‘Bhavish Aggarwal, please learn’: Nothing CEO’s response to critics wins hearts

A video going viral online shows Nothing CEO Carl Pei reacting to reviewer feedback gracefully, apologising for design flaws where necessary and explaining why certain features are the way they are. Carl Pei, the 35-year-old entrepreneur who left OnePlus to launch Nothing, impressed Indian social media with his calm demeanour and knowledge of his domain. In fact, users could not help but compare him with Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, who has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late.
Footage of the Nothing CEO reacting to reviews from top tech YouTubers like Marques Brownlee was shared on social media by popular Indian YouTuber Akash Banerjee, who tagged the Ola CEO in his post.
“Hey Bhavish Aggarwal, have a look at this. This is the Nothing CEO – sitting down & responding to youtube reviews of his product,” Banerjee wrote on X. “Often he apologies for a design flaw, promises to fix stuff, explains why some things are the way the are, sometimes even pushes back. However – at no point does he come across as condescending, all knowing, arrogant or a d***.”

Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal has been facing huge backlash over growing complaints from owners of Ola Electric scooters. Aggarwal, 39, lashed out at comedian Kunal Kamra when the latter pointed out the woes of Ola Electric customers troubled by the company’s poor after-sales service and customer care.
The controversy started weeks ago when Kamra shared a picture of dozens of Ola Electric scooters gathering dust in a service centre. Bhavish Aggarwal responded by asking the comedian to come work at a service centre – a response that earned him much negative publicity as social media users pointed out that Ola customer complaints have touched an all-time high of 80,000 per month.
Carl Pei came out smelling like a rose when compared to Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal. Social media users could not help but notice the stark contrast between the two business leaders when it came to negative feedback.
(Also read: As Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal faces heat, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal praised for ‘PR masterclass’)
Dozens of X users asked the Indian CEO to take a leaf out of Pei’s book.
“Nothing is a brand for enthusiasts, they always listen to their consumers and this has helped build a trust among consumers whereas Ola is exactly the opposite, with a completely ignorant CEO,” wrote X user Aditya Chaurasia.
“That’s because Nothing CEO built the product. Bhavish built a govt employment/unemployment center. Hence he offered a reviewer a job,” another person said.
“Bhash is a true wealth creator. He doesn’t have time for stupid things like listening to customers and fixing a crappy scooter,” read one sarcastic post.
“It does help that their phone doesn’t spontaneously combust,” X user Anup quipped, referring to hundreds of incidents of Ola Electric scooters catching fire.