Pay it forward: Housing’s Rahul Yadav challenges Zomato, Ola founders to give half their shares to employees

From the time Rahul Yadav pledged to give away all his shares in Housing to its employees, the startup community has been abuzz with speculation on why he did it. Some called it attention-grabbing, others felt he was showing the middle finger to his investors. The Housing co-founder had earlier quit as CEO and withdrawn his resignation the same day.

People have pointed out that Yadav and eight remaining co-founders are left with less than 10 percent stake in the company after multiple rounds of funding to raise nearly US$130 million from SoftBank Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Helion Venture Partners. There’s talk that investors call the shots now, and they want to put a lid on Housing’s cash burn.

Many expect Yadav to ditch Housing and start a new venture. But Yadav himself claims he just wants to crack the problem of house-hunting globally; there’s no other agenda behind transferring his shares to employees. In fact, he wants other startup founders to follow his lead.

Now I challenge Deepinder Goyal of Zomato and Bhavish Aggarwal of Olacabs to continue this noble act and give away HALF (not full) OF THEIR SHARES to their employees. And I hope both of them spread the nominations further.

Yadav posted on his Facebook page late last night.

That Goyal is at the receiving end of Yadav’s pay-it-forward challenge is not surprising. The Zomato co-founder had earlier made his opinion of Housing and Yadav plain on Twitter: “Housing is what happens when investors leave founders with little skin in the game. Especially, 20-year-old founders with nothing to lose.”

Housing is what happens when investors leave founders with little skin in the game. Especially, 20 year old founders with nothing to lose.

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) May 5, 2015

Some admire him, others are repulsed, and many are amused. But few can ignore the fact that Yadav is throwing up some fundamental issues in India’s young startup ecosystem. “Rahul [Yadav] has been articulating – correctly, in my opinion – that the entrepreneur is in charge, that the entrepreneur is more important than the VC. Although young and brash, he has asserted the primacy of the entrepreneur to the VC,” Sharad Sharma, former R&D head of Yahoo and co-founder of software industry think-tank iSPIRT, told Tech in Asia.

Investors’ stake-holding, entrepreneurs’ control over startups they had the vision to launch, and now, stocks for employees to keep them motivated. ‎These will be debated in the days to come as the drama at Housing continues to unfold.