Bhavish Aggarwal, the visionary behind unicorn startups Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Krutrim AI, made headlines on Saturday, May 11, with his announcement that Ola would be transitioning away from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to Krutrim’s own cloud infrastructure.

This decision was prompted by Aggarwal’s ongoing dispute with LinkedIn, stemming from an incident where the platform’s AI chatbot referred to him using the pronoun “they”. Aggarwal, expressing his disagreement with this practice, initially voiced his concerns on LinkedIn, only to have his post removed for violating the platform’s guidelines.

Following this, Aggarwal took to social media, accusing LinkedIn of further censorship by deleting his subsequent posts without notification. He criticized what he termed as a “woke political ideology of entitlement”, asserting that such practices were not suitable for India.

In response to these challenges, Aggarwal announced plans to collaborate with the Indian developer community to establish a digital public infrastructure (DPI) for social media, governed by Indian laws and ensuring data ownership by creators.

This development coincides with Aggarwal’s earlier remarks questioning the need for social media to remain enclosed ecosystems, citing the success of initiatives like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

Meanwhile, the decision for Ola to migrate to Krutrim’s cloud follows the recent opening of Krutrim’s cloud platform to enterprises, researchers, and developers, accompanied by the launch of its Android app.

Aggarwal’s stance against multinational giants isn’t new, as evidenced by Ola Electric’s transition from Google Maps to its proprietary Ola Maps earlier this year. These strategic moves come at a pivotal moment, as both Ola Cabs and Ola Electric are eyeing public listings, with the former aiming for a $500 Mn IPO by July, following the latter’s filing of a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for an IPO valued at over INR 5,500 Cr in December 2023.