In January 2016, on the second Monday of the new year, the company went public with the news. The three Bansals went on overdrive to insist that these changes would strengthen Flipkart. Sachin tweeted: ‘Welcome @binnybansal as the CEO of @Flipkart. Together we’ll create magic.’3
In an email to employees, Sachin’s tone was unequivocally upbeat: ‘We want to prove that India can produce a world class internet company that can outshine and outclass any global behemoth. We also want to play a pivotal role in shaping the internet and the commerce ecosystem of India.’ Binny, too, proclaimed that Flipkart had all the ‘necessary ingredients of brilliant talent and great technology’ to continue being successful.4
Reassuring emails notwithstanding, the employees at all levels were in shock. This wasn’t something anyone had seen coming; even Flipkart’s senior leaders were caught unawares.
Flipkart had recently expanded its leadership team. It had hired yet another senior engineer from Google, Surojit Chatterjee, into the product division. Samardeep Subandh, who had worked for more than fifteen years at the large consumer goods companies, Hindustan Unilever and Marico, was recruited to head marketing.
After taking over as CEO, Binny called for a discussion with his management team. At the meeting, his words were blunt, urgent. ‘This is a crisis. I’m declaring emergency.’ He warned that the next few months would be ‘very tough’. But, he promised: ‘We’ll turn it around.’
Towards the end of January 2016, Binny repeated this message at the quarterly meeting of Flipkart’s board of directors in Dubai. The environment there was very different from the triumphant vibe of many past meetings. The board members were sombre; Lee was especially concerned. The months-long decline in Flipkart’s business was showing no sign of improvement. At the same time, Amazon India was thriving. They would soon announce that in the last three months of 2015, the company had generated higher sales than in the entirety of 2014.5
Lee and the other board members reminded Sachin about all the targets that Flipkart had missed and everything that had gone awry.
Jumping to his own defence, Sachin urged everyone to have patience. ‘These things take some time.’ They have made a decision and now they needed to see it through.
Lee was too anxious to let the matter rest. Flipkart was his biggest holding. In fact, it was more than just an important investment – Lee’s career depended on it. The success of his massive bet hinged on a continuous, enormous expansion in Flipkart’s sales for years to come. And yet, for the past five months, sales had barely advanced. To see Flipkart’s growth stall already was unpalatable. Lee would have to take action, even if it meant upsetting one of his favourite entrepreneurs.
He proposed to the Bansals that Flipkart should bring back Kalyan Krishnamurthy, whom he regarded as a turnaround specialist. But Sachin, expectedly, wouldn’t have it. He had arranged for Kalyan’s exit from Flipkart barely a year ago. He had then ensured that Kalyan wouldn’t have any role on the company’s board. There was no way he would allow Kalyan to return.
Lee persisted, now appealing to Binny. But Binny, too, wasn’t convinced. It wouldn’t be the right move, he said, and asked for some time to consider it. He assured the board members that Flipkart would soon reverse the slowdown in sales growth. Not only that, he also promised to reduce the company’s costs and resurrect its excellence in customer service.
At the meeting, no one had anything to say to Mukesh. Over the past year, he had played a leading role at board meetings, making presentations, elaborating on Flipkart’s transformation and discussing quarterly performance. This time, he was on the periphery, a worried spectator.
IT WAS NOW unanimous that Flipkart had faltered the previous year. The company needed to work out who were accountable. At Flipkart, this meant one thing: senior executives would have to go.
The first obvious candidate was Punit Soni. As Chief Product Officer, Punit had wielded immense power. His imperious manner and love of the limelight had earned him many enemies. The big features he had introduced, such as Ping and Image Search, hadn’t taken off. Sales had suffered. Even the app hadn’t improved noticeably; customers were certainly not raving about it, much less having an orgasm. Although he had been at Flipkart for less than a year, it was decided that he had to be removed immediately – hiring him had turned out to be a blunder. It was Mukesh who took the decision. Binny, now Mukesh’s boss, couldn’t care less. Sachin, who had recruited Punit, had also grown weary of him. Less than a year after he had moved back to India, Punit was cut loose – by the end of his term, he had little to show for it and no one willing to defend him.
A few days after Mukesh fired Punit, he was called into a meeting by Binny. It was now his turn at the guillotine. Binny told him summarily that he was no longer needed. As the head of the company’s commerce platform, Mukesh had been responsible for the overall business performance. He would have to pay for the sales slowdown with his job. After building up Myntra into a successful e-commerce firm, Mukesh had become one of the best-known internet entrepreneurs in India. He had considered Sachin and Binny his equals, and was seemingly treated as one by the Flipkart co-founders. When he had been given charge of the daily running of the company in early 2015, Mukesh had believed it was just a matter of
