Deepinder Goyal's 'Inhuman' Side: Zomato Boss Reacts To Reports Of Firing 600 Employees, 'We Don't Justify Those Things'

(MENAFN- Live Mint) During his podcast with Raj Shamani, Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal faced some tough questions. One of the topics of discussion was about his 'inhuman' side as a corporate boss.

Shamani mentions that Zomato fired 500-600 employees in April 2025. Goyal looks a bit confused. Raj confirms it and says the terminated employees belonged to Customer Support. Deepinder tries to think hard.

“It's described as 'Cold Termination' and 'Inhuman Treatment',” Raj Shamani reads out.

“This news was wrong,” Deepinder Goyal counters.

Also Read | Gig workers union fact checks Deepinder Goyal's salary claim

Raj Shamani hesitates to believe Deepinder's counterpoint. He wonders if the news was really incorrect. He mentions that those employees reportedly had their Slack accounts deactivated and were denied access.

Deepinder goes on to say that the number is around 20. Those employees were terminated after their performance review. It was“purely” based on that after“months of feedback”, he adds.

“And, somebody went on Reddit and posted this drama,” the Zomato boss says.

Raj Shamani continues to wonder if it really was fake news. Deepinder holds his point and says the company decided not to counter those claims. He hints at not giving importance to such fabricated reports.

“We just let it be. We don't justify those things. Scr*w it!” he says.

Zomato employee fired for being 28 minutes late

The podcaster refuses to 'let it be'. He says there were reports about someone being fired for being 28 minutes late.

Deepinder Goyal dismisses that as well.

“The person must have been late for '28 minutes' for three months to get fired. How does that work when you are on a clock-to-clock job? That's not cool,” the Eternal CEO says.

Also Read | Raghav Chadha vs Deepinder Goyal: Showdown Over Delivery Workers Protest

“This is customer care. We can't have that. If there's an issue around an order and there's no one to take care of it, how does that work? Some functions are clock-to-clock. It's capacity planning,” he further says.

“If we don't ask this person to leave, who is 28 minutes late, and everybody starts being 28 minutes late, for those 28 minutes, we have absolutely no one on that job. How can we accept that? It's not as if that person wasn't warned. People just abuse social media. And, we just let it be,” he adds.

Deepinder Goyal faces criticism

These days, Deepinder Goyal has been facing strong online criticism amid nationwide protests by gig workers against quick-commerce platforms. Delivery workers from Zomato, Blinkit, Swiggy, and Zepto went on strike on 25 and 31 December over low pay, fuel costs, and a lack of social security.

Also Read | 'Many questions remain unanswered': Gig workers union on Goyal's post

Goyal defended the gig model. He refused to call it“unfair”. The gig economy only makes inequality“visible”, he said. Goyal has also referred to some protesters as“miscreants”.

According to his critics, the Zomato co-founder ignores low net earnings, shifts blame to consumer guilt and shows elite hypocrisy. There have been numerous articles and online comments against Goyal's approach to gig workers.

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