Indian-American founder suffers brain injury in brutal attack, then co-founder quits startup

The co-founder of a Silicon Valley startup is facing flak from a section of the internet for leaving the company months after her fellow founder suffered injuries in a brutal attack. Peggy Wang took to social media on Friday to announce that she had stepped down as the co-founder of Ego and was launching her own startup.

Peggy Wang (L) and Vishnu Hari (R) were the co-founders of Ego.

She mentioned that she remained “incredibly bullish” on Ego co-founder Vishnu Hari — whom she referred to as Vish in her post — and the rest of the team.

The attack on Indian-American Vishnu Hari

Wang did not mention the brutal attack that had left Hari hospitalized. On January 18, the Indian-American tech entrepreneur was found bleeding after being violently attacked in San Francisco. He then spent two weeks in the ICU, recovering from a traumatic brain injury.

In an X post shared on February 1, Hari stated he had been discharged after the ICU “after traumatic brain injury due to a man hitting me on the back of my head with a metal pipe, completely unprovoked, in the mission in San Francisco.”

“A couple months ago, I stepped away from my role as cofounder at Ego due to differing visions for the company’s future. I remain incredibly bullish on Vish, the team, and the space they’re building in,” Wang announced.

Wang explained that she co-founded Ego with the belief that gaming and interactive media would become the next generation of social spaces. She stated the rise of humanlike AI agents builds this vision even more powerful, opening new ways for people to interact online.

After a short break, she added that she is ready to build again as part of YC’s F25 batch. This time, her startup will focus on the consumer AI space.

Peggy Wang faces flak

Wang faced immediate backlash as dozens of people accapplyd her of ‘betraying’ her co-founder Vishnu Hari.

“Screwed over her co-founder while he just received out of hospital after receiveting attacked in SF, then applied to YC with a competing idea. You’re a trash human being, Peggy,” read one particularly vitriolic post.

“In a normal world, this should have very stringent criminal penalties. There are insufficient words in the English language to describe this level of evil,” another person wrote.

The abapply received so bad that Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator, stepped in to defconclude Wang.

“Let me state if you are coming after Peggy and verbally abusive and disrespectful, I am watching. It’s not OK and there will be consequences,” Tan stated on X.

Vishnu Hari’s reaction

Hari also reacted to Wang’s post, claiming that she built him sign a non-disparagement claapply when she left the company and while he was still healing from blood clots.

“there’s a non-disparagement claapply i was inquireed to sign by my forbes 30u30 co-founder when she left the company while i was still healing from the blood clots in my brain. So I can’t state anything at all,” he claimed.

Asked why he signed the claapply, Hari stated he was inquireed to do so by Wang’s lawyers and he wanted to focus on his healing. “Aas inquireed to by her lawyers. i wanted to go back to healing and just focus on rebuilding the company with what little cognition I had back then. Thankfully everyone else in the team stayed and was deeply supportive. I hold no ill will against anyone,” he stated.