God! I hope both WhiteHat Jr. and their parent company Byju's crash and burn. They are crap companies which make poor and gullible parents enroll their kids in one of their programs for extortionate amount of money. If the parents cannot afford to pay all at once, they give a "loan" to the parents and collect a part of it each month even if the kids aren't satisfied with the education that is being provided. Note that none of the kids in India use these apps as the only way to study. They attend regular schools and use these apps as an additional source. Byju's employs 1000s of people whose only job is to go visit as many houses as they can and trick the parents into subscribing for their services by falsely claiming that the only way their kids can succeed is when their education is supplemented by these apps. Many innocent people who want to do all they can to make their kids' lives better fall into the trap and then keep paying the "loan" amount back which could be a substantial part of their monthly income.
Meta and Disney invested a lot of money into these companies and they use it to bully anyone who tries to bring these issues up by shutting down their YouTube channels and filing defamation law suits [1,2]. The entire online education industry is unregulated and resort to shitty antics to extort money. I don't understand why these companies need to exist when we have other free and amazing resources online like Khan Academy which teach all topics to all ages of people.
>> I don't understand why these companies need to exist when we have other free and amazing resources online like Khan Academy which teach all topics to all ages of people.
Cram school culture, FOMO and dreams of children making it big.
These apps are just a part of the larger culture where IIT cram school tuitions are supposed to begin at age 11. Every one in India likes to diss on Engineering education, but it continues to remain the most predictable way of making an upper middle class living.
Parent obviously spend good money on education for this reason.
Unfortunately, that's the reality of many industries and countless organizations.
I too wish this didn't exist. But I'm learning to replace wishful thinking with something better.
In this case, I think reality is providing a valuable learning opportunity to those parents: that they should verify everything before taking as truth, and only believe as an anticipation of goodwill only during the period necessary for verification (to avoid ending up pessimistic or cynic, for instance).
While there are still people that didn't learn and apply these lessons well, there will always be Byju's out there...
For some background history whitehat jr has been accused of running misleading ads and shady marketing and also sueuing individuals for millions of dollars to keep their mouth shut.
To get more context please google "pradeep poonia whitehat" and you will get all the gory details, whatsapp chats, etc.
Yes, there's far more to this story. This isn't your typical story of employees going remote for COVID and then being asked to return. There's a lot more wrapped up in this, including failure to adjust salaries and employees who can't relocate on short notice:
> One of the employees who resigned told the website that a month’s time was not enough for relocation. “Some have kids, some have aged and sick parents, while others have other responsibilities. It is not right to call back employees in such a short period of time,” the former WhiteHat Jr employee said.
> Another employee said salaries also factored in the decision to not return to the office. At the time of hiring, employees were told about their job location – WhiteHat Jr has offices in Gurugram, Mumbai and Bengaluru. However, after working from home for two years, employees believed that their salaries should be revised to reflect the cost of living in expensive cities.
This looks like more of an engineered layoff from a company that is already in a death spiral:
> “This was a well-planned and managed layoff that WhiteHat Jr did,” a former employee remarked.
Creating a fictional character is not a bad thing but what they did is the claim that it is a real story with a success story that he got a job offer from Google and package in crores(INR) all being a kid. Ran this ad nationwide on all media and mislead many parents who already have FOMO.
When asked about this kid wolf Gupta they sent a full legal team to threaten anyone who raises questions mass reporting bad reviews as a task from their employees.
And when it got out of hand they acknowledged that it was all a lie and continued misleadig parents like nothing bad in it.
This seems like a massively important bit of context which was missing from the article, thanks for telling us this! The article is clickbaity, given that I learned more context from your HN comment than their whole page of text.
I have not worked at an office in the past 10 years. Can't believe some people prefer to work in the old way. Okay, I get it's convenient to spend most of the day pretending that you work - coming at 9AM and going into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast, than getting a 2-hour lunch, having a proof on your calendar that you worked for 1 hour, when the meeting ended after 20 minutes, and people stayed there talking about anythign but work. Even if people are distracted during WFH, the waste is still much less and there are less excuses compared to WFO.
Well, working in a lab is one reason. I develop technology for scientific measurement equipment. I did OK during the lockdown by moving one of my experiments to a spare room in my basement, but whether that can work or not depends a lot on what facilities are needed for a specific project.
Sure I spend some time goofing off like you describe, but my work is neither measured nor paid by the hour.
If a company is hemorrhaging money, why not eliminate some office leases and keep more people remote? Maybe that comes later after the self-layoff selection?
> The company was hemorrhaging money and wanted resignations
Unrelated, it's amazing how edtech startups have been beaten by traditional coaching institutions. Not only those institutions are profitable but they are beating growth numbers consistently.
Seems like a classic example of fly-by-night companies barely staying afloat on the highly dubious claims they make about their products or services. They don't value their customers. They say they do, but they just want their money.
I can't speak for the company in question but corporate culture can be very toxic here. They might have stopped remiting salary or threatened some other action if they do not resign themselves.
Watch their AD on YouTube and you will know. They are selling dreams to unsuspecting parents. As per then kid can learn scratch and become an engineer at Google it fly a rocket to the moon.
I think in the future, forced working from the office will be considered barbaric, and a direct form of control over the employees life. Similar to feudalism, peasants, or other patterns of worker owner relationships, forced office work for a middling wage simply isn't worth it.
A waste of time and resources. Fuel, road infrastructure, vehicles, parking space. All for what? so that people can waste their productivity in an open plan office, which is objectively the most distracting type of office plan ever devised, even worse than its predecessor, cubicles.
And when it's flu season, prepare to bring the flu home and make your entire family sick, because seeing people face to face from a close distance, including their nostrils and mouth from where pathogens come out, is a fantastic idea during a flu season. In fact, it is such a great idea, that we should do an all-hands meeting and bring all employees into the same space, all next to each other, so that we can maximize the odds of the flu spreading from person to person.
It is also great for companies, because helping people succeed based on superficial traits like their appearance or voice parameters instead of their productivity is definitively in the best interest of a company. That definitively helps companies succeed considering the customer doesn't care about how your employees look.
The next step is obviously employer-provided XR systems that allow control regardless of your physical location. Just think of the potential for analytics based on things like gaze metrics!
[+] [-] SmartestUnknown|3 years ago|reply
Meta and Disney invested a lot of money into these companies and they use it to bully anyone who tries to bring these issues up by shutting down their YouTube channels and filing defamation law suits [1,2]. The entire online education industry is unregulated and resort to shitty antics to extort money. I don't understand why these companies need to exist when we have other free and amazing resources online like Khan Academy which teach all topics to all ages of people.
[1] https://thepost.co.in/news/633/whitehat-jr-lawsuit-pradeep-p...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/search?q=pradeep+poonia&restr...
[+] [-] kamaal|3 years ago|reply
Cram school culture, FOMO and dreams of children making it big.
These apps are just a part of the larger culture where IIT cram school tuitions are supposed to begin at age 11. Every one in India likes to diss on Engineering education, but it continues to remain the most predictable way of making an upper middle class living.
Parent obviously spend good money on education for this reason.
[+] [-] rmbyrro|3 years ago|reply
I too wish this didn't exist. But I'm learning to replace wishful thinking with something better.
In this case, I think reality is providing a valuable learning opportunity to those parents: that they should verify everything before taking as truth, and only believe as an anticipation of goodwill only during the period necessary for verification (to avoid ending up pessimistic or cynic, for instance).
While there are still people that didn't learn and apply these lessons well, there will always be Byju's out there...
[+] [-] geodel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nr2x|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghoomketu|3 years ago|reply
To get more context please google "pradeep poonia whitehat" and you will get all the gory details, whatsapp chats, etc.
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|3 years ago|reply
> One of the employees who resigned told the website that a month’s time was not enough for relocation. “Some have kids, some have aged and sick parents, while others have other responsibilities. It is not right to call back employees in such a short period of time,” the former WhiteHat Jr employee said.
> Another employee said salaries also factored in the decision to not return to the office. At the time of hiring, employees were told about their job location – WhiteHat Jr has offices in Gurugram, Mumbai and Bengaluru. However, after working from home for two years, employees believed that their salaries should be revised to reflect the cost of living in expensive cities.
This looks like more of an engineered layoff from a company that is already in a death spiral:
> “This was a well-planned and managed layoff that WhiteHat Jr did,” a former employee remarked.
[+] [-] breitling|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbostleman|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geocrasher|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unethical_ban|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Afforess|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deadalus|3 years ago|reply
They created a fictional character 'WOLF GUPTA' to promote their brand.
[+] [-] kburman|3 years ago|reply
When asked about this kid wolf Gupta they sent a full legal team to threaten anyone who raises questions mass reporting bad reviews as a task from their employees.
And when it got out of hand they acknowledged that it was all a lie and continued misleadig parents like nothing bad in it.
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s09dfhks|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vishnugupta|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unmole|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shreyshnaccount|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ushakov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikolay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|3 years ago|reply
Sure I spend some time goofing off like you describe, but my work is neither measured nor paid by the hour.
[+] [-] gkoberger|3 years ago|reply
1/ The company was hemorrhaging money and wanted resignations (if I'm understanding "INR CR" correctly, they lost $218,102,508 USD last year??)
2/ This was India, so the stock image feels a bit misleading
3/ It happened two months ago, not recently
4/ It wasn't just coming back to the office; it was relocating people to offices who hadn't worked there before
5/ They even forced people who worked near an office go to OTHER offices in other cities
Here's the original source, which is much better (and includes details on revenue and expenses): https://inc42.com/buzz/exclusive-over-800-whitehat-jr-employ...
This isn't a case of workers preferring WFH over the office; it's a sneaky layoff.
[+] [-] dv_dt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] searchableguy|3 years ago|reply
Unrelated, it's amazing how edtech startups have been beaten by traditional coaching institutions. Not only those institutions are profitable but they are beating growth numbers consistently.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] happy-go-lucky|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] searchableguy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc4ndr3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt_heimer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonicggg|3 years ago|reply
If you quit, you're giving up on severance or unemployment insurance benefits.
[+] [-] searchableguy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egberts1|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bin_bash|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drieddust|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidgerard|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ldjkfkdsjnv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|3 years ago|reply
A waste of time and resources. Fuel, road infrastructure, vehicles, parking space. All for what? so that people can waste their productivity in an open plan office, which is objectively the most distracting type of office plan ever devised, even worse than its predecessor, cubicles.
And when it's flu season, prepare to bring the flu home and make your entire family sick, because seeing people face to face from a close distance, including their nostrils and mouth from where pathogens come out, is a fantastic idea during a flu season. In fact, it is such a great idea, that we should do an all-hands meeting and bring all employees into the same space, all next to each other, so that we can maximize the odds of the flu spreading from person to person.
It is also great for companies, because helping people succeed based on superficial traits like their appearance or voice parameters instead of their productivity is definitively in the best interest of a company. That definitively helps companies succeed considering the customer doesn't care about how your employees look.
[+] [-] tyrfing|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dubswithus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SrslyJosh|3 years ago|reply
LOL, sure.
[+] [-] zerop|3 years ago|reply