‘Making money instead of progress’: Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu fires a Buddhist missile after Piyush Goyal wakes up startups

Union Minister Piyush Goyal recently questioned whether India’s startup ecosystem is high enough, sparking a debate. A few days later, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu shared his thoughts on how society can cope with the growing wealth gap. Although he did not mention startups directly or India, his position raised questions about the link between wealth, employment and wider responsibilities of the rich. Sridhar Vembu highlighted warnings about the dangers of wealth that do not create jobs. In his message, he lists five ways society is socially inequality and says only two of them are socially stable.

“We just want to make ice cream or fries?”

Speaking at an industry event, Goyal asked whether startups should continue to focus on areas such as food delivery and boutique brands or shift their energy to solving bigger challenges. “Should we aspire to be boys and girls?” he said, adding, “We just want to make ice cream or fries? Are we content with running shops?”
The minister urged startups to go beyond consumer-facing ideas and contribute to the world’s leading high-tech sector. He positioned the transition as the country’s long-term growth and competitiveness is crucial.

Vembu lists five ways society responds to wealth gaps

Shortly after Goyal’s speech, Sridhar Vembu posted on X (formerly Twitter) about society’s behavior when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. He wrote: “When some people have a lot of wealth and many have nothing, this is the 5 choices society makes, and we see these examples around the world.”

Sridhar Vembu proposes five results:

“People with wealth create jobs and develop skills in a wider population.”

“People who own wealth donate to create jobs indirectly.” “The government taxes those in need and taxes those in need in varying degrees of corruption or leaks.” “The ransomware networks emerge from the rich, and they find that enough people are willing to do the job…”

“The wealthy people hire huge security forces to resist being blackmailed.”

Vembu said: “Dharma indicates 1 and 2, and 1 is better than 2. This is also a biblical ban that teaches men how to fish.”

Vembu says: “Making money” is not a real progress

Vembu also criticized what he called “financialism.” This allows wealth to grow without creating jobs, he said. “The practice of finance is to separate wealth from employment through various schemes of monetary alchemy,” he wrote.

He said ancient Indian society understood the problem and tried to stop it: “Our ancients had an intuitive understanding of it, which is why they disapprove of usury and other “money-making” plans.

Focus on unstable redistribution models

Vembu warns that relying solely on taxation and government redistribution could lead to instability. “I suspect that over time there are 3 leaders in 4 and 5, so 3 is an unstable balance,” he wrote. He said that only the first two options – job creation and donations to support jobs – are socially stable.

He added: “4 and 5 are symptoms of social collapse and decay.”

“Wealth and society form a cycle”

Vembu ends his message with a broader reflection: “The nature and character of wealth determines, and in turn, the nature of society, and yes, it is a feedback loop for self-enhancement.”