Rahul Yadav quits Housing.com, again

Rahul Yadav has decided to step down as CEO of Housing.com for the second time in less than two months, and this time it seems it is not a bluff. His resignation will be accepted by the board of the real estate portal, two people directly aware of the development said.

Yadav, 26, who has been involved in a string of controversies, will be asked to stay on at the company and oversee product development.
"After discussions with the board, Rahul has decided to step down," said a source. "There will be a board meeting within two weeks where this will be announced. He has let individual board members know."

Rahul Yadav denied all such claims though.
Yadav, an IIT-Bombay dropout and co-founder of Housing, did not immediately reply to queries from ET. A representative for SoftBank, the biggest investor in Housing, did not reply to an email sent on Thursday morning.

Japan's SoftBank, and another investor Falcon Edge, had taken charge of operations at Housing after Yadav's confrontation with the board in late April and early May. In a letter announcing his resignation as CEO, Yadav questioned the intellectual prowess of the investors, who persuaded him to stay on but made him tender an apology.

SoftBank's representative on the board, Jonathan Bullock, oversees all major decisions at the company.
Yadav has courted one controversy after another, earning him a reputation as an enfant terrible of the Indian startup industry. He started a social media spat with Sequoia Capital's managing director Shailendra Singh, and most recently posted a photo of InfosysBSE -0.40 % CEO Vishal Sikka sleeping at an airport lounge. The provocation was that Yadav apparently tried to wake up a sleeping Sikka, who brushed him off saying he was too tired to talk to him.


The board of Housing has been on the lookout for a potential successor to Yadav for some time. Recruitment agency Spencer and Stuart has been leading the mandate for a new CEO.

Housing was founded in 2012 by a dozen college-mates from IIT-Mumbai, of whom three have left the company. Housing, which competes with CommonFloor, 99Acres, and MagicBricks, owned by the publisher of this paper, has attracted more than $120 million (Rs 760 crore) in funding and is valued at over Rs 1,500 crore.