If you hire in India, you already know this story. The candidate clears every round. They accept the offer. Everyone relaxes. Then, a week before the joining date, the calls stop getting answered.
Offer backouts are one of the most expensive problems in hiring, and one of the least talked about. Weeks of sourcing, interviews and negotiation disappear overnight. The role reopens, the team stays short, and you start again from zero.
Most companies respond with more control: tighter follow-ups, longer contracts, blacklists. One founder went the other way.
What Kunal Shah did
In July 2018, a founder on X asked the question every hiring team in India has asked: what do you do about candidates who confirm a joining date and never show up?
Kunal Shah, founder of Freecharge and CRED, who is currently the global CEO of WhatsApp replied with this:
No penalty clause. No extra follow-up calls. A new MacBook, sent with the offer letter, with one condition: if you decide not to join, send it back.
The result, in his words: 99% joined. 0% laptops lost.
His explanation is the part worth remembering: most people are not used to being trusted first.
Why candidates back out
Strip away the excuses and almost every backout comes down to two reasons:
- Their current company retains them. The resignation triggers a counteroffer, a hike, a promotion, or just a guilt-heavy conversation with a manager.
- They get a better offer. Notice periods in India often run 60 to 90 days. That is a long window for other companies to keep calling.
Both come from the same gap. Between offer and joining day, the candidate knows almost nothing about you. They have a salary number and a designation. Their current company has years of relationships, and the competing offer has a fresh pitch.
In that gap, your offer is the weakest one in the room. Money alone won’t fix it, because someone can always match the money.
Why a MacBook works
Think about Google. Ask most engineers if they would join, and they say yes before asking about the role, the team or the work. Why? Because they have seen the offices, the free food, the beanbags. They have never worked there, but they have already decided the culture is great.
That is the power of a signal. People judge a company by the few things they can actually see.
A candidate joining a startup sees almost nothing. A MacBook arriving with the offer letter changes that, for three reasons:
- It’s rare. Most Indian companies hand out Windows laptops, often old ones. A brand new Mac on day zero says this company is different before anyone says a word.
- It’s trust, made physical. You are handing over an expensive asset before they have done a single day of work. Few candidates have ever been treated this way, and it creates a strong pull to return that trust by showing up.
- It’s a preview. Opening a new MacBook is the first experience of the company. It makes them curious about what else is coming. That curiosity outweighs their fear of the unknown, and makes a few thousand rupees from a counteroffer feel smaller.
A counteroffer can match your salary. It can’t easily match the feeling that a company trusted you first.
But what if they don’t return it?
This is the first question every finance team will ask. What if they keep the laptop and never join? What if it gets damaged? What if a few people take advantage?
Those are fair questions. But compare the two risks:
| You lose a MacBook | You lose the hire | |
| Direct cost | One laptop | Weeks of sourcing, interviews and negotiation |
| Time lost | None | Another 1 to 3 months to refill the role |
| Business impact | Close to zero | Team stays short, delivery slips, the next candidate starts from zero |
A backout is a far bigger loss than a laptop. And Kunal Shah’s number was 0% laptops lost.
You can keep asking “what if they don’t return it?” Or you can ask “what if they join?” You won’t know which one is true for your company until you try it.
How to try it
You don’t need a company-wide policy to test this. Run it on your next few hires:
- Pick the roles where backouts hurt most. Senior engineers, hard-to-fill roles, anyone with a long notice period.
- Ship the laptop with the offer letter, not on day one. The point is to reach them during the notice period, when counteroffers and other calls come in.
- Keep the condition simple. One line: if you decide not to join, please return it. No legal threats.
- Track two numbers: how many joined, and how many laptops came back from those who didn’t.
This isn’t a guaranteed fix. But it worked well enough for Kunal Shah to talk about it publicly. Unless you try it, you won’t know whether it works for you.
Trust first. Then see who shows up.
