Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has generated controversy by posting a job vacancy for chief of staff at the food delivery platform. Goyal said that the selected candidate would not be paid a salary for the first year, but would instead have to pay ₹20 lakh for the privilege of working at Zomato. This ‘fee’ of ₹20 lakh would be paid as a donation to Feeding India, the non-profit arm of Zomato.
Hundreds of social media users slammed the CEO – who is the second-richest resident of Gurgaon and among India’s wealthiest startup founders – for exploiting candidates with this donation demand. Others pointed out that by adding a ₹20 lakh caveat, Goyal had alienated a large section of talented folks who could not afford to pay up.
However, one former Zomato employee has spoken up in the CEO’s defense, saying that the selected candidate would learn more on the job than any MBA could teach.
What Deepinder Goyal posted
Deepinder Goyal on Wednesday evening shared a job opening for Zomato chief of staff, saying that the candidate should be “down to earth” and have “zero entitlement.”
He said that the chosen employee would get “10x more learnings than a 2-year degree from a top management school, working with me and some of the smartest folks in consumer tech.”
{{/usCountry}}He said that the chosen employee would get “10x more learnings than a 2-year degree from a top management school, working with me and some of the smartest folks in consumer tech.”
{{/usCountry}}The job vacancy generated a debate on social media. While many agreed that an employee could learn more on the job than any MBA could teach, they said that working for free was an unfair ask. A former Zomato employee also offered his opinion on the job posting.
Ex-Zomato employee’s take
Arnav Gupta responded to Deepinder Goyal’s X post with a word of appreciation for the time he spent at Zomato. Gupta served as Engineering Head of Consumer App at Zomato between December 2019 and March 2024. He was promoted to this role from his earlier position as Engineering Lead, Mobile Platform Team. All in all, he spent a year working at Zomato.
Gupta said that an employee chosen as Zomato chief of staff would learn things worth way more than ₹20 lakh.
“I know people are commenting various stupid things about ‘paid internship.’ Leaving this note here as someone who got the chance to work 1 year with Deepinder Goyal, if you're looking for a career in Management Consulting / Strategy, this is worth waaaay more than ₹20L!”
Gupta also pointed out that there is no MBA course in India that charges less than ₹20 lakh as fee.
While the 20 lakh figure has been controversial, it has not deterred over 10,000 job-seekers from applying for the role. In an update shared Thursday, Goyal said the applicants fell into four categories - those who genuinely did not have the money, those who claimed they did not have the money, those who have some of the money, and those who have the entire amount.