Rahul Yadav: Exit Wounds

India likes strong and outspoken personalities, but in general only if they don’t stray too far from the mean—because then it becomes disorienting and even threatening. And so, usually, everyone fits that norm of trying to be different but not too much. You might, for instance, have CEOs talking on and on about brand building, but no one will really fly down from a plane in a parachute like Richard Branson. Or google ‘maverick’ + ‘India’ and you find headlines which use the term for Lalu Prasad Yadav, Saif Ali Khan and Subrata Roy.

When a true maverick, therefore, comes along and pays the price for being one, it is not at all surprising that he becomes an object of mockery. In a society terrified at what lies beyond the usual, ridicule is its way of dealing with such phenomena. That is why there is so little sympathy for Rahul Yadav, the founder of Housing.com, who has just been sacked by its Board.

Still in his mid-twenties, he created one of the most exciting companies for venture capitalists, raising $100 million in funding within three years of being founded by Yadav and a bunch of other IIT students. The same investors now think of him as a man unsuited to the prim higher-echelon etiquette of Indian business. In recent times, he had public spats with India’s biggest media house, a leading venture capital firm and his own company’s Board. Even now, when his last Facebook post is about vacating his home because he can’t afford it, there seems no regret.

In the business media, he is now a promise gone wrong. On social networking sites, he is ‘Steve Jobless’. Much of this is armchair snideness from the comfortable shores of mediocrity. If social networking had existed 30 years ago, they would have called Steve Jobs ‘jobless’ after he got sacked by Apple Inc.

Can any Indian imagine a student dropping out of the final year of an IIT when a few months more would give him the degree that becomes his identity for life? Can any Indian imagine giving away all the shares a company’s founder owns to his employees? When someone like Yadav does these things, it is incomprehensible because he is throwing away what we value so much—security against the future.

Most entrepreneurs in his situation, when in conflict with a board that owns almost all the company, try to find a middle ground. Yadav didn’t because he is incapable of compromise. He is the sort of character you read of in fiction—driven by manic obsession, intolerant, with a vision that he believes is the only right one and which only he can execute.

You will find many examples of such a temperament, but not many in India, especially in fields like the corporate world. Housing.com’s Board members might have thought they didn’t have much of a choice in ousting Yadav.

The only alternative is to allow his personality free rein. Then you would have a company that might burn itself into nothing. Or it would be one that turns into a legend. It is how the Apples and Facebooks of the world get created. It would have been a gamble, but then most investments are gambles anyway.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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