Nadiem Makarim, creator of the Indonesian unicorn Gojek, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of €40 million for an irregular laptop contract while he was minister.
The founder of Gojek, Nadiem Makarim, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of €40 million for corruption. The ruling, issued at the end of June 2026, finds that the entrepreneur, who served as Indonesia's Minister of Education and Culture, awarded a multimillion-euro contract to an investor from his own company without a public tender and disregarding technical reports.
From Unicorn to Court
Makarim founded Gojek in 2010, at just over twenty years old with an MBA from Harvard. The motorcycle taxi and delivery platform became Indonesia's first unicorn in 2016, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. In subsequent funding rounds, it reached $6 billion, with investors including Google and Softbank.
In 2019, he accepted the Ministry of Education, Culture and Technology, formally distancing himself from the company. From that position, he pushed for the purchase of 1.2 million Chromebooks for schools across the Indonesian archipelago. The chosen supplier was Google, one of the key investors in his former company. There was no public tender, and according to the ruling, he ignored a technical report that advised against that model of laptop in a country of six thousand islands with irregular Wi-Fi coverage.
The operation cost the Indonesian state €40 million. The sentence requires him to pay that same amount; if he fails to do so, the sentence will be extended by five more years. The founder left the courthouse in tears and stated that it is impossible for him to gather that amount.
The Reputational Cost and Lessons for the Ecosystem
Makarim's case serves as a warning for any entrepreneur handling venture capital rounds. When an investor also becomes a public client, the conflict of interest is not a legal nuance, but dynamite. And if you also hold a government position, the penal code does not understand growth metrics.
The irony is that the Makarim family had an impeccable reputation in the fight against corruption: his mother co-founded an integrity award and his father was part of the committee that ousted a parliamentary president during Suharto's dictatorship. The son has ended up behind bars for the same practices they fought against.
The case of Makarim demonstrates that integrity is not inherited: it is exercised, especially when there is a lot of capital at stake.
While the former minister faces prison, the Indonesian government has approved a decree reducing the commission that platforms like Gojek charge drivers from 20% to 8%. This measure further depresses Gojek's stock price, which is now worth a tenth of the $30 billion it reached at its IPO.
For the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem, where more and more founders collaborate with the public sector or receive European funding, the lesson is clear: the pressure to justify valuation to investors cannot become a shortcut that bypasses legality. An unfavourable technical report should not be ignored; it should be debated, improved, or transparently rejected, but never buried.
What It Means for the Reader
If you are an entrepreneur, this case reminds you that ethics are not a luxury: they are a red line. Makarim's sentence is firm and his reputation irretrievable. Forming an ethics committee from day one and documenting all sensitive decisions are steps that can prevent a similar disaster.
The sentence will take effect immediately, although the defence has announced that it will appeal. Makarim insists he has been a victim of political persecution, but the documentary evidence of the contract without a tender and the ignored technical report weighs more than his arguments. The case is already being studied in business schools as an example of what not to do when power and money intersect.
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