(The Weekend Insight) - Startup Culture vs. Startup Reality: HR in Indian Startups

In today’s deep-dive we will explore how India’s startup culture looks glorious on decks but grim in reality - where unlimited leaves are never taken, founders are worshipped like gods, and HR often serves compliance rather than conscience. What began as a rebellion against corporate monotony has, over time, evolved into a new kind of conformity - a culture that preaches freedom but practices pressure, celebrates empathy but rewards endurance, and calls itself flat while functioning like a monarchy.

Every Indian startup’s culture deck tells the same story: passion, ownership, flexibility, and purpose. You’ll see the same catchphrases - “We don’t believe in hierarchy,” “Take as much leave as you want,” “We’re a family, not a company.” But talk to the employees behind those glossy slides and you hear a different language - guilt for taking leaves, burnout disguised as hustle, and HRs who double as the founder’s enforcers. Between the pitch decks and the pay slips lies the real India of startup culture - one that’s aspirational, chaotic, and often exploitative.

The myth of startup culture started with imitation. When Netflix published its now-legendary Culture Deck, Indian founders devoured it. Suddenly, every startup in Bengaluru and Gurgaon had a “freedom with responsibility” slide. What they missed, however, was the context - Netflix had built that culture over a decade of profit and trust, not as a branding exercise for recruitment. In India, those words became props. At one unicorn, the phrase “no approvals needed” was printed on posters even as every decision required the founder’s consent. Flat hierarchies became vertical ladders disguised as beanbags.

The result is an industry addicted to optics. Companies that couldn’t afford basic compliance budgets still spent ₹50 lakh on office murals, foosball tables, and quirky job titles. HR wasn’t hired to protect people but to project image. Startups began treating culture as a marketing asset - something to show investors and potential hires, not something to live by. “Unlimited leave” became the most telling example. On paper, it symbolized trust and flexibility; in reality, it was a psychological trap. Employees stopped taking leaves altogether, worried about being judged as less committed. Surveys show that at least 70% of employees in such setups take fewer leaves than those in companies with fixed limits. The very policy designed to empower them became a measure of loyalty.

At CRED, one of India’s most design-obsessed startups, the aesthetic perfection of culture branding is unmatched. Yet behind the neon visuals and poetic job descriptions, multiple former employees have spoken of 14-hour workdays and relentless expectations. At OYO, the “hard work, hustle, repeat” culture was once glorified until it led to mass burnout and exits, forcing the company to reset its HR playbook entirely. BharatPe became another cautionary tale - a workplace where aggressive performance obsession turned into a public governance crisis. These examples show that the problem isn’t just execution; it’s philosophy. Many Indian startups conflate intensity with innovation, mistaking adrenaline for alignment.

The same tension runs through how startups hire and title people. “Chief Evangelists,” “Culture Sherpas,” and “Growth Ninjas” fill LinkedIn feeds, masking the fact that many of these roles come without proper JDs or career paths. Fancy titles create the illusion of empowerment while maintaining founder control. In a Bengaluru fintech, employees discovered that two roles with identical KPIs had different titles and pay based purely on negotiation, not merit. The founder justified it as “startup flexibility.” HR remained silent because “alignment with the founder” mattered more than fairness.

We think this distortion stems from how HR is positioned inside most Indian startups - not as an independent function but as an extension of the founder’s will. In traditional corporates, HR can mediate between management and employees. In startups, it often serves as an echo chamber. When HR heads are told their job is to “keep the founder happy,” it’s no surprise that culture becomes performative. One HR manager at a well-known edtech company described her role bluntly: “I’m not HR. I’m housekeeping for chaos.”

The glamour of startup HR branding hides a more structural weakness - the absence of process. Most startups scale before they stabilize. Payroll systems, compliance frameworks, and feedback loops are afterthoughts. This creates what insiders call “emotional HR,” where every decision is reactive, not systemic. During layoffs, for example, communication is often abrupt or delegated to line managers. At Byju’s, hundreds of employees were laid off via Zoom calls with pre-recorded messages. There was no grievance channel, no exit assistance - only an email thanking them for their “contribution to the journey.”

We’ve seen this play out repeatedly since the funding winter began. Startups that once claimed to be “people-first” executed layoffs via automated systems, citing “cash runway optimization.” Founders who posted daily on LinkedIn about empathy went radio silent when employees needed reassurance. Byju’s, India’s most valuable edtech company, became a case study in cultural decay - delayed salaries, unpaid vendors, and HR teams caught between moral guilt and managerial pressure. Employees described the experience as “emotional whiplash” - one week celebrating a town hall on purpose, the next week negotiating severance with bots.

The deeper irony is that the same startups that preach agility and ownership often micromanage everything. “Flat structure” has become a euphemism for founder dominance. At Unacademy, employees described decision-making as “founder roulette” - where ideas rose or fell depending on the mood of the top brass. A similar dynamic was seen at Trell, where aggressive growth goals led to inflated metrics and eventual collapse. In these environments, HR plays a delicate game - keeping the façade of culture intact while managing the fallout of pressure.

Even perks have become tools of control. Free meals, gaming zones, and “mental wellness days” are not inherently bad, but in many cases, they mask structural fatigue. Employees are told they’re lucky to work at “India’s hottest startup,” even as workloads expand and pay stagnates. The startup office has become the new temple of guilt - fun on the surface, anxiety underneath. One ex-employee from a logistics startup summed it up: “You get yoga sessions at 6 pm and client calls at 10 pm.”

It’s also worth noting how the gender narrative has been co-opted. Companies proudly announce “period leave” policies and “diversity pledges” for PR points, but internal audits often show poor representation at leadership levels. A report by RazorpayX Payroll found that in 2023, women made up less than 12% of senior roles in Indian startups - a number that hasn’t moved significantly in five years. Zomato’s period leave announcement in 2020 drew global applause, but internal reviews later showed that uptake was low, partly due to social stigma and manager bias.

Another recurring theme is the misuse of equity as a substitute for fairness. ESOPs are pitched as instruments of shared ownership, but for many employees, they remain paper promises. At least 60% of Indian startups do not have transparent ESOP buyback plans, meaning employees often leave without realizing value. In some cases, they lose vested options if laid off. A 2024 PwC report found that less than 15% of Indian startup employees ever exercise their stock options, mostly because buyback events are rare and taxation is punishing. This creates a dangerous cultural imbalance - founders get rich on liquidity events, while employees get logos for résumés.

We think Indian startup culture sits at an inflection point. The veneer of coolness is cracking, and employees are starting to see through performative empathy. The same LinkedIn that once celebrated hustle now rewards honesty. Posts about burnout, gaslighting, and exit trauma often go viral because they resonate with thousands who lived it quietly. Yet, change is not guaranteed. As long as HR remains reactive and founders equate loyalty with silence, the gap between culture and reality will persist.

But there’s hope in the cracks. A new generation of startups - Freshworks, Ditto Insurance, and FamPay - is starting to treat HR as strategy, not service. These companies are investing in structured policies, transparent reviews, and early compliance hygiene. Their leaders talk openly about burnout, pay transparency, and mental health, not as optics but as operations. The funding winter, ironically, has made them more sustainable. With less capital to burn, they’re focusing on people-first efficiency rather than perk-first branding.

A FICCI–BCG report in 2024 estimated that over 58% of employees reported moderate to severe burnout symptoms - sleep deprivation, anxiety, loss of focus, and guilt over rest. Ironically, many of them worked for companies that had mental wellness policies printed in bold on their websites. At Swiggy and Zomato, anonymous employee reviews talked about “unspoken expectations” of 70-hour workweeks. In logistics and quick commerce, employees often juggled multiple shifts without compensation because “launch timelines can’t slip.” The line between commitment and compulsion blurred long ago.

The glorification of overwork has become a kind of cultural addiction. Founders post 2 a.m. Slack screenshots as badges of honor. Employees compete in invisible Olympics of exhaustion. A former mid-level manager at Zepto described it bluntly: “If you weren’t online past midnight, you were invisible.” Another from an edtech unicorn said, “Our CEO called weekends the best time for deep work because investors were asleep.”

India’s startup narrative sold itself as a rebellion against corporate stagnation, but in doing so, it inherited the same obsession with productivity that corporates had - just rebranded as passion. HR departments became cheerleaders for speed rather than stewards of sanity. Performance reviews rewarded stamina, not sustainability. The result is an ecosystem where ambition routinely outruns empathy.

We think the real casualty of this culture is meaning. Startups promised purpose - that every line of code or marketing campaign was changing the world. But when the financial winter hit, that purpose felt hollow. Employees started asking harder questions: “If we’re building for impact, why are we cutting jobs to improve runway?” “If we’re a family, why are we reading our exits in the press?” The silence of HR in these moments was not indifference; it was impotence. Many HR leaders privately admit they lack autonomy.

Yet amidst the disillusionment, something interesting is happening - a quiet reset. The new wave of startups emerging post-2022 is designing culture with constraints in mind. With less capital and leaner teams, they’re rediscovering the basics: structured policies, transparent communication, and accountability without theatrics. Zepto, for instance, after early burnout controversies, instituted a “speed with sanity” rule limiting work hours and enforcing weekly off days for store teams. Freshworks, one of the few Indian SaaS unicorns to list successfully, has built a model where HR is embedded in business decisions, not afterthoughts.

The younger workforce is driving this shift. Gen Z employees entering the startup world in 2025 are less impressed by slogans and more interested in boundaries. They don’t aspire to be “builders who never sleep”; they want to work where weekends mean rest and leadership means accountability. Their relationship with HR is transactional but transparent - they expect clarity, not charisma. In exit interviews, many now cite “emotional safety” as a deciding factor in career moves.

We also see a quiet redefinition of HR roles. In companies like FamPay and Zolve, HR leaders now sit in board meetings, shaping discussions on compensation parity, grievance redressal, and team structure. A few are experimenting with anonymous feedback loops to track morale in real time. Others are partnering with mental health platforms like YourDOST and Amaha to integrate therapy access into employee benefits - not as tokenism, but as infrastructure. Slowly, HR is moving from event management to behavioral management.

Globally, this transition mirrors what companies like Basecamp and Stripe did years ago - introducing “calm companies” as an antidote to chaos. In India, the funding slowdown acted as that correction. Without the adrenaline of valuations, founders were forced to focus on fundamentals - retention, trust, and process.

The most encouraging sign is the rise of transparency as currency. Founders like Shashank Kumar of DeHaat, and Gaurav Munjal of Unacademy (after multiple controversies) are now speaking publicly about the cost of unchecked hustle. Investor conversations, too, are changing - term sheets increasingly include governance and employee welfare clauses.

Still, the contradictions persist. Many founders continue to use culture as a shield against accountability. Some HR leaders remain complicit out of fear or fatigue. And toxic work ethics are still rewarded when they produce numbers. But the narrative is shifting. For every viral founder meltdown, there’s now a counterpoint - a viral employee post calling out the hypocrisy.

We think India’s startup HR evolution will define the next decade of its entrepreneurial story. The ecosystem that once ran on adrenaline is learning to run on awareness. The new rule of thumb seems to be: culture isn’t what you preach when funding is abundant; it’s what you practice when it’s not. And as funding cycles tighten, honesty may become the most valuable perk of all.

The paradox remains unresolved but productive. Startups are still chaotic, founders still demanding, HR still overworked. Yet, something has shifted - the conversation. What was once whispered in exit interviews is now tweeted openly. What was once denied is now discussed. That alone marks progress. We think the next great Indian startup story won’t be about valuations or exits; it will be about building workplaces where passion doesn’t require permission and empathy isn’t a headline but a habit.