Billionaire venture capitalist and ace investor
Vinod Khosla is known for his remarkable contributions to the technological field. The Indian-origin American billionaire has now made 10 predictions about how the world could change with the advancement of technology in the coming years. In a series of tweets,
Khosla predicted many significant changes from freeing the bottom 50% of the most undesirable jobs with machine robots to having Artificial Intelligence based ‘near free’ doctors and teachers, reflecting his investment philosophy.
He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Khosla has grown up dreaming of being an entrepreneur while coming from an Indian army household with no business background. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Khosla moved to the US for further studies and received a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
After receiving an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business,
Vinod initially co-founded the significant computer-aided design system for the electrical engineer, Daisy Systems. The company achieved significant revenue and profits along with an IPO. This initial step took Khosla’s direction into the world of technology where he launched and backed up several such projects in the field of technology.
Vinod Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 to build workstations for the software developers that helped Daisy Systems. Sun Microsystems was co-founded by Khosla, Andy Bechtosheim and Scott McNealy while it was funded by Vinod’s long-time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB).
In 1986, Khosla joined KPCB as a general partner and built a semiconductor company named Nexgen which was acquired by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). It was the only microprocessor producer to have significant success against Intel.
Besides founding tech companies, Khosla has supported several microfinance organisations in India and Africa. His firm, Khosla Ventures invests in experimental technologies such as biomedicine and robotics.
In 1992, Khosla founded The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global not-for-profit networking organisation that primarily encourages entrepreneurship among young students.
While Khosla Ventures was formed in 2004 with Khosla’s own family funds, he later in 2010 invested in different companies which dealt with food, such as InstaCart and DoorDash. Additionally, Khosla Ventures also invested in Fintech. Khosla then started to invest in medicines and robotics, mainly from companies involved in artificial intelligence in medical treatments.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
