On November 20, 2024, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced his search for a personal chief of staff, detailing the role with ground-breaking employment terms.
The candidate selected for the position would be required to contribute Rs 20 lakh during the first year—a sum that will be entirely donated to Feeding India. In return, there would be no conventional salary during that initial period, though starting in the second year, the role promised compensation exceeding Rs 50 lakh, with precise figures to be disclosed later.
Read more: Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal seeks ‘Chief of Staff’ with a unique offer
The announcement set off a flurry of interest. By November 21, 2024, Goyal reported that the recruitment drive had already attracted over 1,000 applications.
In an extensive hiring update, Goyal, today shared an update that the initial response had grown exponentially, amassing more than 18,000 applications. “We had the privilege of meeting over 150 incredibly talented individuals,” he shared on LinkedIn.
“From this, 30 exceptional people received offers, and 18 have already joined Zomato (and other group companies like Blinkit) in high-impact roles. They’re being handsomely compensated for the value they bring, and nobody paid anything to work with us. Who are these 30 people? Founders who bootstrapped startups from their dorm rooms, engineers who rewrote entire tech stacks over a weekend, operators who turned chaos into scale, and a handful of brilliant young minds fresh out of college—people we believe will lead us into the future,” he added.
“What sets them apart is a long-term mindset,” Goyal emphasized. “They weren’t optimizing for short-term outcomes but for compounding impact—the most misunderstood mathematical miracle.”
Looking ahead, Goyal assured that the hiring effort is far from a one-off sprint. With an extraordinary pool of talent still being meticulously reviewed, Zomato is committed to a long-term investment in the individuals who will shape its future.
“We’ll keep reaching out to the right folks, slowly but surely,” he stated.
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