"The larger opportunity is to build for the Global South"

Ola Founder Bhavish Aggarwal on his future plans for his three companies, life after listing Ola Electric, woke culture, and comparisons with Elon Musk

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Bhavish Aggarwal has big plans. For instance, he wants to make India a global AI powerhouse by building the country’s AI tech stack with his company Krutrim and wants to increase Ola Electric’s Li-ion cell production capacity to 100 GWh in a decade. Incidentally, recently listed Ola Electric saw its share price double days after listing. In an exclusive interview with Business Today’s Sourav Majumdar and Aayush Ailawadi at the BT India@100 summit, the 39-year-old Ola Founder talks about his plans for Ola Electric, Krutrim’s mission, and more. Edited excerpts:

SOURAV MAJUMDAR: As an entrepreneur, you’re used to being the master of your own game. But there is a lot more scrutiny in the public markets. How do you see this change? A: Our responsibility towards our investors has gone up. So far in the private world, we were dealing with institutional investors, mainly private equity money, which is rich people’s money. But in the public market we are dealing with public money… the money of India’s common man. So, the message I give to my team is that we are investing the common man’s money, so we have to be extra thoughtful about it… And hopefully, we will also focus on making sure that we take long-term bets and deliver long-term value to our shareholders.

Whatever limited time I have spent in engaging with the public markets, [I have observed that] people want a vision… They want to be part of a story, which is building the India of tomorrow. And at Ola Electric that’s our mission. We want to build India as a global EV hub. And in doing that, as long as we are investing wisely, investing for delivering returns, I think the Street and the investors will give us that platform to take long-term bets. And hopefully we can stand up to the scrutiny.

AAYUSH AILAWADI: What kind of synergies can we expect amongst Ola Cabs, Ola Electric, and Krutrim?