The day before the blog post was published, Walmart and Flipkart had announced the long-awaited deal. Walmart would pay $16 billion for a seventy-seven per cent stake in Flipkart, valuing the online retailer at $21 billion.12 It set all kinds of records: the largest-ever acquisition in India, the greatest sale in e-commerce worldwide, and Walmart’s biggest purchase. This transaction dwarfed the previous record acquisition in the Indian startup sector – Snapdeal’s $400 million buyout of a mobile recharge firm. The press statement announcing the Flipkart–Walmart deal was accompanied by a picture of Binny shaking hands with Doug McMillon. Completely missing from the statement was any mention of Sachin’s name.
It was true that, for the last two weeks, Sachin had been locked in negotiations with Flipkart as they finalized his exit agreement. The discussions had expectedly turned bitter. By the end, Sachin had extracted a very short non-compete clause. He was restricted from starting any business that directly or indirectly competed with Flipkart, but only for eighteen months.13
Sachin would earn more than $1 billion in cash after selling his approximately six per cent stake in Flipkart.14 But this didn’t help his acute sense of loss. He was distraught. Flipkart had been his life. He had few interests outside work. He couldn’t imagine life without the company.
There was just one man Sachin could turn to for solace, his old friend and Flipkart’s second employee: Tapas Rudrapatna. Tapas was perhaps the only Flipkart associate, former or present, with whom Sachin could still speak freely. Of all the people at Flipkart he had ever been close to, Tapas was perhaps the only one with whom his relationship with still intact. Since 2012, Tapas had maintained some distance from the company’s internal workings. Flipkart had grown too big, too noxious for his liking. Still, he had remained a friend to Sachin, maintaining an unwavering, selfless allegiance to him. Tapas would often work on his laptop under a tree outside Flipkart’s Koramangala office, across the road from a large park. His routine hadn’t changed much. He still loved his chai–sutta, he still ate little, and showed up at Sathya’s next to his small bungalow every other evening.
Sathya’s is one of those cheap, cosy bars frequented by both the rich and the middle class, men and women alike. It stands on one end of a long, tree-lined street in Koramangala with bungalows on each side interspersed with the odd office building. The blackboard at the entrance states that the bar opened in 1983. Since then, it has enjoyed great loyalty from its patrons.
On several days during the summer of 2018, Tapas could be seen at Sathya’s, drinking with his friend and former boss who had just become astonishingly wealthy, a real billionaire, and had freshly been named India’s pioneering internet entrepreneur. Estranged from almost everyone he had known closely at his startup, Sachin Bansal had now returned to Sathya’s, the cheerful bar he used to frequent in Flipkart’s early years. In the fluorescent light of the bar, amid the buzz of conversation, Sachin sat quietly with his one real friend, as his former employees, associates and investors, in the Flipkart office just a few kilometres away, basked in the glory of a historic achievement.
EPILOGUE
Even under a new owner, Flipkart hasn’t lost its taste for volatility.
In August 2018, Walmart completed its acquisition of Flipkart after receiving approval from the Competition Commission of India.1 On 13 November 2018, Flipkart made a shocking announcement: Binny Bansal was resigning from the company as Group CEO and Chairman of the board. His resignation came in the aftermath of an internal investigation into an allegation of ‘serious personal misconduct’.2 While Flipkart didn’t specify the details of the allegation, various publications reported that it was a complaint of sexual harassment against Binny.3 It emerged that the complaint was lodged by a woman with whom Binny had had a consensual extramarital affair. This woman of unknown identity had once worked in Flipkart’s customer support team. The affair allegedly started sometime in 2016, long after she had leftthe company, and ended the same year. It is unclear why the woman filed her complaint with Walmart executives about two years later, in July 2018. Walmart is known to have hired a law firm to investigate the matter.
The months-long probe could not gather any evidence to support the allegation. But it did show ‘lapses in judgement’ on Binny’s part, Flipkart revealed in a press statement in November. The episode also revealed ‘a lack of transparency’ in how Binny had responded to the situation.4 In a goodbye email to Flipkart’s employees, Binny wrote, ‘The allegations left me stunned and I strongly deny them.’ But he admitted that the investigation did ‘bring to light lapses in judgement’.5 The company didn’t share the details of these lapses, but media reports indicated that they were linked to how Binny had handled the termination of the affair.6 Binny had been made aware of the matter only days before the announcement of his resignation. He had, in fact, made several public appearances in the months leading to his exit.
It was a tragic departure for the Flipkart co-founder. Walmart had asked him to stay back at the company as Sachin would no longer be a part of it. Binny leaving would also put Walmart in a tricky situation. Walmart had decided to go public after concluding it was too risky to hold back the details of a vexatious issue, especially in light of Binny’s ‘lapses’.
Binny continues to be a board member at Flipkart and holds more than three per cent stake in the company. In early 2019, he moved to Singapore with his family. He now serves as Executive Chairman at xto10x Technologies, a consultancy firm co-launched by him and former
