57 Facts About Vinod Khosla

1.

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

2.

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

3.

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

4.

Vinod Khosla was born on January 28,1955, in Pune, India.

5.

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

6.

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

7.

Vinod 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.

8.

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

9.

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.

10.

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.

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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.

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

Vinod Khosla was featured on Dateline NBC in May 2006, where he discussed the practicality of ethanol as a gasoline substitute.

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

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.

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

In 2013, Vinod Khosla hosted Barack Obama for a fundraising dinner at his home in Portola Valley.

43.

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.

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Vinod Khosla is an advisor for HackerRank, a website for competitive coding.

50.

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.

51.

Vinod Khosla is involved with organizations that provide microfinancing to small businesses in third-world countries and other organizations that promote entrepreneurship.

52.

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

53.

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

54.

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.

55.

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.

56.

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

57.

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