Bullied, ignored, and written off: Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal’s most personal confession yet |
Long before Deepinder Goyal became the face of Zomato, he was the kid people didn’t really wait for.As a child, he says, he felt invisible. He was short, struggled with his studies, and his stammer made everyday conversations exhausting. Not because he didn’t have things to say, but because people rarely waited to hear them.“Mid-sentence, people would lose patience,” he recalled. “They’d start talking to someone else or just look away.” Over time, that does something to you. You begin to believe that maybe what you’re saying doesn’t matter. Maybe you don’t matter. His school years were tough. He scored 42 per cent in Class 11, the kind of number that, in India, can follow you like a shadow. But the marks weren’t what stayed with him. It was the feeling of being dismissed. Of being underestimated before he even finished a sentence.At home, his family supported him. But bullying has a way of overpowering even the strongest reassurance. When the outside world keeps sending the same message, you start to believe it. “You feel like your parents are just being kind,” Goyal said. “And that the world outside is telling the truth.”For years, his stammer chipped away at his confidence. Even as he grew older, that hesitation stayed, the fear of being cut off, of not being heard.Today, at 42, his relationship with it has changed.
He no longer rushes his words or feels embarrassed when he gets stuck. “The word will come out,” he said, almost casually. And that acceptance, he believes, came with time, and with proving himself.Success has changed how people treat him. Now, even if he pauses mid-sentence, people wait. They listen. Not because he speaks perfectly, but because he’s earned their attention. “Even if I stammer now,” he said, “people will hear me.”He admitted that his speech may have cost him opportunities along the way. Some investors may have walked away. Some rooms may have judged him too quickly. But he kept showing up anyway.
From a boy others were told not to befriend, to a founder leading one of India’s most recognisable companies, Goyal’s story isn’t about overcoming a flaw. It’s about learning not to fight it.And sometimes, that quiet acceptance is the biggest win of all.
