When Shark Tank India 3's Deepinder Goyal opened up about dealing with stammering, says ' I get conscious and it still makes me nervous'

Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato’s parent company Eternal, has decided to step down as Group CEO after leading the company for 18 years. His exit will take effect on February 1, 2026. This will mark a major leadership change for the Indian food tech company. As Deepinder makes headlines for this big move, here’s a look back at a throwback interview where he spoke openly about his stammering issue and shared why he prefers to stay away from public appearances.

In a podcast with Your Story, Deepinder spoke about his stammering, he said, "The stammering issue is still there. I still stammer, I get conscious and it still makes me nervous. I had to mentally prepare myself to do this as it takes a lot of effort from me. I cannot just straight up have a casual conversation. Calories lagti hain mujhe yeh sab karne mein because I stammer. This has been there since childhood, now I am at a point where 'bro you don't have a choice, so show up and do what you need to do'."

He also talked about the reason behind avoiding public appearances, "The only reason why I haven't been having a lot of public appearances or going to events is because of my stammering. I can't do much about it. A lot of it has to do with how calm I am. If I am speaking slowly, I'll be fine, I didn't know that. There are a couple of syllables which I get stuck at, I consciously try to avoid those while I am talking. There are years of practice doing that as well toh bach jaata hoon."

Deepinder graduated in Computer Science from IIT Delhi in 2004. This marked a turning point in his academic career. The entrepreneur started his career as a Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company after college. Frustrated by long food queues at Bain, Deepinder started FoodieBay.com along with his colleague Pankaj.

They first created it as an internal food ordering system for Bain employees. The website soon became popular and attracted heavy traffic. Seeing its potential, they rebranded it as Zomato.com, which later went on to change the food tech space.