A social media post criticizing the use of gender-neutral pronouns has escalated into a major tech conflict between Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal and Microsoft, potentially costing the American giant Rs 100 crores in Azure cloud business from the Indian ride-sharing platform.
What did Ola CEO said?
The saga began when Ola CEO shared a LinkedIn post slamming the platform’s AI chatbot for referring to him using the pronoun “they” instead of gender-specific “he/him.” Aggarwal took offense, terming the AI’s non-binary pronoun suggestion as “pronoun illness” – a “woke” political stance being imposed on Indian users.
Ola CEO argued that India should build its own tech solutions free from “unsafe and sinister” ideological biases. LinkedIn’s parent company Microsoft removed his post for violating professional community policies, further inflaming tensions.
In subsequent statements, the Ola CEO doubled down on his anti-pronoun stance, stating “Such a woke political ideology and entitlement doesn’t belong in India…they have presumed that Indians need to have pronouns.”
What went down?
Ola CEO then announced that his company will move its entire cloud workload off Microsoft’s Azure platform within a week – a migration potentially worth Rs 100 crore in annual revenue for Microsoft in India. Instead, Ola plans to leverage its in-house “Made in India” AI platform Kutrm.
Kutrum offers cloud AI and computing services similar to Azure, allowing Ola to cut ties with Microsoft over the pronoun dispute. In essence, Ola CEO is willing to spend massively more on cloud infrastructure to avoid AI language suggestions around gender identity.
Grievance of Ola CEO over a non-gendered pronoun has quickly escalated into a self-proclaimed ideological battle and nationalistic push for homegrown Indian tech solutions, with Microsoft becoming collateral damage.
Critics have blasted Aggarwal’s reactionary stance as an example of toxic masculinity and trans erasure couched in jingoist rhetoric. Using emotive nationalism to drive business motivations is an old tactic, but doing so by demonizing gender non-conformity is being seen as particularly egregious.
Targeting an already marginalized community to further a tech agenda seems to be a bridge too far, even for a high-profile businessman used to courting controversy. There are also questions around the true viability of Ola migrating its entire digital infrastructure from Azure so rapidly.
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Future Ahead
Regardless of the final cost or feasibility, Ola Ceo has clearly burned bridges with Microsoft while misrepresenting the basic premise around inclusive pronoun usage. His overblown reaction appears equal parts calculation and fragile male ego masquerading as patriotic duty.
What started as an innocuous AI language recommendation has devolved into an unnecessary cultural flashpoint. As society evolves around gender identities, corporate leaders would be wise to avoid careless missteps that amplify polarization.
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