Nikesh Arora was one of the biggest names on the Indian startup scene. As the President of Softbank, he’d overseen some of the biggest investments in Indian startups in 2015, including large rounds in Housing, Oyo, Grofers and Snapdeal.
He’s made many friends along the way, but there are people who weren’t particularly fond of him (*cough* Rahul Yadav *cough*). Here’s how the Indian startup community reacted to his ouster.
Flipkart CEO Sachin Bansal was among the first few to retweet WSJ’s original article. Softbank is not an investor in Flipkart, and instead is an investor in rival Snapdeal. Interestingly, Bansal has since deleted the retweet.
Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma responded directly to Arora’s tweet announcing his departure, calling it a big setback for the Indian startup ecosystem.
Times Internet CEO Satyan Ganjwani made some lighthearted banter.
And some other jokes were also floating around.
My faith in "clean chits" just fell down drastically…
— Sumanth Raghavendra (@sumanthr) June 21, 2016
Some gave the phenomenon a new name.
So, what will @nikesharora 's exit be called? Nexit? 😛#Rexit
— Lorem Ipsum (@blahfamous) June 21, 2016
And finally, former Housing CEO Rahul Yadav wasn’t exactly distraught at the news. Nikesh Arora’s Softbank was a part of the set of Housing investors who Yadav had once dubbed “intellectually incapable”, and Softbank had pushed Yadav out of the CEO position at Housing. Yadav’s Facebook post seemed to imply that some sort of karmic justice had been done.
