5 ms·

Why is it so difficult to find information about Zoho's management team? 1600 employees and I can't find the name of a single person on their website. EDIT: wh

by aviv 13y ago

Why is it so difficult to find information about Zoho's management team? 1600 employees and I can't find the name of a single person on their website. EDIT: why downvote this? I'm truly curious. I was a happy customer until not long ago, Zoho's products are great, I just never understood why they don't have a Team/Management page. Unless I'm missing it somehow?

krakensden 13y ago
Who cares? Would you purchase a different product based on their racial makeup? Are you looking for the gender balance? Are you concerned about the sex appeal of their CFO?
- Goopplesoft 13y ago
  Theres quite a bit you can miss when initially deciding on a product. Perhaps knowing the developers on the team would make a long-term decision on the product easier. For example I'm sure it helps 37signals to employer the creator of Rails.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  Every startup has faces behind it. A story behind it. Zoho feels like it's hiding something. People like to see the faces of the startups they sign up for. You can't just wear a mask over your face and reach out your hand and say give me money, sign up for my service. Who are you? Where are you? What's your story. That information is important for a business relationship. What kind of leader hides? It's like a man who won't shake hands or tell you his last name. It's just strange. Do they think people are going to avoid Zoho because it's Indian? Facebook, Google, Craigslist, & a bunch of others were started by Jewish founders and you know how people have and continue to feel about Jews. Their ethnicity didn't impact them negatively. Hell, Americans are paranoid about the Chinese and yet still we buy Made in China products. Zoho should be proud. It came from India, it's privately held, profitable, and hasn't taken venture capital or bank loans. I'd put my name all over that If I were the founder. That's an amazing feat.
  - sridharvembu 13y ago
    Our people are prominently mentioned in our press releases. We respond on our forums, on twitter, on forums like this. The reason for the lack of a "management team" page is that we don't the org chart typical companies do. First, there are geographic divisions - India/US/China/Japan where we have offices which run fairly autonomously, and second there are product divisions, which also run fairly autonomously. A private company can operate this way (with a fair degree of autonomy in teams) that a public company cannot. I have made presentations on the history of the company before. Here is a public document on this: https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859c420f8666ec057db3a922 https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859... It isn't like we are famous or anything ;) which was why we don't go around touting it!
    - clicks 13y ago
      > The reason for the lack of a "management team" page is that we don't the org chart typical companies do. Would you say Zoho abides by open allocation for its workers? [1] I'd love to hear more about the organizational structure of the company. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/11/26/what-is-open-allocation/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/11/26/what-is-open-al...
      - sridharvembu 13y ago
        We believe in fair degree of autonomy and tight-knit teams. I won't call it "open allocation" because we encourage people to stick to a particular work for a reasonable period to really excel at it (experience being the best teacher), but people do have the ability to transfer to other teams, or even across functional boundaries (engineering to marketing etc). The goal is to maximize mutual chemistry and cohesion, maximize autonomy. Our attrition rate tends to be very low, in spite of (or perhaps because of) there being no "golden handcuff".
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rpgmaker 13y ago
hpagey 13y ago
Zoho was founded by Sridhar Vembu. Wiki entry here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sridhar_Vembu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sridhar_Vembu . He completed his Phd from Princeton and according to his various interviews was really frustrated by it and decided to start his company. He has a very unique approach in grooming future employees.
sridharvembu 13y ago
(CEO here) There is no particular reason. Perhaps part of the reason is that we don't have an org chart the conventional way many companies do. If you look through our posts and our press releases, the people who run our products are mentioned. LinkedIn has a lot of our people too. This public presentation I made 3 years ago on our history: https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859c420f8666ec057db3a922 https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859...
- eldavido 13y ago
  Sridhar, thanks for taking the gloves off and writing this. You just don't read stuff like this every day. I don't know why, maybe it's the ultra-PC feel-good environment we're in (esp. in San Francisco), or everyone is worried about each others' feelings, I don't know, but such direct, crisp writing seems so rare today. High-level business tradeoffs like this are fascinating and worthy of discussion. Even though you name names, it's clearly about the ideas, and not the people. I wish more people had the courage to write so openly and frankly about how they feel.
- taktix 13y ago
  I'm glad Zoho is getting some love on HN. The article makes a lot of great points. Unfortunately I'm going to be a wet blanket: I've signed up on Zoho a bunch of times over the years but never stayed because of the Zoho design, or lack thereof. The text is too small, the fonts and icons are ugly or amateurish looking, and its not mobile friendly. Look, I want you guys to win. I can't stand Salesforce. I'd rather use Zoho products than Google products, but please give some attention to your UX/UI. Thanks for listening!
  - sridharvembu 13y ago
    We are listening. We take all the criticism to heart. We are focused on UX and quality. You will see a transformation.
hackermann 13y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837529
levosmetalo 13y ago
@Re EDIT: If I had downvote right I would automatically anyone that brags about downvotes. It just doesn't add anything to the discussion.
lucian1900 13y ago
Perhaps they care too much about their employees' privacy to disclose information about them?

by aviv 13y ago

krakensden 13y ago

Who cares? Would you purchase a different product based on their racial makeup? Are you looking for the gender balance? Are you concerned about the sex appeal of their CFO?

Goopplesoft 13y ago
Theres quite a bit you can miss when initially deciding on a product. Perhaps knowing the developers on the team would make a long-term decision on the product easier. For example I'm sure it helps 37signals to employer the creator of Rails.
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
Every startup has faces behind it. A story behind it. Zoho feels like it's hiding something. People like to see the faces of the startups they sign up for. You can't just wear a mask over your face and reach out your hand and say give me money, sign up for my service. Who are you? Where are you? What's your story. That information is important for a business relationship. What kind of leader hides? It's like a man who won't shake hands or tell you his last name. It's just strange. Do they think people are going to avoid Zoho because it's Indian? Facebook, Google, Craigslist, & a bunch of others were started by Jewish founders and you know how people have and continue to feel about Jews. Their ethnicity didn't impact them negatively. Hell, Americans are paranoid about the Chinese and yet still we buy Made in China products. Zoho should be proud. It came from India, it's privately held, profitable, and hasn't taken venture capital or bank loans. I'd put my name all over that If I were the founder. That's an amazing feat.
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  Our people are prominently mentioned in our press releases. We respond on our forums, on twitter, on forums like this. The reason for the lack of a "management team" page is that we don't the org chart typical companies do. First, there are geographic divisions - India/US/China/Japan where we have offices which run fairly autonomously, and second there are product divisions, which also run fairly autonomously. A private company can operate this way (with a fair degree of autonomy in teams) that a public company cannot. I have made presentations on the history of the company before. Here is a public document on this: https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859c420f8666ec057db3a922 https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859... It isn't like we are famous or anything ;) which was why we don't go around touting it!
  - clicks 13y ago
    > The reason for the lack of a "management team" page is that we don't the org chart typical companies do. Would you say Zoho abides by open allocation for its workers? [1] I'd love to hear more about the organizational structure of the company. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/11/26/what-is-open-allocation/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/11/26/what-is-open-al...
    - sridharvembu 13y ago
      We believe in fair degree of autonomy and tight-knit teams. I won't call it "open allocation" because we encourage people to stick to a particular work for a reasonable period to really excel at it (experience being the best teacher), but people do have the ability to transfer to other teams, or even across functional boundaries (engineering to marketing etc). The goal is to maximize mutual chemistry and cohesion, maximize autonomy. Our attrition rate tends to be very low, in spite of (or perhaps because of) there being no "golden handcuff".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rpgmaker 13y ago

hpagey 13y ago

Zoho was founded by Sridhar Vembu. Wiki entry here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sridhar_Vembu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sridhar_Vembu . He completed his Phd from Princeton and according to his various interviews was really frustrated by it and decided to start his company. He has a very unique approach in grooming future employees.

sridharvembu 13y ago

(CEO here) There is no particular reason. Perhaps part of the reason is that we don't have an org chart the conventional way many companies do. If you look through our posts and our press releases, the people who run our products are mentioned. LinkedIn has a lot of our people too. This public presentation I made 3 years ago on our history: https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859c420f8666ec057db3a922 https://docs.zoho.com/show/published.do?rid=s0uyx6d6a7e9c859...

eldavido 13y ago
Sridhar, thanks for taking the gloves off and writing this. You just don't read stuff like this every day. I don't know why, maybe it's the ultra-PC feel-good environment we're in (esp. in San Francisco), or everyone is worried about each others' feelings, I don't know, but such direct, crisp writing seems so rare today. High-level business tradeoffs like this are fascinating and worthy of discussion. Even though you name names, it's clearly about the ideas, and not the people. I wish more people had the courage to write so openly and frankly about how they feel.
taktix 13y ago
I'm glad Zoho is getting some love on HN. The article makes a lot of great points. Unfortunately I'm going to be a wet blanket: I've signed up on Zoho a bunch of times over the years but never stayed because of the Zoho design, or lack thereof. The text is too small, the fonts and icons are ugly or amateurish looking, and its not mobile friendly. Look, I want you guys to win. I can't stand Salesforce. I'd rather use Zoho products than Google products, but please give some attention to your UX/UI. Thanks for listening!
- sridharvembu 13y ago
  We are listening. We take all the criticism to heart. We are focused on UX and quality. You will see a transformation.

hackermann 13y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5837529

levosmetalo 13y ago

@Re EDIT: If I had downvote right I would automatically anyone that brags about downvotes. It just doesn't add anything to the discussion.

lucian1900 13y ago

Perhaps they care too much about their employees' privacy to disclose information about them?