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Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist, though he rejects that title and calls himself a venture assistant used on helping entrepreneurs.[1] He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures.[2] Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies.[3] He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.[4]

In 2001, an article in the Red Herring titled “The No. 1 VC on the Planet: Vinod Khosla” stated Khosla created six new jobs for every day he lived in the US and helped create 40 companies producing $150b of market value during his first 24 years in the US which put him in the top one percentile of VC investors.[5][6]

As of January 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth at US$13.4 billion.[7]

Biography

Khosla was born on 28 January 1955, to a Punjabi Indian family in Pune, Maharashtra.[8] Khosla's father was an officer in the Indian Army,[9] posted to New Delhi, India. His father wanted him to also join the army. He attended Mount St Mary's School (New Delhi) for elementary school.[10] 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.[11] According to Khosla, he was inspired by Intel co-founder Andrew Grove, a Hungarian immigrant who got funding for Intel in Silicon Valley, when it was a startup.

From 1971 to 1976, Khosla attended IIT Delhi where he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.[12] 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.[13][14] However, Khosla's business had no funding and on hearing he would have to wait seven years to get a phone line he decide to try and get to Silicon Valley.[15]

In 1976 when Khosla was 21 years old, he arrived in the United States with no assets except his admission to Carnegie Mellon. Khosla received a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University on a full scholarship.[12] He applied to the Stanford Business School's MBA program, but was rejected for lack of work experience. He had two full-time jobs while finishing his engineering 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 Stanford admissions staff to accept him and received his MBA there in 1980.[16]

In 1980 he married Neeru Khosla, his girlfriend since he was 16.[17][18] They have four children,[19][20] and have lived at their current residence since 1986. In 2001, Khosla said he makes a point of having dinner with his family at least 25 times a month.[6][18]

Career

After completing his MBA at Stanford in 1980, Khosla decided to become an entrepreneur. He rejected several employment opportunities to establish his first business venture.[8]

Co-founding Sun Microsystems and early investments: 1980-2003

At age 25, Khosla developed a business plan for an electronic design automation company for electrical engineers. He was introduced to employees at Intel and became the first full-time founder and Chief Financial Officer of Daisy Systems, and one of the first companies to go after the computer-aided design software market.[12] The company spent 80 percent of its resources on building custom computer hardware that could run its software. As a result, Khosla left the company in order to create a startup that manufactures general purpose computers. Khosla left Daisy Systems before the company's IPO which was one of the most successful IPOs of 1984. In 1981, Khosla co-founded Data Dump with a former Stanford classmate, Scott McNealy, which ended up failing.[21]

In 1982, Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems (SUN is the acronym for the Stanford University Network), along with Stanford classmates Andy Bechtolsheim, who was licensing a computer design for $10,000 to local companies, and Scott McNealy.[18] UC Berkeley computer science graduate student Bill Joy later joined the company as co-founder. Sun Microsystems sold servers to the universities they graduated from and other colleges, desktop computers, and created the Java programming language. Sun pioneered open systems technology and RISC processors. Sun's premise was distributed systems. They sold networked servers and workstations, and created NFS, among the first open-sourced commercial software, virtual memory microprocessor based personal desktops, the first RISC based SPARC processors, and Java. Khosla raised $300,000 in seed capital from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The original and succinct Sun Business plan free of platitudes and fillers which was also used as a Harvard Business School case study.[22] Within five years, Sun made $1 billion in annual sales. Khosla also recruited early executives and developers such as Eric Schmidt and Carol Bartz. He served as the first chairman and CEO from 1982 to 1984, when he left the company to become a venture capitalist.[12]

In 1986, Khosla joined the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins as a general partner. At Kleiner Perkins, Khosla managed investments in technologies, such as video games and semiconductors.[11]

He helped create Nexgen, sold to AMD for 28 percent of its market cap, which was the first successful Intel microprocessor clone company. He invested in Go Corporation, which developed a stylus-operated computer and was seen as one of the largest Silicon Valley startup failures. In 1994, he suggested that Excite adapt its search engine for the internet and helped finance the special disk drive the company needed to run their search engine starting with a $5K check to test his theory by buying a bigger hard drive. Khosla was also involved in suggesting the advertising model as a source of revenue. During his time at Excite, Khosla convinced Google founders to sell to Excite for $750K which Excite CEO George Bell rejected.[23][18] On April 1, 1996, Khosla informed Excite co-founder Joe Kraus that the search engine company's IPO had been canceled, hours before the stock was to start trading however thirty minutes later he called him back to let him know it was an April Fools joke. He mentored the founders until the company was sold to @Home Network for $7 billion in May 1999, which was his first venture capital deal of that size. Afterwards, Khosla was an early proponent of fiber optics and the internet for faster communication and started focusing on telecommunication networking companies.[18] In 2001, Khosla expressed disdain for the recently funded optical networking companies stating that what was happening was “greed” similar to the dot-com space. It's been stated that “It was as if he had a cheat code for the broadband future.[5]

He incubated Juniper Networks and suggested that it develop an "Internet router instead of the plain vanilla router mostly used." Khosla invested $275,000, which became his largest return on investment to date.[24] A $3 million investment in Juniper Networks in the 1990s earned $7 billion for Kleiner Perkins which was a 2500x investment and is considered one of the “best-ever venture investments in U.S. companies in overall dollars” according to The Wall Street Journal.[25][23][26] He also incubated Cerent Corporation in 1996, and invested about $8 million which grew 300x to $2.4b 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.[27] In November 1999, John Doerr stated Khosla “made Kleiner $10 billion in profits” from a group of fabulously successful fiber-optic and internet investments in the 1990s, including Juniper, Cerent, and Excite.[28]

In 2001, it was stated that Khosla had created more multibillion-dollar companies than any other VC save John Doerr. Mr Doerr, Arthur Rock of Arthur Rock & Company, who invested in Intel and Apple, and Donald Valentine of Sequoia Capital, who invested in Intel, are the only other VCs that match his record.[29][30][31]

Development of Khosla Ventures: 2004-present

In 2004, to spend more time with his teenage kids and focus on science-based 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 "social impact"[32][33] or Khosla Ventures since its formation as stated on their website.[31] The firm was structured to pursue high-risk, first-principles innovation across sectors including enterprise software, consumer platforms, healthcare, artificial intelligence, robotics, financial technology, defense, infrastructure, as well as energy and materials science.[34][35][1] 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.[36]

In September 2009, 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. He opened up Khosla Ventures to outside investors for the first time that same year.[37] The firm became known for being an early investor in Square, DoorDash, and Instacart, investments in alternative energy technology,[38] and long-horizon investments across fintech, enterprise software, artificial intelligence, healthcare, transportation, and energy.[39] He has advocated for breakthroughs in these "clean" energies rather than cutting back on energy consumption.[40] He has referred to these early investments as “Cleantech 1.0” which includes investments in LanzaTech, Gevo, QuantumScape, Sakti3, Seeo, Fortera, Mainspring Energy and others.[41] The firm incubated carbon recycling and aviation fuel company LanzaTech and QuantumScape, a solid state battery company worth $16b on its offering and positioned as the best solid state battery company for EV's. According to Business Insider, Khosla Ventures’ investment in QuantumScape returned more than $1 billion after approximately ten years, reflecting the extended timelines associated with several of the firm’s science-driven investments.[42] During the same period, Khosla Ventures was also investing in non-climate sectors, including enterprise infrastructure, developer tools, consumer internet, fintech, healthcare, and artificial intelligence.[42][26] Khosla believes carbon sequestration is an area that needs significant advancements and is the most feasible.[43][44][45] Khosla believes that a dozen dramatic technologies to solve climate change and it is inaccurate to consider cleantech investing as a bust which he states in his 2020 blog post “A few Critical Climate Technology Breakthroughs Multiplied by “Instigators” is desperately needed”. Recent investments in alternative energy and climate technology include fusion company Commonwealth Fusion, renewable nitrogen fertilizer company Nitricity, public transportation company Glydways, green hydrogen company Verdagy, and direct air capture company Spiritus.[46][42]

Beginning in 2010, Khosla Ventures began investing in food and was the first investor in companies like Instacart and DoorDash.[47] Fintech was also an area of focus with early investments in Square, Stripe and Affirm, which all resulted in large returns for Khosla Ventures.[48] During this time, Khosla had hired Condoleezza Rice's advisory firm to work with portfolio companies.[49]

In 2012, Khosla wrote an article titled "Do We Need Doctors Or Algorithms?" arguing the increasing importance of artificial intelligence in medicine claiming "bionic assistance" will eventually replace most doctors.[50] In 2012, he also wrote “Do we need teachers?" which was also on the future of AI. He started investing in medicine and robotics, such as companies that use artificial intelligence in medical treatments at that time.[51]

In 2018, Khosla stated the plan for the rest of his life was to "reinvent societal infrastructure" where he examined which parts of the non-governmental GDP could be reinvented with technology and said he was going to spend the next 20 years working on these innovations.[52] Khosla has stated "we need 1,000% change if billions of people in China and India are to enjoy a Western, energy-rich lifestyle." He invests in "black swan" technologies that have a high chance of failure but if successful, would have environmental and societal benefits.[33] In 2019, 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.[53] Khosla has stated that he has been unable to identify examples of major technological innovation originating from individuals who were long-established experts within a single field, arguing instead that transformative breakthroughs often come from founders applying cross-disciplinary thinking. He has cited companies such as Uber, Airbnb, SpaceX, Tesla, Amazon, and OpenAI as examples of startups that reshaped established industries.

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. The firm invested $50 million in OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary in 2019. It had a 5 percent stake in OpenAI at that time.[54]

Khosla offered personal loans to startups after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.[55]

In response to the removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI, Khosla suggested, on behalf of himself and Khosla Ventures, that Altman be reinstated.[56][57] He later criticized Elon Musk for his breach of contract lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman, referring to it as "sour grapes" for failing to stay committed to the company.[58][59]

Khosla Ventures manages approximately $15 billion of investor capital as well as investments funded by Khosla himself.[60] The firm was ranked #1 in the Founders Choice list of over 200 venture capital firms in 2023.[31]

In 2026, Khosla was ranked number 10 in the Forbes 250 list of America’s Greatest Innovators.[61]

Views

Capitalism

Khosla believes in using capitalism as a solution for social change due to its ability to scale, which is something he does not believe is possible with non-profit organizations. He has insisted economical, large-scale solutions will succeed when facing global warming as well. Khosla has stated that machine learning technology will replace many jobs and increase income disparities however will also create enough GDP to provide basic income to everyone.[33][62]

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.[63] Khosla hosted Barack Obama for a fundraising dinner in 2013,[64] and Joe Biden in 2024 at his home in Portola Valley.[65] Khosla endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[66]

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.

With the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the 2024 United States presidential election, Khosla called for the Democratic Party to hold an open convention for its nominee. He stated that it was "hard for me to support someone with no values, lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, hates immigrants like me" in social media exchanges after Musk referenced supporting Donald Trump.[67][68] 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.[69]

China

In May 2023, Khosla gave a presentation looking back from the year 2040[70] and examining how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19 pandemic influenced the future. He 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. Khosla has also 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.[71][72] Khosla has stated the US will continue in this techno-economic war with China for the next 20 years.

Khosla has stated the pursuit of AGI should be closed-source due to his concern over national security in relation to China and compares the topic to the Manhattan Project. He debated the topic with Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen over X in March 2024.[73] Journalist Malik Om responded to Khosla's tweets stating “Social Media is the best thing that has happened for him because nothing (and no reporter for sure) can capture his true essence than what he shares on Twitter.”

In April 2024, Khosla wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times announcing his support of a bill that would force divestiture of TikTok from its parent company, ByteDance. Khosla later wrote an open letter to the United States Senate urging them to pass the bill calling the social media platform a "weapon of war".[74]

Artificial intelligence

In 2014, Khosla wrote about artificial intelligence and also 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.[75][76]

While concerns have been raised that artificial intelligence will displace jobs, Khosla argued it will enable humans to do what they are interested in and free humanity from the need to work. He 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.[18][77][78]

In April 2024, Khosla gave a TED talk on his predictions for the future, several of which involved technology and artificial intelligence.[79] In October 2024, Khosla wrote "AI: Dystopia or Utopia?" on it being a transformative force capable of creating a world of abundance with both utopian and dystopian possibilities and a positive outcome achievable through thoughtful design.[80]

Philanthropy and affiliations

Khosla was 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.[81] 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 the US and the rest of the world. His wife, Neeru Khosla, founded and exclusively supports CK12.org, an organization that supports tens of millions of students and teachers per year with free educational content and services and is now on a mission to provide free AI tutors to every child on the planet. As of August 2020, CK12 had over 130 million students and teachers using their resources with registrations increasing by 460% as a result of COVID-19.[73] Khosla and his wife have donated $500,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation.[82]

In 2007, Khosla was an award recipient in the Northern California region for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award.[83] Khosla was a member of the board of trustees of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley.[84] The center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of extreme poverty and disease in the developing world.[85]

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.[86] In 2009, he was awarded Champions of the Earth by the UNEP for in the Entrepreneurial Vision category for India. The same year, he was awarded the Great Immigrants Award.[87] Khosla was an early signatory to the Giving Pledge and sits on the Breakthrough Energy Ventures board.[88]

He 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, Khosla signed a letter along with over 170 global figures to stop the "persecution" of Yunus.[89][90] Khosla is on the board of trustees at Carnegie Mellon University.[91]

In April 2021, Khosla made an offer to fund oxygen imports for hospitals in India amid the COVID-19 pandemic.[92][93] He has since made many significant grants to several Covid related relief work projects in India including 10BedICU which has funded and created over 200 10BedICU across nine states.[73]

Martins Beach dispute

Since 2010, Khosla has been engaged in a legal dispute regarding public access to Martins Beach, several miles south of Half Moon Bay, California.[75][76][18] Martins Beach is privately owned; its prior owners historically permitted public access upon payment of a fee. Khosla purchased the property adjacent to the beach and closed the road and business of paid for access and posted “No Trespassing” signs, which became the subject of subsequent litigation.[77][78]

In 2017, the California Court of Appeal ruled that Khosla must obtain a Coastal Development Permit before closing the gate on Martins Beach Road, but the ruling did not establish a public right of access.[94][95][96][97] In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that decision.[98] In November 2019, the California Court of Appeal held that prior owners’ practice of charging a fee meant the public's use was by permission, not by right. In 2020, the California State Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission jointly filed a lawsuit seeking to compel public access to Martins Beach under the California Coastal Act and related statutes. That case remains pending.[99]

Works

External links

  • (2006-03-29)

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