The entertaining soap opera witnessed by the Indian start-up scene over the past few months may finally be coming to an end. Rahul Yadav, the founder of online real-estate venture Housing.com, has reportedly been shown the door in a unanimous decision by the governing board.

At a meeting on Wednesday, the board took into account his "behaviour towards investors, partners and the media" and concluded that it was not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company," according to The Economic Times.

The report added that the investors had even called in the local police in anticipation of violence, but “Yadav left without any incident.”

Yadav, an IIT-Bombay dropout, has been in the news since the beginning of this year for announcing  his resignation and then withdrawing it, and his ill-advised attempts at poking humour at other startups, such as Zomato. Recently, he trained guns on his own company in a series of Facebook posts.


The night before Wednesday's board meeting, he decided to change his cover picture as well.



Housing has been involved in several controversies in recent months, not the least a rebranding campaign that came under fire for allegedly lifting up a logo from another app called “Look Up”. Its reputation wasn't helped by Yadav’s spat with venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, who he accused of poaching his employees. He also got into a tangle with Times Group, when he made disparaging remarks about the media firm's Magicbricks.com venture – a rival to Housing.com – in an internal email that soon surfaced on social media.

However, in a recent post, Yadav took it one step further when he posted an image of an advertorial announcing the sale of Housing.com by Times Group on the market platform Quickr, which is reported to be in talks for buying the start-up.


Even though Yadav's antics have been laid to rest for now, nobody can say with certainty that he won’t make a comeback. That’s what prompted social media to respond with humour following the announcement. Here’s a selection.