The Housing & Rahul Yadav Saga seems to be coming to its final climax if an ET report is to be believed. The news of Rahul Yadav stepping down as CEO of Housing.com has been doing rounds since yesterday.
The report first came out in Economic Times somewhere around afternoon yesterday, but was surprisingly taken down by the publication soon after, giving an impression that those were just rumours (the url at which earlier story was published was being redirected to the homepage).
Not only that, Housing.com also confirmed yesterday that Rahul Yadav had not resigned from his post of CEO. Rahul Yadav himself made light of the situation on his Facebook timeline citing the report.
Why do you need a girlfriend when you have Times Group :)
Posted by Rahul Yadav on Thursday, June 25, 2015
When questioned on the veracity of story, one of the author of the story, Pankaj Mishra, denied any mess up and said that the story was taken down because they were still verifying the facts, and it was published again with an update stating, “When contacted, Rahul Yadav denied having quite the company again”.
@refsrc @8ap @dks no mess up. just additional reporting, verifying. it’s up again. and more in ET tomorrow.
— pankaj mishra (@pankajontech) June 25, 2015
Interestingly, today morning Economic Times did another story confirming the news with a bold headline stating, “ Rahul Yadav leaves Housing without a Housemaster ”. According to it, Rahul Yadav’s resignation has come about at the behest of the board.
This move by the board seems to be the direct, even though a bit belated, fallout due to ill-tempered letter wrote by Rahul Yadav to it’s investors offering to step down as CEO of the company. While that offer was rejected back then, this move by the board confirms that most investors are wary of having Rahul Yadav as the CEO of the one of the most watched startups in India.
The latest story also offers excerpt of an email sent by Rahul Yadav to it’s board (ET has also confirmed that they have seen the email). The email states, “Thanks for the quick resolution. Do let me know wherever you guys need my help. Also, given my zero shareholding and not being CEO, I don’t think I need to be on the board as well”
According to sources, the official announcement will come after two weeks, when the company has decided to have a board meeting. The board has also asked Rahul Yadav to stay on at the company and oversee Product development.
Chronology of Events
The entire Saga first started when a leaked email emerged on Quora thread which was written by Rahul Yadav, the CEO of Housing.com. The issue was allegedly the poaching attempt by Shailendra Singh, who is the MD of Sequoia Capital India and one of the investors in Housing.com.
Just couple of months later, after this incident, he sent a ill-tempered resignation to his board in which he called them “intellectually incapable”. However, within 24 hours, he withdrew his resignation.
Then, in the most surprising turn of events, Rahul Yadav decided to decided to ‘gift’ all his shares in the company to employees. The shares were said to be worth anywhere between 150 to 200 crores.
In all these incidences, one thing is clear, Rahul Yadav is unconventional and maverick. He is bold, confident and at the same time reckless and ill-tempered. A heady combination!
We will keep you posted with further updates as they happen!
