As Zoho crosses $1 billion revenue mark, Sridhar Vembu sounds a warning

Zoho boss Sridhar Vembu’s comments come in the backdrop of billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

As Zoho crossed the $1 billion revenue mark, with the IT firm’s business growing 77 per cent on year-over-year basis, Sridhar Vembu, its founder and CEO stressed on the importance of staying humble.

“While our billion dollar milestone is important, recent events in the industry should remind all of us in technology to have more humility. Technology is very important but we cannot code more food nor compile more energy. We will cherish this moment with gratitude and humility,” Sridhar Vembu tweeted on Wednesday.

While our billion dollar milestone is important, recent events in the industry should remind all of us in technology to have more humility. Technology is very important but we cannot code more food nor compile more energy. We will cherish this moment with gratitude & humility.

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) November 9, 2022

Vembu’s comments come in the backdrop of billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the mass layoffs at the social media giant.

The Chennai-based has business in over 150 countries and has built a user base of over 80 million in the last 25 years of operations.

Zoho, which as a 11,000-strong workforce, could hire more than 1,000 employees over the next one year even as large technology companies across the world such as Stripe, Facebook, Lyft and others are either laying off staff or putting a freeze on hiring.

Vembu said that the company's growth is driven by research and development and a lot of firms are shifting to Zoho applications which is driving growth for the company.

"We have seen growth slow down. You can see across the board. We have a very diversified product suite and offer the most affordable solution but we are in a massive earthquake zone of economy with tremors being already visible.”

"Our first priority is to keep all the jobs," Vembu added.