Why Did Sridhar Vembu Really Come to India?
The story you've been sold: A billionaire tech entrepreneur renounces Silicon Valley, returns to a Tamil Nadu village, lives simply, cycles to work, talks about dharma and reversing brain drain. Simple living, high thinking. A saint in a cotton shirt. The story the California courts tell: He moved to India in late 2019. Filed for divorce in 2021. In between, he transferred ownership of Zoho's US subsidiary to entities controlled by his associate Tony Thomas and his sister Radha Vembu, who now holds an estimated 47.8% stake in the company, without his wife's knowledge or consent. A California court didn't mince words. It found that Vembu had acted "without regard for respondent's interests in community assets and without regard for the law." It ordered him to post a $1.7 billion bond. Unprecedented, the court itself said. His wife Pramila Srinivasan, who by her own account supported the household in Zoho's early years and was kept in the dark about the ...
