'There was no conspiracy to promote Indians': Sridhar Vembu explains how US won at R&D by accident

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says Indian tech firms are failing at innovation — not for lack of money, but because they don't know how to hold on to people. In a post on X, he pointed to a surprising reason why Indians rose in U.S. tech: visa rules that forced long-term loyalty and, as a result, drove better R&D outcomes.

“There is a point about R&D I make repeatedly,” Vembu wrote. “R&D is not expensive but time intensive and best results are achieved by teams who stay committed long term.”

According to Vembu, U.S. tech giants unintentionally cracked this code through the H1-B visa and green card backlog — systems that made it risky for immigrant workers, particularly Indians, to switch jobs. That enforced commitment gave companies stable teams and better innovation.

“Since companies tend to promote those who are committed, Indians got promoted,” he wrote. “There was no conspiracy to promote Indians — it was one consequence of the visa/green card system.”

His claim is backed by multiple studies: the most productive R&D environments are built on long-term team stability. Firms that retain engineers through multi-year projects consistently outperform those with high attrition and shifting goals.

Indian tech companies, Vembu argued, haven’t internalized this. They struggle with churn, prioritize short-term contracts, and often lack systems to reward multi-year persistence — killing any serious shot at breakthrough innovation.

“Tech companies in India need to realize the importance of this,” he said. “It is about creating that culture of long term focus on R&D.”

Analysts agree. Without structural incentives to stay — or a culture that values deep, patient engineering work — Indian firms remain stuck executing others’ ideas, not building their own.