A person claiming to be working with Zepto for a year said in a Reddit post, "It has the most toxic work culture...Aadit Palicha (CEO) starts work at only 2 pm because he cannot wake up early...Meetings are set up at 2 am." The employee added, "At least 10 people leave the company every week and 20 more are hired."

Indian-origin venture capitalist Deedy Das, who resides in the US, posted on X, "Every time I'm in India...my eyes water more...I blow my nose more...people cough more." He added, "We (Indians) live in denial of a massive health crisis." He also said, "There's rhetoric of "Oh has America made you weak"...I don't think humans were meant to live like this."

Zomato and Swiggy shares hit fresh record highs of ₹304.65 and ₹576.70, respectively, on Thursday as the companies received brokerage upgrades. CLSA maintained its 'Outperform' rating on Zomato stock and Bernstein also gave an 'Outperform' rating to Zomato. Swiggy received 'Neutral' rating from Motilal Oswal after Q2 results while UBS initiated coverage on Swiggy with a 'Buy' rating.

Daksh Gupta, the 23-year-old CEO of US-based startup Greptile, gave a single-word response "Real" to Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha's post on X in which Gupta was quoted. "I have nothing against work-life balance...In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors...Not my quote - read it from an interview of Daksh Gupta," Palicha had posted amid "toxic work culture" allegations.

Intent founder Vinayak Sarawagi shared a screenshot of his conversation with an intern from a Tier-1 college who rejected his ₹10,000/month stipend offer, saying, "I thought this mindset was going away, but sadly it's not." The post sparked a debate, with one X user calling Sarawagi a "zamindar". Sarawagi responded, saying that he's paying internship salaries from his own savings.

US-based AI startup Greptile's 23-year-old CEO Daksh Gupta defended 84-hour work week by comparing work to a "rocket launch". "When you have two groups of smart people trying to solve the same problem, one that works harder and is luckier wins," he said. "You can't control luck, but you can control how much time you put in," he added.

Three friends, Aditi Balbir, Shruti Anand, and Aqeel Ahmed from India, identified a growing need to simplify sustainability for businesses and corporations. They spent almost one whole year cracking the right tech for it. Finally, in April 2023, the trio launched EcoRatings.

Zomato shares extended gains for second consecutive day and jumped over 6% during the intraday trading session till (December 5) to hit a fresh all-time high at ₹304.50 apiece on the BSE. The surge of stock price came on the back of heavy volumes, with over 5.84 crore equity shares worth ₹1,770.06 crore on the BSE and NSE.

Shares of Swiggy surged to 11.35% during the intraday trading session on (December 5) to reach an all-time high at ₹576.95 on the BSE. This marks the fresh 52-week high for the stock. The company market capitalisation stood at ₹1,26,472 crore by 11:30 pm and as many as 26.6 crore Swiggy shares traded hands by then.

Sweta Singh, a Jamshedpur entrepreneur, is aiming to revive India's tribal art through her startup, Abiraa. Established in 2017 with ₹1 lakh, the initiative connects over 150 rural artisans to modern markets, preserving endangered art forms. Overcoming financial challenges, Sweta's vision has grown into a ₹50 lakh annual revenue enterprise, combining cultural preservation with social impact.

Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha responded to the viral Reddit post by an employee about Zepto's alleged "toxic work culture". "I have nothing against work-life balance. In fact, I recommend it to all our competitors...FYI, not my quote - read it from an interview of Daksh Gupta," Aadit posted on X. Notably, Greptile's CEO Daksh Gupta has defended 84-hour work week.

Puneet Manuja and Richa Singh, Bengaluru-based startup YourDOST's Founder couple, said they integrated their toddler, Rudra, into their work by bringing him to office. "We lean on our team, our family...That was probably one of the most effective things we've done," Puneet said. "Running a company...while raising [Rudra] was overwhelming...Journey wasn't easy but it taught us resilience," he said.

Three fraudsters were arrested in Gujarat's Surat in November after they cheated shopping platform Meesho of ₹5.5 crore and collected money in several bank accounts between January and July this year. The accused allegedly set up a seller company and placed orders with fake addresses. After the orders were returned, they replaced them with damaged items and claimed refunds.

Info Edge, parent firm of Naukri.com, filed an FIR against its indirect subsidiary 4B Networks' Founder Rahul Yadav and others for fraud involving 4B's funds. Info Edge had invested ₹288 crore in the Housing.com Founder's 4B Networks. The firms had entered into arbitration after Info Edge initiated forensic audit of 4B for failing to provide operations and management-related crucial information.

A person claiming to be a Zepto employee posted on Reddit, "There are a lot of dark patterns in the app to extract money from customers, including charging more for customers with phones more than ₹30,000." The employee added, "Customer data is profiled and security is really bad." The employee also said Zepto has the "most toxic work culture".

Delhi High Court ordered Scholars Den to temporarily stop publishing and broadcasting ads calling Physics Wallah "sasta wallah" (cheap one). The edtech firm contended that Scholars Den is promoting itself using the ads, sometimes displayed outside Physics Wallah's centres, by indicating that its courses aren't good as they're not expensive. Physics Wallah is known for providing affordable courses.

Edtech startup Unacademy held discussions with Allen Career Institute for the startup's potential sale that could value Unacademy at $800 million, ET reported. The $800 million valuation is less than a quarter of Unacademy's peak valuation of $3.4 billion. Talks have been ongoing for months and now the deal's finalisation depends on the approval by Allen's promoters, the Maheshwari family.

Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission upheld a district commission ruling that ordered Uber to pay ₹54,000 to a Delhi resident for not providing a cab on time. The incident occurred in 2022, when the man booked a cab to reach Delhi airport. However, the cab never arrived, and Uber didn't respond to his complaints and he missed his flight.

Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit in US against OpenAI's planned conversion to a 'for-profit' company. The lawsuit targets OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, Microsoft, and several board members, and accuses the company of engaging in multiple anti-competitive practices. OpenAI has dismissed the lawsuit as "baseless", calling it Musk's "fourth attempt" to challenge the company.

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu said India needs to value people who do hands-on work, including electricians, plumbers, welders and nurses. "We need people who build things. We don't need more Economics or Political Science or History majors," he said in a post on X. Vembu was commenting on Musk's old statement advocating for hands-on jobs over college degrees.

Rekha Jhunjhunwala-backed healthcare solutions provider IKS Health is facing allegations of oppression and mismanagement, NDTV Profit reported. Two minority shareholders have filed a petition at NCLT, Mumbai. They have alleged that the company indulged in oppressive practices of excluding minority shareholders from decision-making processes, passed 'illegal' resolutions and more.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday removed its restrictions on Sachin Bansal's Navi Finserv. RBI had earlier barred the fintech venture from sanctioning and disbursing loans from October 21 in response to excessive interest rates and non-compliance with regulations. "RBI had several rounds of interaction with the company to rectify deficiencies," the central bank said in a statement.

BYJU's Chief Content Officer Vinay Ravindra and company ally Rajendran Vellapalath face financial sanctions in US for their alleged roles in stripping software, cash and other assets from businesses under court supervision. A US bankruptcy judge said he will issue an "order to show cause", forcing the two tech executives to justify their actions.

Food delivery platform Swiggy on Tuesday reported 30% annual rise in revenue to ₹3,601 crore in the July-September quarter (Q2) of financial year 2024-2025 (FY25). The company's losses narrowed 5% from ₹657 crore a year ago to ₹626 crore during the period. Notably, the company is declaring its quarterly results for the first time since it went public last month.

SaaS company Freshworks has named Srinivasan Raghavan as its new Chief Product Officer (CPO), effective immediately. He will report directly to CEO and President Dennis Woodside. Raghavan earlier worked as the CPO of RingCentral. His appointment comes around four months after the previous CPO Prakash Ramamurthy quit the position.