Now, Housing's Rahul Yadav challenges Zomato's Deepinder, Ola's Bhavish to give away half their stakes

Rahul Yadav, the 26-year-old CEO of Housing.com, isn’t going away any time soon. After gifting his entire stake in the company to his employees on Wednesday, Yadav has now challenged Deepinder Goyal of Zomato and Bhavish Aggarwal of OlaCabs to give away at least half of their stakes in their respective companies to their employees. “Now I challenge Deepinder Goyal of Zomato and Bhavish Aggarwal of Olacabs to continue this noble act and give away HALF (not full) OF THEIR SHARES to their employees. And I hope both of them spread the nominations further,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday night.  Yadav had given away his entire stake in Housing.com to his staff as he thought “it is too early in life to be serious about money etc”. The ’noble act’ meant the employees will get will get approximately 1 year of their annual salaries worth of Housing stocks. The company statement said the stake would be worth anywhere between Rs 150-200 crore. The act has made him a cult CEO among the middle class as the reaction from many a corporate sector employees show. Many have even challenged the old guard of India Inc whether they would do something like this. But there are others who think it was only a PR stunt by Yadav, who received a lot of bad press last week when he resigned as the CEO of his company challenging the “intellectual capability” of the board members only to apologise and return. “Housing.com needs to correct its imagery. The good thing is that correction can be attempted quick and fast as well. eSpace can damage you fast, it can correct your reputation fast as well,” brand expert Harish Bijoor had told Firstpost. The latest FB post might have been a result of the PR boost he got yesterday. By challenging his peers and dubbing his move a ’noble act’, he is taking it to the next level. But are Deepinder and Bhavish up to pick up the gauntlet yet? Most likely not. Deepinder has replied to Yadav’s post with “Awwww. So cute.” Many may beg to differ, though.