The body of V G Siddhartha, the founder of Café Coffee Day, was recovered on Wednesday, July 31, 2019, from a river of Mangalore. He went missing two days earlier from a bridge over the Netravati river. It was a suicide according to a letter allegedly written by Siddhartha. Purportedly, he had succumbed to the mounting financial pressures he was facing from his lenders.
Coffee Day was considered a successful coffee brand in India, founded by Siddharth in 1993. With over 1700 outlets across 245 Indian cities, it also has a considerable global presence. Siddharth and his family held major shares in the Coffee Day Enterprises, which went public in 2015.
He was a successful entrepreneur who had witnessed the rise of his business. He wrote a history of successful branding. However, he was unable to meet the investors’ expectations, which he never intended to do, as stated in his letter.
In another incident, a few weeks earlier, in Karachi, a television anchor Mureed Abbas was allegedly killed by a businessman Atif Zaman. As per the media reports, Abbas was one of the investors who had invested around Rs 1.26 billion in the business run by Zaman. The preliminary investigation revealed that Zaman was facing financial issues and was unable to meet the commitments made to his investors. Ultimately, he ended taking his life.
Indeed, both news was very depressing. However, they had shown some similarity of the stress, which businessmen are going through.
Furthermore, the tragic outcome raised many questions on the functioning of the individual capacities, investment market, particularly, on the neoliberalism approach.
The high-stress level in entrepreneurs is very much evident from the research done in studying the stress level that entrepreneurs faced during their business lifecycle.
A most recent study published in the journal of Small Business Economics found entrepreneurs experiencing more depression and 72 per cent of entrepreneurs are affected, due to their mental health issues
As per the Gallup Wellbeing Index, 45 per cent of entrepreneurs reported being stressed.
A most recent study published in the journal of Small Business Economics found entrepreneurs experiencing more depression and 72 per cent of entrepreneurs are affected, due to their mental health issues. The psychiatric temperaments can affect the entrepreneur’s motivation and their ultimate functioning. In similar research published by the Financial Planning Association’s Janus Henderson, investors and Investopedia found a significant connection between stress and feeling of financial insecurity.
Two recent cases were similar with different outcomes. They are clear evidence of stress that usually entrepreneurs go through. Although the events could not be generalized, they still need attention from scholars and theorists to study the relationship between human capacity, financial liberty and associated risks.
Neoclassical liberalism advocates liberty of market and emphasises on the individual’s role in determining values, which might have changed the market norms to maximise profits, On the other hand, it has opened up temptations of unlimited growth, which a normal human brain is unable to sustain.
The writer is a PhD scholar in Sustainability Management from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada