Deepinder Goyal reveals he asked Albinder Dhindsa to leave twice after Blinkit takeover: ‘He was not…’
Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Eternal, which owns food delivery platform Zomato and Blinkit, revealed that at one point he asked the founder and CEO of platform q-comm to quit his job.
Deepinder Goyal, in an interaction with podcaster Raj Shamani, touched on the potential dispute arising from Zomato’s acquisition of Blinkit in 2022.
Eternal’s CEO said on the podcast: “We’ve been very objective in what we do. I even got to the point where I asked Albi (Dhindsa) to leave because she wasn’t the right leader for the organization…”
Blinkit, originally called Grofers, was acquired by Zomato in 2022. It was founded in 2014 by Albinder Dhindsa, who tried multiple models in grocery delivery.
Grofers was primarily working on a next-day delivery model when it acquired Zomato for around a price. ₹4,447 crore in an all-stock deal.
Following the acquisition, Zomato faced a lot of criticism over the pricing of the transaction and the conflict of interest arising from Goyal’s close ties with Dhindsa, whom he knew from school.
During this time, Grofers, now known as Blinkit, was also transitioning to a 10-minute delivery model.
Around this time, Deepinder Goyal and Albinder Dhindsa started having problems with the Zomato boss telling him to leave the company.
“I told him you can’t cut it. He said okay, this happened twice in that time period and we started the transition,” Goyal said.
hitting rock bottom
Deepinder Goyal called this style of coaching ‘rock bottom’.
“We all have this armor. When the patient coaching is over, I pierce this armor. If I get angry, it’s because I care,” he said.
He explained that he had tried the ‘hitting bottom’ method with people he thought had potential but were not progressing.
“I hit this rock bottom where I hurt people like their self-esteem is completely blown away. I do this with people who have crazy potential, but something gets in the way in their head. Over time, the success rate for that increases to four out of five, and they get out of it.”
Zomato’s Binkit bet
Although Zomato’s acquisition of Blinkit attracted a lot of negative attention, the companies have worked together throughout the year to establish Blinkit as one of the leading players in the flash commerce industry.
Talking about the acquisition, Deepinder Goyal said, “I have never personally experienced a service as addictive as Blinkit. The convenience we got was insane. I knew it would turn into a business and people would love it.”
Following the Blinkit deal, Zomato’s shares fell around 75%. Today, the company is Eternal’s largest by net order value.
