Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists. In 2014, "Forbes" counted him among the 400 richest people in the United States. In 2021, he was ranked 92nd on the Forbes 400 list. Since 2010, he has been engaged in a legal dispute related to his  attempt to close off public access to Martin's Beach. Biography. Vinod Khosla was born on January 28, 1955 in Pune, India. Khosla's father was an officer in the Indian Army and was posted at New Delhi, India. His father wanted him to also join the army. He attended Mount St Mary's School for elementary school. Khosla became interested in entrepreneurship after reading about the founding of Intel in "Electronic Engineering Times" as a teenager, and this inspired him to pursue technology as a career. From 1971-76, Khosla attended the Indian Institutes of Technology where he received  a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He started the first computer club in any IIT to do computer programming and operated the school's computer center while the operations staff were on strike. He also wrote a paper on parallel processing as a teenager before the concept was adopted by the IT industry, and helped to start the first biomedical engineering program in India. In 1975, Khosla attempted to start a soy milk company intended to provide a milk alternative to Indian consumers that do not have refrigerators to preserve cow milk. Khosla received a master's in biomedical  engineering from Carnegie Mellon University on a full scholarship. He applied to Stanford University's MBA program but was rejected for lack of work experience. He got two full time jobs while finishing his master’s for the two years of work experience, but was rejected a second time. Three weeks into starting at Carnegie Mellon for his MBA, Khosla convinced the admissions staff to accept him into Stanford Graduate School of Business and received an MBA in 1980. He is married to Neeru Khosla, his childhood girlfriend. They have four children. Career. Early businesses and investments. After completing his  MBA at Stanford in 1980, Khosla worked for electronic design automation start-up Daisy Systems (founded January 1981). Khosla has founded a number of other businesses and organizations, and was involved with the founding of Daisy Systems in 1981. In 1982, Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems (SUN is the acronym for the Stanford University Network), along with Stanford classmates Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and UC Berkeley computer science graduate student Bill Joy. Khosla served as the first chairman and CEO from 1982 to 1984, when he left the company to become a venture capitalist. In 1986, Khosla joined the venture  capital firm Kleiner Perkins as a general partner. At Kleiner, Khosla became a recognized venture capitalist, with several successful early-stage investments. He also invested in an Indian microfinance company, SKS Microfinance, which lends small loans to poor women in rural India. Khosla Ventures. In 2004 to spend more time with his teenage kids and focus on technology startups, Khosla moved to part-time and eventually left Kleiner Perkins. He founded his own venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures later that year as a way to invest in more experimental technologies with a "social impact." At the time, he had about  $1.5 billion from co-founding Sun Microsystems and his work with Kleiner Perkins. The firm is based in Menlo Park, California. Khosla was featured on Dateline NBC in May 2006, where he discussed the practicality of ethanol as a gasoline substitute. He is known to have invested heavily in ethanol companies in hopes of widespread adoption. The firm became known for large, early investments in alternative energy technology like solar, biofuel, and batteries. He has advocated for breakthroughs in these "clean" energies rather than cutting back on energy consumption. The firm incubated carbon recycling and aviation fuel company LanzaTech  and QuantumScape, a solid state battery company. Khosla has stated both Quantumscape and Lanzatech are unicorns that have taken time and calls them part of "clean tech 1.0." He believes carbon sequestration is an area that needs significant advancements and is the most feasible. Impossible Foods, which works to make meat a more efficient energy source, and View Glass are also unicorns incubated by Khosla Ventures. "Business Insider" reported that it took 10 years to return "more than a billion dollars" to the firm, similar to some of Khosla's other successful investments that also took a decade to pay  off. In September 2009, Khosla completed fundraising for two new funds to invest in cleantech and information technology start-ups. Khosla Ventures III secured $750 million of investor commitments to invest in traditional early-stage and growth-stage companies. Khosla also raised $250 million for Khosla Seed, which will invest in higher-risk opportunities. In May 2010, it was announced that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was to join Khosla Ventures to provide strategic advice regarding investments in technologies focused on the environment. Khosla Ventures also invested in HackerRank. Khosla Ventures manages approximately $15 billion of  investor capital as well as investments funded by Khosla himself. In 2021, he was listed No. 92 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. Martin's Beach dispute. Since 2010, Khosla has been engaged in a legal dispute surrounding public access to Martin's Beach, several miles south of Half Moon Bay, California, where he owns adjacent land. His attempts to close the beach by erecting a gate with armed guards at the road entrance and painting over the welcome sign that existed prior to his ownership of the property has been the subject of legal  challenges, popular resentment, and extensive press coverage. Martin's Beach was previously a popular family beach and surf spot before Khosla purchased the property adjacent to the beach and blocked access. In August 2017, a Californian court of appeal ruled that Khosla must restore public access to Martins Beach. The plaintiffs, Surfrider Foundation, stated that they expected Khosla to take the case all the way to the US Supreme Court. In October 2018, the Supreme Court announced that they would not hear the appeal of the California appeals court decision. In November 2018, a San Mateo County court found that  the prior owners of the property had not intended for access to Martins Beach to be public. In January 2020, the California Coastal Commission sued Khosla, alleging he is in violation of the California Coastal Act of 1976. In addition to the Martin's beach dispute, another dispute with Russian inventor Vladimir Poponin, is documented in Martti Vallila’s book "Bannana in the Legal Gulag; Exposing Trickery and Manipulation" ; Legal briefs filed on Khosla’s behalf reveal behavior in conflict with his public persona. Politics. Khosla has donated to a mix of Democrats and Republicans and supports politicians based on  their climate policies. He is a Democrat and has donated to organizations that support left-leaning politics. In 2013, Khosla hosted Barack Obama for a fundraising dinner at his home in Portola Valley. Khosla was a major proponent of the "Yes on 87" campaign to pass California's Proposition 87, The Clean Energy Initiative, which failed to pass in November 2006. Khosla endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Philanthropy and affiliations. Khosla served as the honorary chair of the DonorsChoose San Francisco Bay Area advisory board. In 2000, Khosla was a recipient of the Golden  Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2006, Khosla's wife Neeru co-founded the CK-12 Foundation, which aims to develop open-source textbooks and lower the cost of education in America and the rest of the world. Khosla and his wife are also donors to the Wikimedia Foundation, in the amount of $600,000. In 2007, Khosla was an award recipient in the Northern California region for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. Khosla was a member of the board of trustees of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. The  center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world. He is an advisor for HackerRank, a website for competitive coding. Khosla is a member of the Xconomists, an ad hoc team of editorial advisors for the tech news and media company, Xconomy. He is also one of the founders of TiE, The Indus Entrepreneurs, and has guest-edited a special issue of The Economic Times, a business newspaper in India. He is involved with organizations that provide microfinancing to small businesses in third-world countries and other organizations that promote  entrepreneurship. Khosla is on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Mellon University. Khosla was an early signatory to the Giving Pledge and sits on the Breakthrough Energy Ventures board. In April 2021, Khosla made an offer to fund oxygen imports for hospitals in India amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.