Zerodha Has Never Hired IIT Or IIM, Reveals CEO Nithin Kamath

One of India’s most successful startups Zerodha has never hired anyone with a degree from IIT and IIMs, even though they are in high demand in India’s corporate world.

Zerodha has never hired anyone from an IIM or an IIT according to Nithin Kamath.
He said that it was difficult to fit such people within the organization and that they had never hired a single person from IIM, he revealed during a podcast.

Kamath said that Zerodha doesn’t hire from IITs or IIMs because they usually produce graduates who are more focused on quickly developing their careers instead of thinking long-term about helping his business. Kamath said that when you are in that environment, you are wired to think about how quickly you can grow in life. At Zerodha, we can’t tell people how quickly they can grow.

I don’t know how quickly I’ll get a promotion when someone comes to me and says, Nithin.
I don’t know where our business is going to be, how can I tell you?

Kamath said that he wasn’t averse to hiring candidates from the IITs or IIMs if they fit Zerodha’s criteria. If you are okay getting up every day, doing something different, and looking to keep getting better as a business, we can hire you. He said that it was difficult to find such people within the IIMs and the IITs. People in the startup community are wired to want to grow fast and at any cost. He wants to grow from point A to point B quickly.

Kamath said that he did not consider educational degrees when hiring candidates.
The core team, the people who do important stuff at Zerodha, we see if they are passionate about the cause. Kamath says education doesn’t matter.

This is an unconventional approach, but Zerodha clearly seems to know what it’s doing. The company reported profits of Rs. 2000 crore last year, which is the highest ever for an Indian internet company. Kamath is personally worth Rs. 17,500 crores, and is one of the richest people in India.

And he seems to have gotten there by throwing convention by the wayside. While most startups look to raise external funding to quickly grow their businesses, Zerodha chose to self-fund its operations and grew slowly over a decade. While most companies have massive marketing and advertising budgets, Zerodha has never spent any money on marketing and chooses to instead let its product do the talking. And while most startups fall over each other to hire the best graduates from IITs and IIMs, Zerodha has chosen to not hire a single employee from these colleges. Zerodha seems to regularly do things few other Indian businesses even dare to try out, and its outsize success over the years could eventually end up turning conventional Indian business thinking on its head.

And one more thing if you don’t know that Zerodha Founder Nikhil Kamath did not pursue higher education. He dropped out of School to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions and co-found Zerodha.

About Zerodha