In July 2017, Sachin introduced a new brand he had personally conceptualized. It was, unsurprisingly, called Billion. Unlike a traditional brand that restricts itself to a specific category or group of categories, Billion would serve all categories from home appliances and fashion to phones and other electronic goods. It was Sachin’s first major initiative after he had stepped down as CEO in January 2016. The purpose of the brand was to offer products designed specifically for Indians, who Sachin believed weren’t satisfactorily served by most international or domestic brands. He explained that the name Billion represented ‘a billion aspirations for a billion people’. Billion would create products that met these aspirations in ‘the best possible manner’.12
As the year progressed, Sachin’s vibrancy grew. He was in a particularly ebullient mood after the SoftBank funding round. While his colleagues were locked in negotiations with their counterparts at SoftBank, Sachin had built a rapport with Masa Son. Son loved big-thinking, daring entrepreneurs like Sachin and they had hit it off. Sachin knew that it was no small thing to have the backing of the world’s most powerful tech investor.
A few months after the SoftBank funding round in August 2017, certain that he would have Son’s support, Sachin expressed his desire to Lee: he wanted to become CEO of the Flipkart Group. Sachin believed that he had spent enough time on the margins. Now that Flipkart had stabilized, he was ready to take back the reins. Now, with more than $4 billion at Flipkart’s disposal, he was eager to resume the pursuit of his $100 billion dream.
Lee was alarmed. Having lost faith in Sachin’s ability to run Flipkart, he wasn’t sure what to do. Sachin had proved to be an abrasive, polarizing manager. Lee also knew that Kalyan would never agree to work for Sachin. The two were almost irreconcilable. Though their relationship had improved, the rifthad not been closed. For the purpose of recruiting senior leaders, Flipkart had formed a committee that included Sachin, Kalyan and Binny. But in the whole of 2017, the company failed to finalize a single hire primarily because Sachin and Kalyan could never come to an agreement. Both had veto powers which were exercised generously. It was indeed inconceivable that the two of them would work together. Not to mention, Flipkart was doing well under Kalyan, meeting its targets every month, operating like a well-oiled machine. Lee had no inclination to cause any disruption in this most essential of tasks that he had himself set for the CEO.
Eventually, to placate Sachin, Lee told him that he would first have to improve his leadership and interpersonal skills, rebuild his relationships with his colleagues and continue with the leadership coaching. Sachin agreed. He believed that the sessions with Jim Kochalka were going well. Just as he had in 2014, Sachin was convinced that he would, after his long hiatus, return to the driver’s seat.
24
A JOURNEY TO BENTONVILLE
‘Nobody is a permanent friend, nobody is a permanent enemy. Everybody has his own self-interest. Once you recognize that, everybody would be better off.’
– Dhirubhai Ambani in Ambani & Sons, Hamish McDonald1
The large infusion from SoftBank had satiated Flipkart’s capital needs. Now the company could think of preparing for an IPO. It was going to take many years, and by any measure, it was a long shot. In the financial year 2016–17, Flipkart’s losses had shot up, by nearly seventy per cent, to ₹8,771 crore. Its revenues had increased, by twenty-nine per cent, to ₹19,854 crore.2 These weren’t pleasing numbers – neither the revenue growth that was paltry in a vast, promising market, nor the loss figure that was outright shocking. It was true that the results had been distorted by one-time charges, but it was also evident that Flipkart was nowhere near attaining profitability, a must for any company looking to list its shares publicly. There was a lot of work to be done. For all of Sachin Bansal’s obsession with the one billion figure and with taking e-commerce to the masses, less than ten million people shopped on Flipkart every month.3 This number would have to multiply many times over for the company to have any chance of pulling off a successful listing. Its dream of going public looked all the more improbable because, for their part, Amazon wasn’t letting up. It was pushing Flipkart to the hilt every month, expanding its range of products, entering new businesses such as payments and food retail. There was no doubt that for many years to come, Amazon would continue to throw billions of dollars just to achieve its goal of toppling Flipkart.
Still, the fresh capital from SoftBank had reassured everyone at Flipkart. SoftBank’s financial might and global network in the technology world would undoubtedly be a robust prop as Flipkart pursued its IPO dream. Certainly, after a long period of ceaseless volatility, the Flipkart team could look forward to working in a relatively stable, productive environment.
It thus came as a surprise when, around the time Flipkart finalized the SoftBank deal, the company was approached by a now-familiar figure: Walmart. The world’s largest retailer had walked away from a deal with Flipkart exactly a year ago. The Walmart executives were so underwhelmed by what they had learnt about the company that they hadn’t even bothered mentioning to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon that he should look into the Indian e-commerce company. Flipkart liked to think of itself as a large company, but for Walmart, ‘big’ had a different meaning altogether.
