New Delhi: Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has argued that professions such as farming, teaching and medicine should not be driven by profit. A world in which all human activity is reduced to money would be “dystopian”, according to him.
Vembu made the argument in two X posts on 30 and 31 August, saying business should support such “bedrock” vocations, which he put into four categories: nature (food and spirit), nurture (teaching and spirit), culture (entertainment and spirit) and scripture (spirit).
On Sunday, he wrote that modern finance and economic theory encourage essentially all human activity to be profit-driven.
“Do we want our farmers, teachers, doctors and priests to be profit-driven?” Vembu asked.
Do we want our farmers, teachers, doctors and priests to be profit-driven?
Modern finance and economic theory encourages essentially all human activity to be profit-driven. This leads to a dystopian world.
The "market" that currently fashionable schools of economics like to…
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) August 30, 2026
According to him, markets rest on a bedrock of human civilisation, spirituality and culture that is itself not market-driven. He argued that modern economic theory either ignores this foundation or treats economics as the force shaping it.
“That raises the question: who supports that bedrock? The ones who are in the ‘market’, companies like us… the entire purpose of profit is to sustain this bedrock,” he wrote.
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‘I must be an anti-capitalist’
Vembu said he sees technology as a means to an end, not an end in itself.
In a follow-up post Monday, he argued that people in professions such as farming, medicine, teaching and priesthood are often driven by commitment to their work rather than money.
“Ask a farmer who made a choice to be in farming and they would tell you it is their love of farming,” he wrote.
“They would never mention money and in fact, farmers reluctantly abandon farming when they can no longer afford it.”
Vembu said a doctor’s professional and ethical code requires them to put the patient first, and that those who become doctors for money are not respected by other doctors.
“No one ever becomes a teacher because the money is good. And no one ever trains to be a priest for the money,” he wrote.
Economic models would consider such behaviour irrational, he added.
“Yet without that deeply evolved character trait in humanity, civilization itself would collapse,” he wrote.
Vembu also reserved sharp words for critics calling him an “anti-capitalist” for his views.
“When I say people like me in business should support these noble professions, I must be an anti-capitalist — say people who haven’t earned a single rupee of honest profit and don’t know what “capital” even means (no it is not a line item in a spreadsheet)!” he wrote.
The founder and chief scientist of Zoho, which makes business software, Vembu is one of India’s richest entrepreneurs. Forbes estimated the combined net worth of Vembu and his siblings at $6 billion in its 2025 India rich list. He has lived in Mathalamparai village in Tamil Nadu since 2019, after returning from the US.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)