Rahul Yadav has been fired as Housing CEO after all

Housing has fired its CEO Rahul Yadav after a board meeting held earlier today, the company said in a statement. Yadav, who is also the co-founder of the company, will no longer be an employee of Housing or associated with the company in any manner, it added.

Housing board of directors unanimously agreed to bring Yadav’s tenure to a close due to “his behavior towards investors, ecosystem, and the media.” Among the controversies, the founder publicly abused Sequoia Capital’s managing director Shailendra Singh and challenged Ola founder Bhavish Aggrawal and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal to offload half of their shares to employees.

In the statement, the board noted that “his [Yadav’s] behavior is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company, known for its innovative approach to product development, market expansion, and brand building.”

The search for an interim CEO is underway while senior executives of Housing manage day-to-day operations. The board and the operating committee led by SoftBank’s Jonathan Bullock will remain closely involved with all key decisions.

Yadav had earlier resigned from his post about two months ago. Back then, in his letter of resignation he left no doubt on what he thought of Housing’s investors: “I don’t think you guys are intellectually capable enough to have any sensible discussion anymore,” he had said.

However, after “some frank discussions with the board,” he rescinded the resignation.

Nevertheless, according to sources, the investors had made him sign a clause which said that “the resignation is active and can be processed at any given point of time.”

Since then Bullock, and another representative from Falcon Edge, overlooked all major decisions at the company.

Housing, which has raised US$120 million to date, was founded in 2012 by a dozen IIT-Mumbai students, many of whom (including Yadav) dropped out to focus on building the company.

Yadav’s exit could well be an opening for competitors like Commonfloor and PropTiger to catch up. On the flip side, Housing may have enough network effects to keep growing. It could have effectively ceased to be a startup, which means the founding team isn’t as important anymore.

Meanwhile, Rahul’s statement on Facebook reads: “Board: CEO title of Housing.com. Take that away then what are you? Me: A Genius Billionaire (in INR) Philanthropist. (sic)”