From ‘come to India’ to ‘pray for us’: Sridhar Vembu trolled for sending mixed messages to NRIs; he says, ‘What is the alternative? Beg them to allow us to stay?’

Sridhar Vembu gets trolled for announcing that his employees won’t get appraisal this year, days after urging NRIs to return to India and build for India.

When the US administration announced the suspension of the Green Card process of eight top IT companies, including Microsoft, that would hugely impact Indian techies hoping to get permanent residency in the US, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu urged these NRIs to return to India and build for India. Four days later, Vembu announced that Zoho employees will not receive their appraisal this year. In his post announcing the overall budget cut, he also added a “Please pray for us” and immediately got called out for his double standard. Social media users asked him why he was urging NRIs to return to India at a time his own company can’t pay the employees their due salary hike.For Zoho’s inability to give appraisals, Vembu blamed AI and a challenging geopolitical backdrop. He also said most of the employees understand the situation and he’s thankful to them.“The business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically with a) massive 4-fold increase in server prices which we need for data centers b) AI usage increasing rapidly, leading to much higher expenses, which we are trying to control.On top of that is the challenging geopolitical backdrop.”“We have cut down on our marketing budget. We have also told our employees that we cannot have our usual pay increase this year. I have apolgized for not being able to avoid this. We will work hard to avoid mass layoffs but the outlook for software jobs in general is grim. We have not been growing our employee count for 18 months now,” he said.“We are in the middle of reinventing ourselves. The next 3-5 years will decide how our reinvention has worked. Please pray for us 🙏,” he concluded.“If Zoho itself has been struggling with the business outlook for 18 months, hasn’t increased headcount, and is unable to offer regular salary hikes, how easy is it going to be for returning NRIs to find opportunities and build here?” one wrote reacting to Vembu.“Patriotism can inspire people to return, but it cannot replace a strong business environment, access to capital, customers and sustainable job opportunities. We need people to return and build in India. But we also need to create an ecosystem where they can actually succeed,” the reaction added.“Massive respect to @svembu for coming out and talking about this. It takes a lot of courage to do this and that in his own way. When I read the comments, it’s pretty sad. Most of them haven’t ever built anything worthwhile in their lives, yet they’re commenting on how he should be running his company. I pity them,” another comment read, defending Vembu.

‘What is the alternative? Beg them to allow us to stay?’

Vembu reacted to all the trolling and asked what the alternative is if the US does not let Indians stay. “When another country tells you to go home, you come home. What is the alternative? Beg them to allow us to stay? Stay illegally?There are a million things to build in India, even if software is saturated or goes away,” Vembu added.