This time it may not be yet another stunt as the Housing.com board decided to sack its CEO and co-founder Rahul Yadav after reports that Quickr was seeking to acquire the company and Yadav’s subsequent emails to employees that he was telling journalists two different sets of information on the whole issue.
A strongly worded press-statement from Housing.com said that the Board believed Yadav’s behaviour was not befitting of a CEO and ‘was detrimental to the company, known for its innovative approach to product development, market expansion and brand building.’
The statement added, ” While the search for an interim CEO is underway, a transition plan has been put in place,” the release said. “The current senior executives of Housing will continue to run the operations on a daily basis, and ensure its continued smooth functioning. The Board and the Operating Committee will remain closely involved with all key decisions.”
The Board has now started the hunt for a CEO and a transition plan has been put in place, says the press statement.
Yadav, also a co-founder of housing.com, has been responsible for stoking controversy with what many termed his eccentric behaviour over the last few months. In March this year, he hit headlines for writing an audacious resignation letter to investors where he called the board members as intellectually incapable adding that he did not wish to waste his precious remaining time on earth with them.
Later, he withdrew his resignation and issued an apology.
A week after withdrawing his resignation, Yadav decided to allot all his personal holding in the company worth Rs 150-200 crore to the employees.
“Rahul Yadav has decided to allot all his personal shares worth Rs 150-200 crore to the employees of Housing.com who number 2,251,” the housing portal said in a late evening statement.
The value of this stock is worth the employees` one-year salary, it added.
Yadav justified the move saying, he is “just 26 and it`s too early in life to get serious about money etc.”
Later he was reported mocking Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal saying that it was ‘a company scanning menus from last 7 years and doing no innovation.’
In a latest development that prompted his sacking, an internal note from Yadav to his staff said that he just had some fun with a bunch of reporters, feeding two sets of journalists, two sets of (false) information regarding possible acquisition of his company.
This led to serious backlash with social media users both mocking and criticising him.