With Zoho around, we are determined to work on Arattai: Sridhar Vembu

In a conversation with Business Standard, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu talks about his role as a scientist, his vision for the firm and India's AI journey

Sridhar Vembu, founder and chief scientist, Zoho, has managed to grab headlines with his belief that India needs to build its own tech stack to be resilient in an uncertain global economy. In a virtual interview with Business Standard, he talks about his role as a scientist, his vision for Zoho and India’s artificial intelligence (AI) journey. Edited excerpts: 

From that time to now, how has your decision to become the chief scientist played out?

 

For Zoho, Shailesh (Shailesh Kumar Davey, Group chief executive officer or CEO) and Rajesh (Rajesh Ganesan), who heads ManageEngine, have run the business very well. I am now mostly focused on the role of scientist — on a lot of research and development (R&D) initiatives. I have a team of 40 people; about 20 are with me in Tenkasi (Tamil Nadu), and we are working on critical projects in AI and code. Our focus is on how code evolves in the era of AI. We made some good advances last year. We still do not have a product, but these efforts are long-term in nature.

 

Why have leaders like you chosen to take on such a role? 

I am more of a nerd, and the decision to come back to this role was my personal choice. The second reason is that there is a massive threat, opportunity, and challenge in front of us.

Particularly for a software company, the critical question is: How much software will be produced by AI, and how much more productive will human software engineers become due to AI? Traditionally, we have woven code by hand, like handlooms. Now, more evolved and powerful machine looms are coming. The first type of looms are large language models (LLMs), and many more will come.

 

About two–three years ago, I said we must be in the market not only as consumers of technology but also producers of technology. This is a very existential question for a software company. I believe we have to walk a fine line between falling for the trillion-dollar investments — which we cannot afford — and completely shutting our eyes and saying something is happening somewhere else and we do not care, we will just use that product. Neither is appropriate.

 

We have to create affordable technology for our needs and for our global customers, keeping in mind the advances around us.

 

But we must also look at, for instance, China, which has created many models with far fewer resources; they are not spending trillions. The French as well.

 

How pragmatic is it for India to spend billions on building foundational models?

 

We need both. Pragmatically, we can fine tune some open source models. It cannot be an either or approach. Long term, we need our own foundational models because, if you have dependency on a foundational model, the dependency can be weaponised against you. Particularly at a time that is inconvenient for us. This is true for any technology. This is why the question of resilience comes. Where is the kill switch for the technology?

 

Even when we use third party models, are we going to get updates to the models if you don’t have the capabilities and if the third party vendor stops giving updates…then we are stuck.

 

We have seen Indian startups create products similar to global platforms but tailored for Indian users, yet they did not survive. Koo is an example?

 

Maps actually stands out in India. Mappls is a company with an illustrious business and is publicly traded. It may be smaller, but the products are used. I have huge respect for it.

In fact, that is a model for even Arattai and other apps. I want to say that companies with staying power have a better chance of succeeding.

What was the problem with Koo? It was not that it could not conquer the market, but it did not have staying power — meaning financial access. Microsoft still has Bing. It is a big firm; It has not won search, but is still there. No one questions it.

 

As long as Zoho is around, we will work on Arattai. Determination—the will to fight—is what creates eventual winners.

 

What is your vision for Zoho?

 

I will take a long-term view. We have to be one of the premier technology brands from India — just like Sony in Japan or Samsung in South Korea.

 

There must be many Indian companies that become world champions and compete on our own terms.

That is very much possible. First, we must believe. We have the talent pool. What is required is long-term commitment to stay the course and not get distracted by temporary swings.

 

Your rankings in app stores may keep moving; I do not pay attention to these things. We are laser-focused on improving Arattai. We are not focused on where traffic is going—that is not an important question.

We also want to invest in a broader range of technologies. Zoho is not just one product or one technology; it is a mix of technologies that collectively create value.

 

China had the Thousand Talent program to bring researchers back. Is it time for India to do something similar?

 

There is a logical precursor to that. For such a program to succeed, we need a thriving private-sector R&D ecosystem.

Even when China did it, they already had large tech firms. You need to create a foundation of private-sector R&D that drives our universities. 

Then it makes sense to attract talent back because they can plug into an ecosystem. 

For example, we need battery experts—focused on sodium or moon-shot technologies that rely on ions, etc.

So you need both the private sector and academia to absorb them. 

I can give our own example: since we can attract talent, I am bringing people from the US to Tenkasi. We could not have done this 10 years ago.

 

There is a fear that India may fall behind if it is late to have its own foundational models?

 

Take Japan, for instance, in the 1980s it was the pre-eminent industrial superpower; Japan was going to take over the world. What happened? These are cycles. Why did it happen? Primarily because of demographics—Japan began to have fewer children. 

Young demography is a blessing. Therefore, it is the work of people like me to figure out how to use this talent.

There is no “falling behind.” A youthful demographic ensures we remain relevant.