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46-YO founder turns 400 of his employees into millionaires by selling his startup for $3.7B

Jyoti Bansal got an offer to sell his software company for $3.7 billion. What should have been his biggest moment turned into one of his biggest regrets.

By Ishita Ganguly
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Jyoti Bansal

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For many, Jyoti Bansal was living his life as he got an offer to sell his software startup AppDynamics for a whopping  $3.7 billion. And the offer came from none other than the tech giant Cisco. Only no one knew his triumphant moment was becoming one of his biggest regrets.

When Cisco plummeted in with a last-minute acquisition offer in 2017, the startup founder found himself at a crossroads. The deal would bring him good money still it became his "saddest day."

“When I started [AppDynamics], I didn't think about a financial outcome,” Bansal remarked to CNBC. “I just thought in terms of: This problem needs to be solved.

However, AppDynamics soon became popular for its ability to help companies troubleshoot and prevent software glitches.

What is AppDynamics?

Founded in 2008, AppDynamics is an application intelligence company that provides enterprises with real-time insights into application performance. Bansal led the company as founder and CEO for the first eight years, and as founder & Chairman for the last year until its acquisition by Cisco.

Who is Jyoti Bansal?

Currently based in San Francisco, Jyoti Bansal is a multi-unicorn founder, serial technology entrepreneur, and a passionate mentor and investor in the tech sector. Currently, he is the founder and CEO of two high-growth technology companies - Harness, a platform to automate software delivery processes valued at $3.7 billion as of 2022, and Traceable AI, a cybersecurity platform for securing software applications.

Both of these startups are reflections of Bansal’s strong belief that software can change the world for the better. 

Jyoti has a BS in Computer Science from the premium Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Bansal was a Silicon Valley software engineer before becoming an entrepreneur. A prolific inventor, Jyoti has more than 25 patents under his name.

He received several leadership awards including Forbes’ “Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For”, “Best CEO” by the San Francisco Business Times, and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year for Northern California.

When Jyoti Bansal made “the hardest decision” of his career to sell his first software startup, he did it keeping his employees in mind.

Approximately 400 AppDynamics employees saw their shares of the company rise to at least $1 million, a spokesperson for Bansal informed CNBC. “We had dozens of employees with $5 million-plus outcomes. These are life-changing outcomes,” he revealed.

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