Yesterday night finished reading the book Big Billion Start Up The Untold Flipkart Story and went to sleep thinking the sad end of a great friendship between two friends Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and lot of other friends as well. The book is only and only about politics in Flipkart. Reader will not be wrong to assume that it was office politics that made Flipkart a billion-dollar company.
This was bound to happen because the author himself is highly politically motivated. He praises the first prime minister of India and abuses the socialism but doesn’t name Indira Gandhi who inserted the word “socialist” in constitution. Most surprising part is his mention of 2002 Gujarat riots which started after 59 Hindus (which included kids, women and old) were burnt alive in a train in a book on Flipkart which was founded only in 2007.
It is not surprising that in an era of 20 or more advance praises or previews, there is only one preview of the book that too by a non-Indian. The words used in the preview “mercurial founders, avaricious investors and ruthless internet kingpins”, indicate that it is a political book. It has no mention of talent, hard work, innovation, vision, etc. that make a billion-dollar company. The preview sounds as if it is talking about an “internet mafia company”, and the content of the book is solely responsible for this.
For the record, neither the Flipkart nor the Bansals interacted with the author for this book, a fact mentioned in the acknowledgment. The cover of the book should have mentioned that it is an “unofficial story of Flipkart”.
The book has named a lot of professionals and the incidents which can be harmful to those professionals, professionally. One wonders how will this unfold. Flipkart definitely deserved a better book but for those interested in office gossip and politics, there can’t be a better book then this.
