Zomato Blacklisted From IIT Placements After Deepinder Goyal’s Outburst

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal can’t seem to get his foot out of his mouth. Last year he’d done a Reddit AMA, hoping to receive some fawning praise and promote Zomato’s food delivery business. It resulted in this.

 

Earlier this month, a bitter email that he wrote to his sales team went viral, and was his approach was roundly criticized for being immature. And now a series of tweets from May is back to haunt him.

Campus placements in India are broken. Placement cells optimise only for money. Growth, esops, quality of work is secondary.

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) July 10, 2015

A placement cell head told us that she doesn't value esops. Couldn't grasp that the esops we gave students last year are now worth >1crore.

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) July 10, 2015

Goyal was referring to Zomato being denied a day one slot as a recruiter as its salary offers (with ESOPs) amounting to a total of Rs 26 lakh was too low. Day One slots at IIT are highly coveted, with the best companies turning up with lucrative offers. 

Today it was revealed that Zomato has been blacklisted from conducting placements at all IITs this year. “No company should take the IIT system for granted,” said the placements head at one of the top IITs. At least six IITs Delhi, Bombay, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Kanpur confirmed the blacklisting. Goyal’s outburst has played a large part in the ban, sources told Economic Times. Complaints of Zomato’s highhandedness at other IITs and alleged ego issues also added to the problem.

Zomato has an infamously rigourous work culture that the company proudly promotes. This includes long working hours, a hire-fast-fire-fast policy, and countdown clocks in the bays. Though it is valued at over $1 billion. Zomato’s facing a hard working environment of late, having fired 10% of its staff last month.