Sachin Bansal: The poster boy of Indian ecommerce who redefined 21st century startups

A few weeks after Japanese telecom and internet giant Softbank led a round of funding in India’s largest online retailer Flipkart in August 2017, the company’s top 200 executives met in a town-hall gathering at the Aloft Hotel, a stone’s throw from its old headquarters at Cessna Business Park in Bengaluru. The country’s most storied internet company had made a comeback after its toughest year in 2016, and in a span of six months had managed to raise more capital than it could spend: $4 billion and counting. 

The plan was to discuss the path ahead, and one of the topics that the employees were curious about was how much they will get through the sale of their stock options. CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy took the microphone and asked everyone: Who thinks Flipkart has done extremely well over the last year? Most hands went up quickly, but not of Flipkart cofounder, former CEO and executive chairman Sachin Bansal, who was sitting in the first few rows. 

Then a question about buyback was asked. Who will not be selling their shares in the programme? 

Then a question about buyback was asked. Who will not be selling their shares in the programme? 

This time, Sachin, who had been sidelined to mostly a non-operational role since January 2016, quickly raised his hand, according to two sources who were present at the meeting. 

Ultimately Flipkart cofounder and Group CEO Binny Bansal sold some shares, while Sachin did not sell any during the buyback. 

This was more than symbolic and reflected what was going on in Sachin’s mind. That Flipkart could do better if he was more involved. And that he was more committed to the organisation than anyone else.