Zomato had courted controversy after CEO Deepinder Goyal called for applications for the Chief of Staff role, for which the selected candidate had to pay Rs 20 lakh to the company. Goyal has now, in an update, stated that the company received over 18,000 applications for the role, and the offer letter has been sent across to many applicants.
Goyal in a post on X said that the company received over 18,000 applications, out of which they met with 150 candidates. Thirty “exceptional people” were sent offer letters, out of which 18 have already joined the company, four are working directly under him, and two are in Chief of Staff roles.
The Zomato CEO said the joinees are being “handsomely compensated for the value they bring”, and that nobody paid anything to work with them. When Goyal called for applications, the description said that the selected candidate would not be paid any salary for the first year, and they would have to, in fact, pay the company Rs 20 lakh for the role. Hundred per cent of the fee for the role would be donated to Feeding India, Goyal had stated. The candidate would receive their salary only in the beginning of the second year, and that is a discussion they would reserve for the starting of Year 2.
Goyal’s job search had garnered a lot of criticism, with most pointing out that it is not possible to survive without a salary for a year. Subsequently, Goyal clarified that the Rs-20-lakh caveat was just a filter “to find people who had the power to appreciate the opportunity of a fast track career”.
In his latest update, the Zomato founder said that they have hired “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”.
Their “long-term mindset” set them apart and they were not optimising for “short-term outcomes but for compounding impact”.
“Finding people who truly get this is rare, and I’m grateful we did…And we’re not done. With 18,000+ applications, we’re still carefully sifting through this amazing talent pool. This isn’t just a one-time hiring sprint—it’s a long-term investment in the people who will build the future with us,” he said in the post, adding that Zomato would continue reaching out to the right people.