Byju’s sold more than school lessons: its business also covered coaching for competitive entrance exams, where families face intense pressure to secure academic opportunities. A Scroll report published on December 28, 2023, framed the company’s sales approach as exploiting India’s “rat race” mentality and included an attributed account from a source named Amit. That account is reported testimony, not proof that every salesperson used high-pressure tactics or that every family experienced them.
What “rat race” means in Byju’s context
In this context, the phrase describes the competition many Indian students and families face around school performance and entrance exams. The commercial opportunity is understandable: families seeking extra instruction may pay for learning support they hope will improve a student’s prospects. But the same pressure can make a forceful sales pitch feel especially consequential.
The Scroll report’s search excerpt attributes to Amit a comparison between a motivational speech and speeches by multi-level marketing companies. Because the full article could not be inspected, that anecdote should be treated narrowly as one reported account, not generalized into a claim about Byju’s entire sales force or customer base. Scroll’s December 28, 2023 report is the source for the account.
What Byju’s was selling
Byju’s was not only a school-learning app. In a June 2021 description of a proposed combination with Aakash, the Competition Commission of India said Byju’s offered technology-based primary and secondary education as well as coaching for domestic and overseas entrance exams. It described Aakash as offering school curriculum and competitive-exam preparation. Those services placed the businesses in both everyday learning and high-stakes academic competition. The CCI’s description, published by the Press Information Bureau, establishes the product context; it does not verify learning outcomes or particular sales claims.
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How commercial ambition and exam demand intersected
Online school learning and entrance-exam coaching address different needs, but both can be marketed to families anxious about a student falling behind. A company that serves both markets can reach households at multiple points in a student’s education. That overlap helps explain why Byju’s services intersected with academic competition; it does not, by itself, prove that the company created that pressure or that pressure alone drove its growth.
A 2025 academic case study by Harsh Tuli and Arunachal Khosla says Byju’s launched in 2011, reached a reported peak valuation of $22 billion, made 19 acquisitions, and spent about $2.5 billion over roughly 24 months from the start of the pandemic. These are figures and characterizations reported by the authors, not independently verified financial measurements in the available account. The SAGE case study also identifies aggressive marketing, layoffs, investor concerns, an auditor’s resignation, legal issues and financial results among the company’s problems.
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Growth alongside financial and governance problems
The Indian Express reported in March 2024 that Byju’s FY2022 losses were ₹8,245 crore, compared with ₹4,564 crore in FY2021. The report also discussed delayed accounts, aggressive marketing and expensive acquisitions. Those figures describe reported losses for those financial years; they do not show that a single strategy caused the company’s problems. The Indian Express report provides that dated financial context.
The company’s sales framing, expansion strategy and financial performance are related parts of its story, but they should not be collapsed into a single explanation. The available accounts describe rapid growth and serious difficulties; they do not establish that India’s exam culture alone caused either the expansion or the crisis.
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On June 26, 2024, India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs said proceedings under the Companies Act, 2013, were still ongoing and cautioned that “no final conclusion should be drawn in this matter at this stage.” That statement was the ministry’s position at that date, not a final finding about the company. The ministry’s statement, issued through the Press Information Bureau, should not be described as either a clearance or a final judgment.
LiveLaw reported that the Supreme Court dismissed appeals in July 2025 concerning the requirement for approval by 90 percent of the Committee of Creditors to withdraw Think & Learn’s insolvency process. Its chronology says the corporate insolvency resolution process began in July 2024 following a BCCI petition, and that the Supreme Court reinstated the process in October 2024 after an earlier appellate order had set it aside. These are procedural milestones, not a complete account of the case’s status in October 2026, and they do not establish a final fraud finding. LiveLaw’s July 21, 2025 report describes the decision and chronology.
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How to read the “exploited the rat race” claim
The title’s characterization is best understood as a critique of how commercial education can appeal to anxiety about academic competition—not as a court or regulator’s conclusion. The evidence supports a cautious account: Byju’s sold school-learning and entrance-exam services; a Scroll report included a source’s critical account of a motivational sales speech; and later academic and news analysis documented aggressive marketing alongside growth and financial problems.
Those points do not establish that every sales interaction was coercive, that customers uniformly felt exploited, or that the “rat race” alone explains Byju’s rise and troubles. A company’s promise to help students learn is also distinct from proof that its products delivered particular educational results.
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