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A junior data scientist in Bengaluru says they collapsed and were hospitalised after enduring months of verbal abuse by their CEO during video calls.
A conceptual illustration of workplace trauma where a menacing CEO towers out of a laptop screen during a video call at an employee. (IMAGE: DALL.E Engine)
A Bengaluru techie collapsed during a work video call and had to be rushed to the hospital by his mother after what he described as a “brutal” verbal attack from his CEO.
The incident, which unfolded after seven months of relentless workplace harassment, has triggered fresh debate around mental health and abuse in India’s startup ecosystem.
“I literally couldn’t breathe properly. My chest started tightening, I began struggling for air and I completely collapsed in my chair,” the employee wrote in a Reddit post that has since gone viral. “Thank God, my mother heard the chaos from the adjacent room and rushed me to the hospital immediately”.
The techie referred to his former boss as “Satan himself,” writing that the CEO “had zero technical background” but behaved like a self-proclaimed data science mastermind. “He’d create these completely unrealistic deadlines from thin air, change project requirements whenever he felt like it and then lose his complete mind when reality didn’t match his delusions,” the employee wrote.
The techie, a junior data scientist, joined the Bengaluru-based event discovery startup in early 2024, hoping to grow professionally. Instead, he said he was subjected to “psychological torture” by a non-technical CEO who frequently screamed at employees, imposed unrealistic deadlines and micromanaged everything.
“Every. Single. Day. This chap demanded I explain every minute detail of my work directly to him. If my explanation wasn’t flawless, or if he couldn’t understand something technical, he would completely explode,” he wrote. “I’m talking about full-scale screaming sessions where he’d destroy me both professionally and personally”.
Despite working 12–14-hour days, including weekends, the techie said his commitment went unrecognised.
The collapse happened a week after the employee submitted his resignation. During a video call that excluded his reporting manager, the CEO allegedly escalated a one-sided confrontation. “The verbal attack was so brutal… I completely collapsed,” he said.
The techie also alleged that the company’s HR department continued to act vindictively even after his resignation. “She had the audacity to frame my medical emergency as some kind of charity they were providing by paying my final settlement,” he wrote. The employee also claimed that his PF transfer was deliberately delayed to jeopardise his job prospects.
He ended his post with a message of solidarity: “To anyone currently trapped in a similar nightmare: your mental health is infinitely more important than any salary. Trust your instincts. If someone consistently makes you feel worthless, the issue is with them, not you”.
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev…Read More
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev… Read More
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