Tech CEO Jyoti Bansal reflects on billion-dollar sale that made hundreds of his employees millionaires

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Jyoti Bansal, founder of the software company AppDynamics, revealed that selling his startup for $3.7 billion to Cisco in 2017 was one of the most challenging decisions of his career. Despite the financial success that followed, Bansal shared in a recent interview with CNBC that the sale left him feeling “sad and depressed.”

Bansal, now 46, built AppDynamics to address the software troubleshooting problems he faced as an engineer. His goal wasn’t financial gain but solving a critical problem in the tech industry. The company gained a strong reputation, attracting the attention of tech giant Cisco. Just as AppDynamics was preparing to go public, Cisco swooped in with an offer Bansal couldn’t refuse.

“We announced the sale, had a huge party… but walking home after, I was sad. I spent nine years of my life fully dedicated to what we were building,” Bansal told CNBC, describing it as “the end of a chapter.”

While the acquisition made hundreds of AppDynamics employees millionaires overnight, including Bansal himself, he regretted the decision. He felt the company could have grown even larger and that his journey was left unfinished.

After a brief period of traveling and ticking off his bucket list, Bansal launched a new startup, Harness, in 2017. This time, he is determined to take the company further, rejecting any premature offers to sell.

The full interview, part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, captures Bansal’s journey and the lessons he learned from selling his first company.

Bansal was born in Rajasthan, India, where he helped his father run a small business. He studied computer science at IIT Delhi before moving to Silicon Valley in 2000 to work for tech startups. Visa restrictions initially prevented him from starting his own company, but after receiving his Green Card, he founded AppDynamics.

Cover photo courtesy: Jyoti Bansal, LinkedIn.

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