[haisaikat]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Whatapp has no API for developers even now, .

They do have developer APIs nowadays, similar to Wechat.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by haisaikat

They do have developer APIs nowadays, similar to Wechat.

Gosh, you are responding to an 8 year old post. Situation has obviously changed since then.

[haisaikat]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Gosh, you are responding to an 8 year old post. Situation has obviously changed since then.

My sincere apologies, missed that, somebody bumped up an old thread.

[greyhound82]

A good discussion on VC funding, a podcast from Nikhil Kamath

https://youtu.be/zCTm1wHcfkI?si=aymdVVpyXaAJS5y2

[DigitalOne]

Byju's unveils massive restructuring under new CEO, may let go of 4,000-5,000 employees

Source: Moneycontrol

Edtech firm Byju's new India CEO Arjun Mohan has kicked off a massive restructuring exercise that may lead to 4,000-5,000 job cuts people familiar with the development said.

These job cuts are expected to impact India-based employees of Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, the entity that operates Byju's but will not include Aakash according to sources.

Mohan, a longtime Byju veteran who was named CEO last week, has communicated these decisions to senior leaders in the firm, the job cuts are expected to impact multiple functions such as sales, marketing, and other areas where there is significant overlap. Mohan replaced Mrinal Mohit, another Byju's veteran.

[RT13]

When a CFO quits within 6 months to rejoin his previous company, which itself has seen 3 CFOs in 3 years (including said re-joiner in his previous stint), one wonders which org and industry is worse off.

https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/co...ular-editorial

[thanixravindran]

Weworks has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in USA. It was backed by Softbank and valued at 47B USD at its peak.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/06/b...tcy/index.html

Several articles talk about how Adam Neumann was allowed to escape with millions after the disastrous IPO failure 4 years ago with comparison to Uber and Tharonos.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by RT13

When a CFO quits within 6 months to rejoin his previous company, which itself has seen 3 CFOs in 3 years (including said re-joiner in his previous stint), one wonders which org and industry is worse off.

https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/co...ular-editorial

CFO when quitting his new employer to go to the older one: OMG, better known devil than unknown devil.
Old employer when rehiring it’s previous CFO: OMG, better known devil than unknown devil.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

Several articles talk about how Adam Neumann was allowed to escape with millions after the disastrous IPO failure 4 years ago with comparison to Uber and Theranos.

Well, it looks like the agenda of WeWork was to make the founder cash-out despite the bankruptcy.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/lifestyle/...rt/ar-AA1jUiyU

[V.Narayan]

Byju's delays November salary of around 1,000 employees, cites 'unexpected technical glitch'

https://www.livemint.com/companies/n...526699751.html

Technical glitch indeed!!!Why doesn't the founder lend money to the company to tide over the cashflow crises. That is what all mundane founders, who are not constantly needing dopamine hits, do.

Next watch for Oyo Rooms

Byju's ki Kahani

Rs 6838 Crores COSTS
Rs 2280 Crores REVENUES
Rs 4558 Crores LOSSES

As an ordinary profit & cash generating businessman of the old school who paid his employees and vendors on time and lent money to the business in hard times this business model of "freeium products" is something I can't get my head around. In the end the last stupid investor and the innocent employees and suppliers are left holding the melting pot. Just look at We Work. Company is folding up or almost so but the founder is rich, fat and happy. In the alternate universe of private equity and Softbank this may be called business. But in the real world of ordinary folks like us this is criminal plain and simple.

[m8002?]

It would be interesting to see the cost breakup of 6K crores, how much of it is salaries to the execs, and if there are any top executives in the 1000 not paid. .

I am willing to bet none!

[ankan.m.blr]

Unable To Pay Salaries, Byju's Founder Takes Loan Against His Home

Byju Raveendran, the eponymous founder of edtech titan Byju's, has pledged his home as well as those owned by his family members to raise money for paying employees as the company battles a cash crunch, according to people familiar with the matter.
Two homes owned by the former billionaire's family in Bengaluru and his under-construction villa in Epsilon - a plush gated community in the city - were offered as collateral to borrow $12 million, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. The startup used the funds to pay salaries to 15,000 employees in Byju's parent firm, Think & Learn Pvt., on Monday, they said.

source : https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/byju...report-4634360

[Naetik30]

Originally Posted by greyhound82

A good discussion on VC funding, a podcast from Nikhil Kamath

https://Youtu.be/zCTm1wHcfkI?si=aymdVVpyXaAJS5y2

One serious doubt. Is Nikhil Kamath a vLogger by profession?
I mean - his side business of Zerodha - keeps crashing every other day, when SEBI looks the other way.

[LordSharan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

https://www.livemint.com/companies/n...526699751.html

Rs 6838 Crores COSTS
Rs 2280 Crores REVENUES
Rs 4558 Crores LOSSES

Originally Posted by m8002?

It would be interesting to see the cost breakup of 6K crores, how much of it is salaries to the execs, and if there are any top executives in the 1000 not paid. .

I am willing to bet none!

This article says the wage bill/month right now stands at 130cr. Multiplying this by 12 lands us the wage cost to be 1560cr, which is about 1/4th of the total costs. Please note this is a very conservative estimate since the costs/month will have come down drastically because of downsizing. Actual estimates of wage cost could be more than 1/3 of total costs.

Couple of points:
1. EdTech is such a promising sector, with overall market size of more than $60Bn/per year in India. Even capturing 1% of this will lead to $600Mn top-line per year, which would've led to financial stability of the company. There's a ton of improvements that technology can bring in, but it was all laid to dirt.

2. All market leaders - Byju's, Unacademy have poisoned the well so as to say. The industry, workculture is extremely toxic. I've worked 2+ years for a ed-tech start up that ranked 2nd on the list of blr firms with worst work culture. Founders will be wary of starting up again and people will be wary of joining such start ups.

3. Byju's in specific went against it's core tenet - where it was meant to be a replacement for brick & mortar coaching centers, went ahead and bought Akash and started setting up more tuition centers. It'd be as if uber app asked you to use your hand to stop taxies and haggle for price.

4. Byju's had a sales focused strategy, and nothing major on technological development. To give an example - It sold offline tablets (major source of revenue and accounting troubles later), which could not relay user actions to a central server, thereby rendering it impossible for any data analytics engine to run on this, and provide feedback to students on their learn/practice/test behaviour.

5. Unncessary acquisitions, stupid promotions (BCCI, hiring Messi) and god knows what, were pre-cursor to this house of cards coming down. Clear signs of a company deviating from it's core vision and mission.

Okay, that was more than a couple of posts, and I could potentially add more.

[The Rationalist]

Byju’s is the classical case of greed and deceit! My daughter never went to kindergarten, everyone was mocking me saying she will lag in studies. I enrolled my daughter in class 1 directly. One day these crooks landed up at home and wanted to test her. I told them to get out of my house, the sales guy told that your daughter will be a loser and all. He managed to scalpe few neighbours, they made that kids look dumb by testing using some questionnaire. I know many parents who took loans for their classes with some tablets bundled along. His company is made on the tears of millions of hapless parents. I hope this crook land up in a jail.