“There has to be a semblance of justice and fairness in your distributions system or else we are going to see the social conflict.”
Sridhar Vembu is an accomplished businessman, billionaire, and founder of Zoho, a multinational technology company that develops software and cloud-based business tools. Born in Tamil Nadu, in a modest Brahmin family, young Sridhar was schooled through IIT-Madras. Further, he completed his Electrical Engineering through Princeton University.
Although he initially started working as a wireless engineer in Qualcomm, he founded the software development company named AdventNet along with his brothers Kumar and Sekar, and friend Tony Thomas, which was renamed to be Zoho Corporation. The company boasts of not seeking external funds and respecting the privacy of its clients the most.
It also has an in-house Zoho University, which trains students with hands-on software skills, communication, and mathematical concepts to students who have passed Class 12. They claim their education to be different than conventional college-style education. The idea was generated after a survey was conducted among their employees to understand the utility of college education for current job. The concept of Zoho school was to prepare them for a real-life working environment.
“I spent time in rural India and so I was able to observe these things first hand. Then I realized for a lot of businesses technology is a critical cost and we don’t want to be a costly input to our customers, because then our customers cannot survive in business very long term if they have very costly inputs from us.”
As per the latest reports of 2022, his net worth is estimated to be USD 3.75 billion. He is married to Pramila Srinivisan, who is also a CEO and founder of a software company, and stays in the U.S. along with their son. He even funds a school in Tamil Nadu.
Although he has multiple achievements to boast about, Sridhar chooses to remain levelheaded and work towards achieving next objectives. He believes in a work culture that is stress-free. Today, Zoho’s business is valued at almost USD 1 billion and has branches across the world. Recently, he shifted to Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu for better health and experience better quality of life for him and his staff.
“I don’t get too excited about things… I don’t go to extremes vis-à-vis emotions about anything. I try to be moderate.”
Birth Score – 3/5
Pride Score – 4/5
An impressive 7/10 Notable Brahmin Score.