Indonesian unicorn startup Traveloka announced the resignation of its co-founder, Derianto Kusuma, from his position as chief technology officer on Tuesday. Derianto was one of three persons involved in the establishment in February 2012 of the online ticketing and hotel booking service, which has since become one of the leading tech companies in Southeast Asia.
“Deri has played an unparalleled role in Traveloka’s development and success by building, scaling, and making not only sustainable technology capability and systems but also a sustainable organization,” said Ferry Unardi, chief executive and co-founder of Traveloka.
Following his exit from the company, Derianto took to online publishing platform Medium to write about his journey. In his post, he wrote about what drove him to start the company and the actual implementation of different business models throughout the nearly seven years since Traveloka was founded.
He also touched on why he decided it was best for him to leave.
“A few years ago, the battle started to show trends towards being more commercially than innovation-driven, predatory than productive, perception-oriented than fundamentals-oriented,” Derianto wrote.
With these new trends, Derianto felt that his duty – building the technological foundation – had been fulfilled.
“Two years ago, I ensured Traveloka had strong technological, organizational foundations built for scale and sustainability, and put in place a solid senior team that can take them forward,” Derianto wrote.
Though Derianto wrote that he would be spending more time with family and friends after resigning, he said he “yearns” to develop a new venture in a noncompeting category, a technology that would “fundamentally transform society.”
“I’m glad that we have finally reached this milestone where I believe it’s a win-win for everyone involved,” Derianto wrote.
