Vinod Khosla
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| Born: | January 28, 1955 Poona, India |
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| Occupation: | Venture capitalist |
| Net worth: |  $1 Billion |
Vinod Khosla (born January 28, 1955 in Poona[1]) is an Indian venture capitalist. He is an influential personality in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986.
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[edit] Early life and education
Khosla read about the founding of Intel in Electronic Engineering Times at the age of sixteen and this inspired him to pursue technology as a career. Khosla went on to receive degrees from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world: the IIT Delhi, India (Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering ), Carnegie Mellon University (Masters in Biomedical Engineering), and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA).
[edit] Sun Microsystems
After graduating from Stanford University in 1979, Khosla along with his Stanford fellows Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim (another Carnegie Mellon graduate school alumnus), and a UC Berkeley masters degree holder named Bill Joy founded Sun Microsystems. Khosla left Sun in 1985. Khosla is also one of the founding fathers of The Indus Entrepreneurs, and has guest-edited a special issue of Economic Times (ET), a leading business newspaper in India.
[edit] After Sun
Khosla "fell in love" with Zaplet.com, and the company has since merged and developed into a governance, risk and compliance leader.[2]
While recognized for several venture "hits", Khosla also played a key role with several of the tech industry's most spectacular failures, including Asera, Zambeel, Dynabook, Excite, and others.
In 2004 Khosla formed his own firm: Khosla Ventures.
Vinod was featured on Dateline NBC on Sunday, May 7, 2006. He was discussing the practicality of the use of ethanol as a gasoline substitute. He is known to have invested heavily in ethanol companies, in hopes of widespread adoption. He cites Brazil as an example of a country that has totally ended its dependence on foreign oil.[3]
Khosla was a major funder of Yes on 87's campaign to pass California's Proposition 87, The Clean Energy Initiative, which failed to pass in November, 2006.
[edit] Personal
He is married to Neeru Khosla. Together, they have four teenage children. He is known to have a ruthless and often rude personality.
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[edit] Accomplishments
[edit] Founding companies
[edit] Helping to found companies
- NexGen (now purchased by AMD)
- Excite
- @Home Network
- Juniper Networks
- Cerent
- Corvis
[edit] Board membership
- Grameen Foundation [1]
- MetricStream
- E-asic Inc [2]
- Spatial Photonics Inc
- Xsigo
- moka5
- Infinera
- Kovio
- Zettacore
[edit] Other
- The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)
- 1999 World Technology Award Finalist
- Honorary Chair, DonorsChoose San Francisco Bay Area Advisory Board
[edit] Notes
- ^ IIT Delhi: Distinguished Alumni Awards
- ^ A winner looking to back other winners
- ^ Venture capitalist a techie at heart October 15, 2006
[edit] External links
- Vinod's presentations, papers
- Vinod's ethanol views debated
- Press
- Vinod's Blog
- Computer History Museum, 11-Jan-2006: Sun Founders Panel
- Sun Feature Story: The Fab Four Reunites (webcast of the event)
- Biofuel-ethanol talk by Khosla. Google TechTalks March 29, 2006
- A Conversation with Vinod Khosla -- Summary of a phone "debate" over the merits of ethanol, in The Oil Drum, an online discussion forum about "Energy and Our Future."
- Khosla Ventures
