp group and got to a meaningful scale before we decided to drop out,” he said.

How Parents Reacted

“It was shocking for parents. I remember Kevaliya’s mother burst into tears and said what have you done to my son, you have brainwashed him…but we had real numbers to bank on. At that time we were doing a few million dollars in revenue and we were growing fast…We had the substance to decide with conviction…Our fathers were a little bit comfortable with it because they saw the numbers,” he said, adding, “Kaivalya’s mother often says what a beautiful life you have given up on.”

Read more: “India Has Credibility To Mediate In Ukraine War”: David Cameron At NDTV World Summit

Zepto competes in India’s hyper-competitive grocery delivery space. Rivals in the market include e-commerce giant Amazon’s India unit and homegrown competitors such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, and conglomerate Tata Group’s BigBasket.

This year, Aadit and Kaivalya were featured on the list of richest Indians released by Hurun. Twenty-one-year-old Kaivalya Vohra has a net worth of Rs 3,600 crore, while Aadit, 22, has a net worth of Rs 4,300 crore.