Haider Ali Khan

CEO of Bayut and Dubizzle

Compiled from 1 recorded interview. Every statement below is drawn from the passage cited beside it.

Haider Ali Khan is the chief executive of Bayut and Dubizzle. He was born in Lahore and lived in the US from 1994 to 2014 before moving to Dubai. He studied electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and worked at National Instruments.

Early life and background

Khan was born in Lahore. He grew up in Pakistan and went through the Pakistani schooling system. He says he was into sports, including cricket. He has two brothers who both studied in England. [1]

Education

Khan completed matric and FSc before going to the US at 18. He studied engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His engineering degree was in electrical and computer engineering. [1]

Career in the United States

Khan lived in Austin and worked at National Instruments, a company based in Austin, Texas. He started in hardware engineering. He says he always liked challenges and was told that hardware engineer was the most difficult job to get. He later moved into software development and firmware work, and he says he worked across the full stack, from bare silicon up to application software. [1]

For a period he worked at Silicon Labs, a chip maker, where he worked on a chip that let users tune into radio stations. He returned to National Instruments because he missed other kinds of work. There he moved into management and rose through the ranks. [1]

Khan describes how the company he worked for handled a downturn. It cut pay by 5 to 10 percent across the board instead of laying people off. It said that once the downturn passed it would have enough people to sell twice as much, and it repeated the same approach in the 2008 and 2009 downturn. Khan says downturns still hold opportunity. [1]

Move to Dubai

Khan lived in the US from 1994 to 2014 before moving to Dubai. He was doing well in his corporate career when he considered the move. He says he wanted to be closer to his family. [1]

Bayut and Dubizzle

Khan says the Bayut office had two or three people in total. He says he had never done sales, and that they did not have money to burn. The first people hired were all salespeople, and the team set aggressive growth goals and aimed to double the target every year. He says the lows were the lowest he has felt and the highs were the highest. [1]

Khan is the CEO of Bayut and Dubizzle. He is part of the board and oversees the Middle East operations. He says the Bayut name means houses in Arabic. He says the group was renamed Dubizzle Group because the name is well known in the Middle East. [1]

Khan says the group acquired a few businesses around 2020, including one in Thailand. He says the group operates across the GCC and is also found in Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan. He adds that the group no longer has its Morocco business. [1]

Khan says the property side is purely an ads business. He says Dubizzle now has more than a single category and is not only real estate. He describes the classified model as an old one that moved from print to digital. [1]

Views

Khan says a business is like a living organism that needs attention every day. He says success is built by steady small efforts, not one big win. He says the next step is to line up and train new leadership. He says the team has always aimed to do the right thing by everyone. He also says a company should enter an opportunity only with capital and people behind it. [1]

On Dubai, Khan says the property market was coming down from 2014 to 2020. He says he is very excited about Dubai's future and thinks Dubai will become a technology hub. He cites an initiative under which Dubai wants to double its economy over the next ten years. He says about 90 percent of Dubai's population are expatriates, and he describes Dubai as a melting pot of nationalities. [1]

On listings, Khan says companies that list outside their home region usually do not get the value or premium. He says the best place for a company to list is wherever it operates, where people know the brand. [1]

Personal life

Khan says he used to jog three miles every day. [1]

Timeline

1994
Began a period of living in the US that lasted until 2014.[1]
2008
The company he worked for repeated its pay-cut approach in the 2008 and 2009 downturn.[1]
2014
Ended his years in the US and moved to Dubai.[1]
2020
Around this year the group acquired a few businesses, including one in Thailand.[1]

Appearances

DateTitleWhere
2024-01-17 Nobody had ever displaced a number one in classifieds Thought Behind Things

Frequently asked questions

Who is Haider Ali Khan?

Haider Ali Khan is the chief executive of Bayut and Dubizzle. He was born in Lahore and lived in the US from 1994 to 2014 before moving to Dubai.[1]

What does Haider Ali Khan do?

Haider Ali Khan is the CEO of Bayut and Dubizzle. He is part of the board and oversees the Middle East operations.[1]

Where did Haider Ali Khan study?

Haider Ali Khan completed matric and FSc before going to the US at 18. He then studied engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His degree was in electrical and computer engineering.[1]

Where is Haider Ali Khan from?

Haider Ali Khan was born in Lahore and grew up in Pakistan. He later lived in the US from 1994 to 2014 before moving to Dubai.[1]

Why did Haider Ali Khan move to Dubai?

Haider Ali Khan says he wanted to be closer to his family. He was doing well in his corporate career when he considered the move.[1]

What does the name Bayut mean?

Haider Ali Khan says the Bayut name means houses in Arabic. He says the group was later renamed Dubizzle Group because the name is well known in the Middle East.[1]

What does Haider Ali Khan think about Dubai's future?

Haider Ali Khan says he is very excited about Dubai's future and thinks Dubai will become a technology hub. He cites an initiative under which Dubai wants to double its economy over the next ten years.[1]

References

  1. Nobody had ever displaced a number one in classifieds . Thought Behind Things , 2024-01-17.
Show the source passages (55 statements)
  1. He was born in Lahore. Ji, um, to I was, uh, I was born in Lahore.
  2. He grew up in Pakistan and went through the Pakistani schooling system. grew up through the Pakistani schooling system, um, did my matric and then did FSc.
  3. He completed matric and FSc before going to the US at 18. did my matric and then did FSc. Uh, phir jab 18 ka tha to I was 18, um, then I went to the US
  4. He studied engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. studied engineering. Over there, the University of Texas at Austin.
  5. His engineering degree was in electrical and computer engineering. Uh, electrical and computer engineering. Right.
  6. He says he was into sports, including cricket. I was into sports, cricket khelte raho bahar jaake sara waqt.
  7. He lived in Austin. so I was in Austin which is a very green.
  8. He worked at National Instruments in Austin, Texas. at a company called National Instruments, um, and, uh, uh, based in Austin, Texas.
  9. He started in hardware engineering. shuru mein maine hardware engineering ki.
  10. He says he always liked challenges and was told that hardware engineer was the most difficult job to get. I always liked challenges. Um, and somebody said ke the most difficult job to get is a hardware engineer job
  11. He later moved into software development and firmware work. Then I went into more of the software development side, um, um, uh, firmware
  12. He worked across the full stack, from bare silicon up to application software. So, I kind of did the whole stack, way from bare silicon all the way up to application level software.
  13. He worked for a period at Silicon Labs, a chip maker. beech mein main Silicon Labs chale gaya, you know, they make, um, chips, right?
  14. At Silicon Labs he worked on a chip that let users tune into radio stations. that was our chip that basically that would allow you to tune into radio stations, right?
  15. He returned to National Instruments because he missed other kinds of work. But then I went back to National Instruments because I was missing some of the other kind of stuff.
  16. He moved into management at National Instruments and rose through the ranks. went into management, um, and then kind of rose through the ranks over there
  17. The company he worked for cut pay by 5 to 10 percent across the board instead of laying people off. Um we didn't have any layoffs. The company rather decided ke okay, everybody take a 5-10% pay cut.
  18. The company said that once the downturn passed it would have enough people to sell twice as much. And when this passes, when we're on the other side of this storm, we will have enough people to sell twice as much.
  19. The company repeated the same approach in the 2008 and 2009 downturn. And then came 2008, 2009 when the mortgage crisis hit, uh which was a global kind of a meltdown. Um the company did exactly the same thing.
  20. He says downturns still hold opportunity. you just have to look look for the opportunity in in in this time because there is opportunity, right?
  21. He lived in the US from 1994 to 2014 before moving to Dubai. a good 20 years in the US, uh, you know, 94 se 2014 tak till I moved here.
  22. He wanted to be closer to his family. generally yeh tha ke need to be closer to the family.
  23. He was doing well in his corporate career when he considered the move. I was doing really well, Alhamdulillah. Allah ka karam hai. Um in the corporate world.
  24. He says the Bayut office had two or three people in total. Bayut office mein total do ya teen log they.
  25. He says he had never done sales. there were certain things that I had never done. I never done sales.
  26. He says they did not have money to burn. we had to basically we didn't have money to burn.
  27. He says the lows were the lowest he has felt and the highs were the highest. the lows were the lowest lows that I've ever felt and the highs were the highest highs I've ever felt
  28. He says a business is like a living organism that needs attention every day. almost a business is like a living organism, right? All things have to function all the time, 24/7.
  29. He says the next step is to line up and train new leadership. Let's get the new leadership lined up. Train them.
  30. He says success is built by steady small efforts, not one big win. success is built by the by the drops in the bucket, not just really just getting a a full bucket
  31. He says the team has always aimed to do the right thing by everyone. we always strive to do the right thing uh by everyone
  32. The Bayut name means houses in Arabic. chalo yahan pe bayut uh which means houses in Arabic.
  33. He says the group was renamed Dubizzle Group because the name is well known in the Middle East. we just rebranded the group to Dubizzle Group because in the Middle East, it's it's it's a well-known entity
  34. He says the group acquired a few businesses around 2020, including one in Thailand. We acquired like, you know, around 2020, we acquired a few businesses. Thailand mein the with Kaidee
  35. He says the group operates across the GCC. So we are operational in GCC.
  36. He says the group is also found in Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan. you'll find us in Egypt, uh Lebanon and then uh you'll find us in Pakistan with OLX
  37. He says the group no longer has its Morocco business. we had a business in Morocco but it's not with us anymore
  38. He says the property side is purely an ads business. So I think on the property side, it's purely ads.
  39. He says Dubizzle now has more than a single category and is not only real estate. now Dubizzle has more than a single category. Sirf real estate nahi hai
  40. He says the classified model is an old one that moved from print to digital. So this is just a transformation of that age old like, you know, century old industry into a uh digital platform, right?
  41. He says the first people hired were all salespeople. the first X number of people that we hired were all sales people.
  42. He says the team set aggressive growth goals and aimed to double the target every year. we always set aggressive growth goals. We said, okay, ye is saal ye kiya hai, agla saal usko double karna hai.
  43. He says Dubai's property market was coming down from 2014 to 2020. 2014 se 2020 tak the property market was not it was coming down
  44. He says he is very excited about Dubai's future. I just feel very excited about the future of uh of Dubai.
  45. He thinks Dubai will become a technology hub. it's going to be a technology hub.
  46. He cites an initiative under which Dubai wants to double its economy over the next ten years. the D33 initiative which is you know the next 10 years, uh Dubai wants to double its economy, right?
  47. He says about 90 percent of Dubai's population are expatriates. I mean 90% of the population is expats.
  48. He describes Dubai as a melting pot of nationalities. if there's a melting pot this is it. Because you just see so many different nationalities.
  49. He says companies that list outside their home region usually do not get the value or premium. when people go outside of the region and list, at least if you just look at the numbers, they they don't get the value nor the premium.
  50. He says the best place for a company to list is wherever it operates, where people know the brand. No no, just generally wherever you are. Right? Because that's where people understand the brand
  51. He says a company should enter an opportunity only with capital and people behind it. If you see an opportunity and you say yes this is worth doing it, put capital behind it, put manpower and etc. Do it.
  52. He says he used to jog three miles every day. every day I would go for uh three mile jog.
  53. He has two brothers who both studied in England. I have two brothers. Um you know, they both studied from England.
  54. He is part of the board and oversees the Middle East operations. you are uh part of the board and so I know that you, for those who don't know, you look after the Middle East operations. Yes, correct.
  55. He is the CEO of Bayut and Dubizzle. Haider Ali Khan is the CEO at Bayut & Dubizzle.