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Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal Announces Shift from Microsoft Azure to Krutrim Cloud Amidst Pronoun Controversy

• ByStartupStory     |    May 13, 2024

Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal has announced that his company will be transitioning its cloud services from Microsoft Azure to Krutrim, Ola’s own AI and cloud subsidiary. This decision comes shortly after Aggarwal’s contentious post on LinkedIn, which was removed by the platform for being “unsafe”. LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, took action after Aggarwal criticized its AI chatbot for using ‘they/them’ pronouns, which he referred to as an “illness” that does not align with Indian cultural values.

Aggarwal took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to voice his displeasure and subsequent business decision, stating, “Since LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and Ola is a big customer of Azure, we’ve decided to move our entire workload out of Azure to our own Krutrim cloud within the next week. It is a challenge as all developers know, but my team is so charged up about doing this.” He also extended an offer to other developers, promising a full year of free cloud usage on Krutrim for those who leave Azure and do not return after the year ends.

The move coincides with the public launch of Krutrim’s AI and cloud infrastructure services, which includes GPU-as-a-service aimed at developers and businesses involved in AI model training and development.

On @Linkedin, @Microsoft and their wokeness.

As an Indian institution, Ola is for genuine actions on diversity. We run one of the largest women only automotive plants. Not 1 out of 10 lines, or a small section, but the whole plant! Almost 5000 women now and will grow to tens of…

— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) May 11, 2024

Aggarwal also discussed his broader concerns about dependence on Western technology giants, remarking, “As an Indian citizen, I feel concerned that my life will be governed by western Big Tech monopolies and we will be culturally subsumed.”

Despite the backlash, Aggarwal reaffirmed his company’s commitment to diversity, citing the employment of a 5,000-women-strong workforce at Ola’s automotive plant. He emphasized, “Ola is for genuine actions on diversity,” pointing out his support for substantial rather than symbolic diversity efforts.

Additionally, Aggarwal expressed his intent to collaborate with the Indian developer community on creating a digital public infrastructure social media framework similar to successful national systems like UPI and ONDC, stating, “The only ‘community guidelines’ should be the Indian law. No corporate person should be able to decide what will be banned.”

 

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