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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 371 Don Hankey|# 373 Ray Lee Hunt ➡

# 372 Vinod Khosla 

$7.48B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/25/2024
$9.3M (0.12%)

# 372 Vinod Khosla 

$7.48B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/25/2024
$9.3M (0.12%)
OccupationFounder, Khosla Ventures
Source of WealthSun Microsystems, Venture Capital
Age69
ResidencePortola Valley, California
Marital StatusMarried
Children4
EducationMS, Carnegie Mellon University; BS, Indian Institute of Technology; MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$4.07B
Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla
United States
Net worth: $7.48B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Early and Personal Life

Vinod Khosla was born on January 28, 1955, in Pune, India, to a Punjabi family, with his father serving in the Indian Army.
He attended Mount St Mary's School for elementary education and later pursued electrical engineering at IIT Delhi from 1971 to 1976.
During his time at IIT Delhi, he founded the first computer club, wrote a paper on parallel processing, and attempted to start a soy milk company.
Khosla earned a master's in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University on a full scholarship before being admitted to Stanford Graduate School of Business for his MBA.
He is married to his childhood girlfriend, Neeru Khosla, with whom he has four children.

Early Career and Education

After completing his MBA at Stanford in 1980, Khosla turned down several job offers to become an entrepreneur.
He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Bill Joy, serving as the first chairman and CEO.
Khosla joined venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in 1986, managing investments in technologies such as video games and semiconductors.
He played a pivotal role in the success of companies like Nexgen and Excite, which saw significant returns on investment.
In 2004, Khosla left Kleiner Perkins to focus on technology startups and founded his own venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures.

Career at Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures, established in 2004, focuses on investing in experimental technologies with social impact, particularly in alternative energy and biomedicine.
The firm gained prominence for its early investments in companies like LanzaTech, QuantumScape, and Impossible Foods.
Khosla advocates for breakthroughs in 'clean' energies and invests in technologies addressing climate change.
He manages approximately $15 billion in investor capital through Khosla Ventures, with investments in various sectors like healthcare, robotics, and transportation.
Khosla Ventures opened up to outside investors in 2009, securing $750 million for early and growth-stage companies.

Philanthropy and Affiliations

Vinod Khosla and his wife, Neeru, are involved in philanthropic endeavors, including co-founding the CK-12 Foundation and supporting the Wikimedia Foundation.
He has received awards such as the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement and the Champions of the Earth from the UNEP.
Khosla is associated with organizations like TiE and serves on the board of trustees at Carnegie Mellon University.
He is a signatory to the Giving Pledge and sits on the board of Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Khosla offered to fund oxygen imports for hospitals in India in April 2021.

Views and Disputes

Khosla believes in using capitalism for social impact and has donated to political causes supporting climate policies.
He endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has supported organizations advocating for clean energy initiatives.
Khosla has been involved in a legal dispute over public access to Martins Beach, which he owns adjacent land to, since 2010.
Despite court rulings requiring restoration of public access, the dispute continues, with the California Coastal Commission suing Khosla for violations in 2020.

How long would it take you to become as rich as Vinod Khosla?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.11% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach Vinod Khosla's net worth of $7.48B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 52.22% compared to 16.62% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

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Vinod Khosla is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For Vinod Khosla, Sun Microsystems and Venture Capital are the primary sources. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey