69 Facts About Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla was born on 28 January 1955 and is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist.

Vinod Khosla is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures.

Vinod Khosla is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.

Vinod Khosla was born on 28 January 1955, to a Punjabi Indian family in Pune, Maharashtra.

Vinod Khosla's father was an officer in the Indian Army and was posted at New Delhi, India.

Vinod Khosla attended Mount St Mary's School for elementary school.

Vinod Khosla became interested in entrepreneurship after reading about the founding of Intel in Electronic Engineering Times as a teenager, which led him to pursue technology as a career and found his own business.

From 1971 to 1976, Vinod Khosla attended IIT Delhi where he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.

Vinod Khosla 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.

Vinod Khosla 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, Vinod 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.

Vinod Khosla received a master's in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University on a full scholarship.

Vinod Khosla applied to Stanford University's MBA program but was rejected for lack of work experience.

Vinod Khosla had 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, Vinod Khosla convinced the admissions staff to accept him into Stanford Graduate School of Business and received an MBA in 1980.

Vinod Khosla is married to Neeru Khosla, his childhood girlfriend.

Vinod Khosla rejected several employment opportunities to establish his first business venture.

Vinod Khosla developed a business plan for an electronic design automation company for electrical engineers.

Vinod Khosla was introduced to employees at Intel and became the first full-time founder and Chief Financial Officer of Daisy Systems.

Vinod Khosla spent 80 percent of its resources on building custom computer hardware that could run its software.

In 1981, Vinod Khosla co-founded Data Dump with a former Stanford classmate, which ended up failing.

In 1982, Vinod Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems, along with Stanford classmates Andy Bechtolsheim, who was licensing a computer design to local companies, and Scott McNealy.

Vinod Khosla recruited early executives and developers such as Eric Schmidt and Carol Bartz.

Vinod Khosla served as the first chairman and CEO from 1982 to 1984, when he left the company to become a venture capitalist.

In 1986, Vinod Khosla joined the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins as a general partner.

At Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla managed investments in technologies, such as video games and semiconductors.

Vinod Khosla helped create Nexgen, sold to AMD for 28 percent of its market cap, which was the first successful Intel microprocessor clone company.

Vinod Khosla invested in Go Corporation, which developed a stylus-operated computer and was seen as one of the largest Silicon Valley startup failures.

Vinod Khosla mentored the founders until the company was sold to @Home Network for $7 billion, which was it his first venture capital deal of that size.

Vinod Khosla incubated Cerent Corporation in 1996, which sold to Cisco for $7.8 billion, and Siara, which sold for $3 billion and was its chief executive officer for its first year.

In 2004 to spend more time with his teenage kids and focus on science-based technology startups, Vinod Khosla moved to part-time and eventually left Kleiner Perkins.

Vinod Khosla opened up Khosla Ventures to outside investors for the first time that same year.

Vinod Khosla has advocated for breakthroughs in these "clean" energies rather than cutting back on energy consumption.

Vinod Khosla believes carbon sequestration is an area that needs significant advancements and is the most feasible.

Vinod Khosla believes that a dozen dramatic technologies to solve climate change and it is inaccurate to consider cleantech investing as a bust.

Vinod Khosla started investing in medicine and robotics, such as companies that use artificial intelligence in medical treatments at that time.

In 2018, Vinod Khosla stated the plan for the rest of his life was to "reinvent societal infrastructure" through innovation and technology such as 3D-printing houses for the homeless.

In 2019, Vinod Khosla presented "Amazing: What KV Founders are Doing," which described 100 portfolio companies reinventing areas such as health, infrastructure, robotics, transportation, augmented reality and artificial intelligence.

Vinod Khosla Ventures was the first venture capital investor in OpenAI during a period when it was "almost impossible to diligence" due to the company's corporate structure.

Vinod Khosla offered personal loans to startups after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Vinod Khosla believes in using capitalism as a solution for social impact due to its ability to scale, which is something he does not believe is possible with non-profit organizations.

Vinod Khosla has insisted economical, large-scale solutions will succeed when facing global warming as well.

Vinod Khosla has stated that machine learning technology will replace many jobs and increase income disparities however will create enough GDP to provide basic income to everyone.

Vinod Khosla has donated to a mix of Democrats and Republicans and supports politicians based on their climate policies.

Vinod Khosla is a Democrat and has donated to organizations that support left-leaning politics.

Vinod Khosla hosted Barack Obama for a fundraising dinner in 2013, and Joe Biden in 2024 at his home in Portola Valley.

Vinod Khosla endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election.

Vinod 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.

Vinod Khosla pledged his support for Kamala Harris in July 2024 and joined "VCs for Kamala", a group of more than 100 tech investors and entrepreneurs signatories for Harris.

In May 2023, Vinod Khosla gave a presentation examining how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19 pandemic influences the future.

Vinod Khosla argued that the Ukraine invasion started an energy transition and COVID-19 lockdowns in China moved global supply chains out of the country, starting one of the most powerful 20-year innovation cycles.

Vinod Khosla has stated that America is in a techno-economic war with China which it would lose upon slowing down the pace of AI development, while indicating that artificial general intelligence should be closed-source for national security.

Vinod Khosla later wrote an open letter to United States Senate urging them to pass the bill calling the social media platform a "weapon of war".

In 2014, Vinod Khosla wrote about artificial intelligence positing that it would create an income disparity while increasing gross domestic product and productivity.

Vinod Khosla stated that the value of "humanness" in occupational roles would become more valuable after the expansion of artificial intelligence, and have a "hugely deflationary" effect on the economy over the following 25 years.

Vinod Khosla has stated that 80 percent of all jobs will be eliminated with artificial intelligence having broader information and expertise in many industries and its growth will allow for universal basic income.

Vinod Khosla was honorary chair of the DonorsChoose San Francisco Bay Area advisory board.

In 2000, Vinod Khosla was a recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 2007, Vinod Khosla was an award recipient in the Northern California region for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Vinod Khosla was a member of the board of trustees of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Vinod Khosla is 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.

Vinod Khosla is involved with organizations that provide microfinancing to small businesses in third-world countries and worked closely with Muhammad Yunus funding multiple organizations for both profit and non-profit.

In 2023, Vinod Khosla signed a letter along with over 170 global figures to stop the "persecution" of Yunus.

Vinod Khosla is on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Mellon University.

Vinod Khosla was an early signatory to the Giving Pledge and sits on the Breakthrough Energy Ventures board.

Since 2010, Vinod Khosla has been engaged in a legal dispute regarding public access to Martins Beach, several miles south of Half Moon Bay, California, where he owns adjacent land.

Martins Beach was a popular family beach and surf spot before Vinod Khosla purchased the property adjacent to the beach and blocked access with a gate, armed guards at the road entrance and painting over the welcome sign.

The plaintiffs stated that they expected Vinod Khosla to take the case to the US Supreme Court.

In January 2020, the California Coastal Commission sued Vinod Khosla, alleging he was in violation of the California Coastal Act of 1976.