Fresh off its successful IPO, Swiggy has seen the creation of hundreds of new millionaires among its employees. However, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has a word of caution for these newfound crorepatis and the company itself.
Goyal, whose company Zomato went public in 2021, is offering some insights from his own experience. Zomato’s IPO also created a wave of employee wealth, but Goyal warns that this financial windfall can have unintended consequences.
Recently, at the ET Startup Awards, Goyal revealed that Zomato experienced a period of complacency after its IPO. Employees, now financially secure, lost some of their drive and focus. This resulted in a slowdown of innovation and progress within the company.
Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal advice
“The IPO was good and the business was doing what it was doing, and a lot of people made a lot of money for the first time in their lives, and these are competent people. Competent people can’t recognise that they are actually being complacent. They don’t seek progress anymore…,” Goyal said.
Goyal acknowledged the positive aspects of wealth creation for his employees. However, he emphasises the importance of maintaining a culture of ambition and continuous growth, even amidst financial success. To address the complacency issue, Zomato had to restructure and refocus its workforce.
“They are tuned in that way but they are not letting any progress happen. That’s what we had come down to. There was no work happening inside the organisation for a while. I had to literally clear out pretty much everybody who had lost that drive and then reboot the organisation,” he added.
Goyal observed that the surge in wealth brought mixed outcomes for Zomato. While it empowered employees, it also fostered a sense of complacency, which began to hinder the company’s progress. To counter this, Goyal took the challenging step of restructuring the organization and making personnel changes to reignite the company’s culture of innovation and maintain its momentum.
