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| 2010 PSFK NY Conference - Naveen Selvadurai (Photo credit: Dave Pinter) |
This summer, over dinner at a restaurant only 400 feet from Foursquare's headquarters, Selvadurai had his first on-the-record conversation about the exit. He's still visibly hurt by it, like a man not yet over his divorce, and yet spoke politely, if hesitantly. "It was definitely a surprise. I wanted to stay," Selvadurai says. He'd look away and take long pauses, trying to find the words. He wouldn't go into detail. "This was my baby. To leave everything behind--it was the worst kind of breakup ever. I truly feel like an orphan." Though he remains a shareholder, Selvadurai left the board in October. When asked if he's on good terms with Crowley, Selvadurai only says, "We haven't talked in a long time, since that last conversation."
My instincts at the time were right. The guy was jilted, after all. Now that I have the truth, the call I am making is it was a bad move. It is a DNA thing. A move like that hurts the company, I think.
