Sabeer Bhatia (Punjabi: ਸਬੀਰ ਭਾਟਿਯਾ, Hindi: सबीर भाटिया; born December 30, 1968) is an Indian American entrepreneur who co-founded Hotmail email service. Bhatia is worth USD 200 million.
Bhatia was born to a Punjabi Hindu family in Chandigarh, India. His father, Baldev Bhatia, worked as an officer in the Indian Army and later joined the Indian Ministry of Defence, while his mother, Daman Bhatia, was a senior official at the Central Bank of India.[2] Bhatia was schooled at the St. Joseph's Boys' High School in Bangalore. In 1986, he began his undergraduate education at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani and was transferred to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) after two years at BITS. After graduating from Caltech, Sabeer went to Stanford University in 1989 to pursue his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. At Stanford, he worked on Ultra Low Power VLSI Design.
At Stanford, he got inspired by entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy and eventually decided to become one himself. Instead of pursuing a Ph.D. after his Masters, he decided to join Apple.
Sabeer Bhatia joined a startup company called Firepower Systems Inc, where he spent two years. In 1994, Sabeer started working on new ideas for the Internet and he teamed up with Jack Smith, a colleague from Apple Computer, Inc.
The two came up with the concept of a web-based database entitled Javasoft. While pursuing this idea, they subsequently realized the potential of a web-based e-mail system and thus decided to create one called HoTMaiL (the uppercase letters spelling out HTML—the language used to write the base of a webpage). In order to attract attention, the e-mail service was provided for free and revenue was obtained through the advertising on the website. Draper Fisher Ventures invested $300,000 on the project and the service was launched on July 4, 1996.
In less than six months, the website attracted over 4 million subscribers. As the interest in the web-based email provider increased, Microsoft eventually took notice and on December 30, 1997 (Bhatia's 29th birthday), Hotmail was sold to Microsoft for a reported sum of $700million. He credited the environment in the United States for facilitating entrepreneurship. In an interview, he remained critical of the Indian government stating that "he still could not do a Hotmail in India".
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabeer_Bhatia
Bhatia was born to a Punjabi Hindu family in Chandigarh, India. His father, Baldev Bhatia, worked as an officer in the Indian Army and later joined the Indian Ministry of Defence, while his mother, Daman Bhatia, was a senior official at the Central Bank of India.[2] Bhatia was schooled at the St. Joseph's Boys' High School in Bangalore. In 1986, he began his undergraduate education at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani and was transferred to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) after two years at BITS. After graduating from Caltech, Sabeer went to Stanford University in 1989 to pursue his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. At Stanford, he worked on Ultra Low Power VLSI Design.
At Stanford, he got inspired by entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy and eventually decided to become one himself. Instead of pursuing a Ph.D. after his Masters, he decided to join Apple.
Sabeer Bhatia joined a startup company called Firepower Systems Inc, where he spent two years. In 1994, Sabeer started working on new ideas for the Internet and he teamed up with Jack Smith, a colleague from Apple Computer, Inc.
The two came up with the concept of a web-based database entitled Javasoft. While pursuing this idea, they subsequently realized the potential of a web-based e-mail system and thus decided to create one called HoTMaiL (the uppercase letters spelling out HTML—the language used to write the base of a webpage). In order to attract attention, the e-mail service was provided for free and revenue was obtained through the advertising on the website. Draper Fisher Ventures invested $300,000 on the project and the service was launched on July 4, 1996.
In less than six months, the website attracted over 4 million subscribers. As the interest in the web-based email provider increased, Microsoft eventually took notice and on December 30, 1997 (Bhatia's 29th birthday), Hotmail was sold to Microsoft for a reported sum of $700million. He credited the environment in the United States for facilitating entrepreneurship. In an interview, he remained critical of the Indian government stating that "he still could not do a Hotmail in India".
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabeer_Bhatia
