'Indian employees are loyal': Zoho's Sridhar Vembu on why most CEOs in US are Indian

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu on Tuesday offered his explanation for why so many global CEOs are Indian. According to him, long-term organisational loyalty and immigrant drive together shape who ends up rising to the top in American corporations.

"Indian employees are some of the most loyal to their organizations and American corporations get to experience this over time," Vembu wrote on X. "To state it differently, when you consider a cohort of people who joined a company in a given year (say 2000), a much higher proportion of Indians would still be there 20 years later, even adjusting for factors like IQ and education."

Vembu said this matters because leadership pipelines in large organisations are often built over decades. "Over time, cultural continuity in an organization tends to be with those who stayed long term and it is those people who get promoted. That would explain why Indians are at the top in so many companies in America."

He also pointed to a broader pattern across immigrant communities. "Combine that with the fact that every new immigrant group to America has outperformed the "already there" groups - known as the "immigrant drive". That is not special to Indians."

Putting the two together, he wrote: "Combine org loyalty that comes from Indian culture and the immigrant drive common to all immigrants, you have the explanation."

Vembu's remarks came in response to a post by Jasveer Singh, CEO of Knot.dating, who argued that the question isn't why so many global CEOs are Indian, but what kind of system produces them. Singh described India as a "high-pressure talent filter" driven by "selection pressure", where "education isn’t optional" and competition for limited opportunities forces endurance and long-term consistency.

Singh's post also claimed that the Indian system produces survivors who become operators, while developed economies - with stronger safety nets-tend to produce more founders and innovators.

He argued that this model comes at a heavy cost. "This system is not something to romanticize. For every one person who makes it, millions burn out. Talent gets wasted. Mental health gets crushed. The system is inefficient and cruel. But it does one thing extremely well. It filters for people who can endure."

Vembu, however, pushed back on one key premise - that Indians rise largely because they come from a system with no safety net. He said India's social safety net is the extended family network. "The psychological security this gives is not consistent with the pressure he is talking about," he wrote.

The Zoho founder said that safety net still exists for most Indians, "except perhaps in some highly westernized, atomized urban circles, only a small part of the population." He also argued that this idea of family and continuity carries into workplace culture as well. "In fact, Indians tend to view their organizations in a similar way, as extended family networks, and the org loyalty arises from this cultural value system."