Zomato an accidental company, says CEO and founder Deepinder Goyal

Deepinder Goyal, CEO and founder, said Zomato is an accidental company and the purpose of Zomato was to serve the community, and over time it also became a business, he said. 

Describing the year 2022 as a tough year, Goyal, said that rough years for the tech industry are only a blip when you are making such widespread impact.

On asked how 2022 has been for him, Goyal described the beginning of Zomato and the idea that started all this. “One weekend, I went around town, picked up all the takeaway menus I could find, and put them up on a website, mostly in the spirit of service to my colleagues and others around me at the time. I did not intend for this to become the business that it is right now. I only did this because I thought I could see a way for myself to be helpful to people and make their lives easier,” said.

For the Q3FY23 the company's losses widened over five times at Rs 346.6 crore. Loss for the same quarter last fiscal was at Rs 63.2 crore. 

On the several exits that the company has seen, Goyal in the statement said: “Company building is not just about the journey of the business. It is also so much about its people’s personal journeys. And sometimes, for some people, the distance between their form (their mindset and skillset) and the company’s context becomes such that it is necessary to take a break from each other.”

Recently, the company saw the exit of Gunjan Patidar, the CTO and also part of the original founders team. Besides that, too, the company has seen several exits since September of 2022.

On whether the company will be hiring more, he said: “We are always on the lookout for great talent to join our team. We don’t hire people for the role, but for the organisation. Our current people do not have the ego to want to continue in their roles if they find someone better than themselves for their roles. Holds true for me as well.”

“Without hope, but not hopelessly, I think that most of our people who have exited, haven’t really left. People leave their roles at Zomato, but Zomato never leaves them. We have so many people in the senior leadership who are on their second (and third) stint at Zomato. They did that once the company’s context changed, or when they changed their form. Sometimes, both,” he added.