Union Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal’s comments at Startup Mahakumbh have turned heads and raised eyebrows ever since he spoke at Bharat Mandapam in Delhi. Founders like Shaadi.com’s Anupam Mittal and Zepto’s Aadit Palicha have made their stand loud and clear on social media. Taking to LinkedIn and X, founders have expressed the shortcoming on the Indian environment more than the founder’s themselves defending claims made by Piyush Goyal.

In his speech he mentions, how Indians are fixated on food delivery and quick commerce convenience comfort over deep-tech. He compared in a slideshow “India vs China: Startup Reality Check” in order to show where India lacked and how China is ahead in technological innovations with artificial intelligence integration and electric vehicles. While he may be correct, founders shared on social media that it is easy criticise when India is put in comaparison with tech giants like the US and China.

Aadit Palicha – Zepto’s ten-minute take

Zepto CEO-Co-founder Aadit Palicha made a bold and elaborate post on LinkedIn. He questioned, “Why doesn’t India have its own large-scale foundational AI model?” to go ahead and answer himself, “It’s because we still haven’t built great internet companies.” He quoted Zepto’s example that is a startup with over 1,00,000 employees and has brought billions of dollars worth of foreign direct investment for India. He urges the Indian decision makers to emphasise on consumer internet companies as they have been a testament of success in the past. Drawing examples from Amazon, Facebook and Google, he went on to explain the need to create dynamism in the Indian economy and our capital markets contradicting Piyush Goyal’s blast on Indian startups.

Anupam Mittal – A vow to not waste time on networking

Rejecting the whole concept of networking events and conferences, Anupam Mittal’s hot take came at a strategic time as the Startup Mahakumbh 2025 is underway. Adding on to his LinkedIn post, he shared on X “In the last few months I have met a few deep-tech cos that have absolutely blown me away. From AI & space-tech to material science, Indian entrepreneurs are ready to take on the world. But capital & the eco-system for growth & commercialization are severely lacking. Founders can do most things but not EVERYTHING”

Showing his faith in the Indian startup scene, he expressed his feelings towards the redundancy of networking events. He added “Conferences & Networking events? Usually an absolute waste of time, unless you are in sales. Sometimes the best networking move is to stop networking”.

Shobhit Bakliwal – A tech-developer’s code

Taking to X, Shobhit Bakliwal shared Piyush Goyal’s video at the Startup Mahakumbh 2025 from another user on X. Agreeing with the user’s post which said “I don’t completely agree. Startups like Zerodha, Zoho, Akshaya Kalpa, Big Basket, Zomato, Paytm, Jio Solve real problems of Indians. If Govt does not focus on employment & upskilling, Industry leaders have to do it. Delivery companies have given jobs to thousands, which needs to be Enhanced by Government” as a reply to Goyal’s comments.

Commenting on the constant red-tape founders face, he addressed the ground-reality of the situation. Netizens too have condemned Piyush Goyal’s startup-bashing comments.

Sridhar Vembu – Zoho’s challenging spirit

Zoho’s Chief Scientist, Sridhar Vembu took Piyush Goyal’s comments a challenge “to our engineers and technologists and not as pointing fingers” as mentioned in a post on X. Reiterating his contemporary’s point of view he mentioned, “The government can at best conduct competitions where companies participate and then buy the best Indian products.” Presenting a different take on this he said, “What we need are smart engineers who roll up our sleaves and get it done. Keep in mind the vitamins and cancer cure argument – sequencing how we pay for our big tech ambition is very much part of the “engineering problem” that smart engineers must solve! We can do this.”

It cannot be denied that India has over 280 billionaires as per the Hurun Rich List 2025 and over a 100 unicorn startups. And thus the innovation is surely not the reason why India lacks. As founders and leaders alike, together they try to pin the reason, it is important to note that the comparison must be fair.