
In this week's Outliers, Pankaj Mishra speaks to Sanjay Anandaram, a mentor to redBus founder Phanindta Sama.
Remember redBus? The online bus ticketing company that revolutionised that space.
When I first heard of redBus’s $125 million sale to the Ibibo Group in June 2013, I questioned the timing and said that it was an opportunity lost to create a truly Indian, next-generation company.
Later, when I met redBus founder Phanindra Sama and voiced this to him, his answer dwarfed my reasoning. “If you make 10-20 times the money much later in your life versus whatever you make now, as long as it is significant, I would take the money now because my parents are getting old,” he told me in this interview with Mint in September 2013.
In this week’s Outliers, I speak to Sanjay Anandaram, a former Wipro executive who now mentors startups and mentors founders. Anandaram is also mentor to Sama, and someone who watched the redBus story take shape and eventually find a new home.
“He once had to get off a train in the middle of the night because he was carrying only a photo copy of his ticket, which was invalid. He refused to bribe the ticket examiner,” says Anandaram.
“He once had to get off a train in the middle of the night because he was carrying only a photo copy of his ticket, which was invalid. He refused to bribe the ticket examiner” — Sanjay Anandaram on redBus founder Phanindra Sama