This Indian-origin founder turned 400 employees into millionaires after selling startup for $3.7 billion

Jyoti Bansal had founded AppDynamics in 2008. Now, he is the CEO and co-founder of two other software startups, Traceable and Harness. (Image credit: Harness)

When Jyoti Bansal sold his software startup for $3.7 billion in 2017, he turned 400 of his employees into millionaires. The San Francisco-based entrepreneur — who was born in India — said that selling AppDynamics was "the hardest decision” of his career but he did it with his employees in mind, CNBC Make It reported.

The startup had developed a reputation for helping big companies fix their "wonky apps" and it was days away from going public when communications tech giant Cisco offered to buy the business for $3.7 billion. Bansal said he would have become wealthy either way but accepting Cisco's offer meant a better future for many of his nearly 1,200 employees. But selling the company he had founded in 2008 was not a joyous occasion for him, it was the “saddest day”.

"We announced the sale, and then we had a huge party at our office in San Francisco. Folks from Cisco were there. It was a very happy celebration," the 46-year-old told CNBC. "But walking home after, I was sad and depressed. I spent nine years of my life fully dedicated to what we were building there. Suddenly, it’s the end of a chapter... That’s the bittersweet part of selling your company. It’s a great outcome in a lot of ways, but it’s the end of a chapter, or end of a book, in many ways too. I was kind of lost."

Bansal added that he really enjoyed building the company, creating products, solving problems, competing in the market, and every other aspect of company building that I’d gone through. It was intense and stressful, but I really enjoyed it. I also felt like we didn’t fully finish what we could’ve done," he said.

But he also admitted that selling AppDynamics to Cisco was the right decision based on the information he had at the time. The deal was financially significant for him too since he owned more than 14 percent of the company.

Reaching a $3.7 billion market capitalisation would’ve taken about four years of great execution, Bansal estimated. “That means three [to] four years of risk that we ... reduced for all of the employees there. [That’s] a significant impact.... As the founder, it was much more than life-changing money for me, personally,” he told the publication. “I would be in a good place. So that was a factor for me, but not the biggest factor. The biggest for me was our employees.”

Today, Bansal is the CEO and co-founder of two other software startups, Traceable and Harness, the latter was valued at $3.7 billion in 2022. When asked if he would consider an offer to sell his startups, the founder was quick to respond: "The answer is no — unless something crazy happens."