Meet Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal who wore Rs 30000 t-shirt during townhall to announce no appraisals

Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, has recently attracted attention due to a viral video from Unacademy’s virtual town hall. In the video, Munjal announced that employees would not receive appraisals this year while wearing a Burberry T-shirt, which social media users found ironic given its $353 (approximately Rs 29,621) price tag. The post highlighting this moment has gone viral on Reddit, with users criticiing Munjal for the perceived insensitivity.

During the town hall, Munjal explained that despite 2024 being an "above average" year, Unacademy failed to meet its growth targets. He acknowledged the challenges, noting that while the company now has a low burn rate and a substantial runway, the competitive market has been tough. He admitted that the decision to halt appraisals came after realizing the company's missed growth goals, despite earlier promises to proceed with them.

Born in Mumbai, Gaurav Munjal attended Jamnabai Narsee School and later earned a degree in computer engineering from NMIMS University. His entrepreneurial journey began in Class 12 when he started a YouTube channel to teach Java programming. This channel eventually evolved into Unacademy, a platform widely used by students for educational content.

Munjal’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to create an app called Flatchat and work as a software developer at Directi. Despite these roles, he continued to grow his YouTube channel, with help from his friend Roman Saini. Their vision was to turn the channel into a comprehensive learning platform. In 2015, Munjal, along with Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini, and Sachin Gupta, officially founded Unacademy, aiming to provide high-quality educational content for various competitive exams like UPSC, NEET, JEE, and GATE.

Under Munjal’s leadership, Unacademy experienced significant growth, attracting numerous educators and becoming one of India’s leading ed-tech platforms. In 2022, Munjal reported an income of Rs 1.58 crore, and Unacademy reached a valuation of $3.44 billion (approximately Rs 28,710 crore).