New Delhi, April 21 -- Summer of 1997.

The dotcom boom was in full swing on Wall Street. Venture capital firms, investment banks and retail investors were in a mad scramble to get their hands on anything with a '.com' attached to its name. Every company seemed to be a trailblazing hero which was about to dislodge the outdated, crusty incumbents and rewrite history. Every founder was a Napoleon, Guevara and Rockefeller rolled into one.

On 15 May that year, a small, Seattle-based startup made its market debut. Founded by a nerdy Wall Street executive with a disarmingly hearty laughter, the three-year-old company had never made a dollar in profit. Its topline growth was impressive, but equally impressive was its growing list of competitors...