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Zerodha’s work culture rests on a small team of about 1,000 people, no pressure to chase sales targets, and a rule against work chats after 6 p.m. CEO Nithin Kamath says a nice workplace isn’t a perk at Zerodha. He treats it as part of the business model.
That’s a strange claim from the head of a stockbroking company, an industry that usually runs on targets and long hours. So how does it hold up?
What Nithin Kamath actually said
Zerodha never asked employees to work nights or weekends, and it skips monthly targets and late-night calls. Treat that wording as a summary, not a verified quote. The substance does match what Kamath wrote in a long public article in July 2026, covered by Business Today.
In it, he argued that culture is Zerodha’s biggest moat. Competitors can copy a product, he said, but not years of deliberate choices. His line: “A nice place to work is not a perk we offer.”
Small on purpose
Zerodha has stayed at roughly 1,000 people. That’s a choice, not an accident.
Kamath said he once believed more people could solve more problems, until Zerodha’s CTO, Kailash Nadh, convinced him that more people also bring more inefficiency. Instead of hiring for every new idea, Zerodha backed outside startups such as Smallcase, Sensibull and Ditto and let them take those bets.
The payoff, as Kamath tells it, is that people who stay longer build on their own earlier work. A small team also makes problems visible. You can see who’s overloaded when there are 1,000 of you, and much less easily when there are 10,000.
No pressure to chase sales
Kamath borrowed from Charlie Munger here. Revenue and sales targets, in this view, create toxic workplaces. Zerodha’s people aren’t pushed to chase them.
He ties this to how the company treats customers. Zerodha doesn’t nudge people to trade more than they should. If your job doesn’t ask you to squeeze customers, you don’t go home feeling bad about it. Kamath’s point is that working somewhere you respect is a large part of what keeps people around.
The 6 p.m. rule and remote work
Culture claims are cheap. Rules are harder to fake.
In 2021, Zerodha made it policy that no employee should be expected to take part in work chats after 6 p.m. The company also went heavily remote after COVID. At the time of one HR Katha report, about 950 of roughly 1,100 employees were working from home or their hometowns, with a satellite office in Belagavi, Karnataka. The core team stays on a hybrid, flexible model.
The founder didn’t always work this way
Here’s the part that makes the story more believable. According to a summary of another Kamath essay, he answered emails at 3 a.m. and worked weekends for years, until about 2019. He then changed his own habits: leaving the office earlier and dumping stray thoughts into Google Keep instead of emailing his team in the middle of the night.
Read that again. The calm culture didn’t come from a policy document. It started when the CEO stopped sending the 3 a.m. message. Employees copy what leaders do, not what the handbook says.
Can your company copy it?
Partly.
Zerodha is bootstrapped and profitable. It has no venture investors demanding growth curves, and Kamath himself has said he stays away from the startup crowd because everyone there talks about growth and valuations. Not every company has that freedom. If you answer to investors or run a sales-led business, dropping targets entirely may not be realistic.
But two pieces travel well. First, leaders can stop sending after-hours messages, because the team follows the leader’s habits. Second, before you hire, ask whether the problem is really headcount. Zerodha’s answer was often no.
FAQs
Does Zerodha have monthly sales targets?
According to Kamath, Zerodha doesn’t pressure employees to chase revenue and sales targets.
How many people work at Zerodha?
About 1,000, and Kamath says that was deliberate.
Is Zerodha a remote company?
Mostly. Most employees work remotely, and the core team works hybrid.
Is Zerodha funded by investors?
No. It’s bootstrapped.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. While efforts are made to ensure accuracy, readers should verify information and seek professional advice as needed.
