Khosla Ventures
Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. He was raised in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. When, at age 16, he first heard about Intel, he dreamt of starting his own technology company.
Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he tried to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He then came to the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980.
In 1982, Khosla started Sun Microsystems to build workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
In 1986 he switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins where he was a general partner. There, he worked with Nexgen/AMD, Juniper, Excite, and many other ventures.
In 2004, Khosla formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in both traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology arenas but also supports breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies.
Related Links: khoslaventures.com
Last Updated: Thu, Oct 23, 2008
Toss the old notions of environmentalism into the recycling bin. Investor Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures shatters conventional wisdom of energy reduction, and instead encourages entrepreneurs to solve environmental problems via cost-effective, innovative, and scalable engineering.
Forget every argument and industry lobby previously put forward regarding the evolution of green energy alternatives. For Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, if a technology doesn't meet the "Chindia test" - meaning that it is cheaper than the current status quo in China and India - then it is not a viable, scalable, and cost-effective long-term alternative. Anything that will uproot the global reliance on oil or coal must be less expensive, else it will never gain traction in the global marketplace.
Oil and coal account for 65-70 percent of our carbon emissions, followed by the carbon footprint of coal and steel, and these materials are among the most detrimental to the health of the planet, says Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla. And too often, feel-good environmentalism gets in the way of truly solving the climate crisis. Khosla claims that most of what green-thinking activists do to try to help the environment is a mere gesture toward the planet, and that real solutions are going to require broader, more entrepreneurial, strokes of innovation.
Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, predicted that the emergence of free long distance phone calls would be free, and that the large telecoms' reliance on those profits would make them fall like a deck of phone cards. But Khosla also uses this turn of events as a case study in entrepreneurship, exemplifying it as a demonstration that forward-thinking business investment is the best forerunner of the future.
Take a big problem, apply the best minds to its prospects, add the fuel of entrepreneurial energy and a touch of capitalist greed, and one has the perfect recipe for solving any social, environmental, or cultural dilemma, says Khosla Ventures' Vinod Khosla. Mere good intentions are not enough to invoke real change. But the course of industry can only be altered when all angles of the problem-solving pyramid are in place.
The market is an unimportant, artificial system, says Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, and he encourages entrepreneurs and thinkers to stop paying attention to its crests and troughs. Though the Dow may be down, what's far more important is the flow of user demand, which historically, says Khosla, always remains constant, and is a far greater indicator of long-term success.
What should innovators and financiers be reading to round out their education? Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, shares favorites from his library, some of which wrangle with issues of social entrepreneurship. Titles include The Black Swan</i>, The Purple Cow</i>, How to Change the World</i>, and Banker to the Poor</i>.
Vinod Khosla, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug early in life when he heard about Intel starting up. He was enamored by the idea of being able to start your own company. Intel served as as a great role model, he says.
Khosla talks about his early career development. He first tried to do a company in India based on milk from soybeans. He travelled to Carnegie Mellon, and then to Stanford University. He describes why persistence and evangelism are important. Although he was not admitted to Stanford at first, saught more real-world experience, and was not admitted again, through persuasion and persistence, he was finally accepted.
Launching a start-up is not a rational act. And Vinod Khosla, a partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and former Sun Microsystems CEO, believes that success only comes from those who are foolish enough to think unreasonably. Entrepreneurs need to stretch themselves beyond convention and constraint to reach something extraordinary. 
Khosla never intended to be a venture capitalist and still doesn't consider himself as one. He considers himself a venture assistant who has little interest in business other than its necessity for economics and its power to change the world. Khosla loves technology and believes that it drives most of the change that happen in the world.
Entrepreneurs are far less successful when they are trying to make money--they are much more successful when they have a mission to change the world. No matter what you do, Khosla says, you have to be foolish to do what an entrepreneur attempts. Whatever your value proposition is, it should have the goal of making the world a better place and you should feel passionately about your contribution. If you don't have this and you run into an obstacle, you get stuck. If you are passionate about your product and your message, you can power through problems more easily.
Things aren't ever as good or as bad as we think. Today (2002) is one of the best environments to be an investor. The last three or four years were not a lot of fun--if Khosla went to someone to build a reasonable business, the response he would get was that another company was willing to give more money for less work. He would have to explain that the role of a VC was to help companies develop a real economic model and to give an honest valuation.
Where most entrepreneurs fail is on the things they don't know, Khosla says. The biggest problem is when you don't know what you don't know!
When things are hot, that's not the area to invest, Khosla cautions. There is a surprise element always present where the biggest opportunities lie. Khosla highlights his interests in biology, genetics, nanotechnology and optical technology.
Khosla states that any big problem is a big opportunity. If there is no problem, there is no solution, and no reason for a company to exist. No one will pay you to solve a a problem that doesn't exist, he explains.
Khosla explains how to think big and act small. He reminds us that part of that process must be done on a belief system. Without a mission or belief system about how to change the world, one will not be successful.
Khosla shares his view on technology-driven entrepreneurship and predicts the growing impact of technology on life, society, and the economy.
In Kleiner Perkins perspective, Khosla argues, the traditional model of giving is broken. Social entrepreneurship and ways to leverage money are very important. Although there is not enough money in the world to solve the world's problems, if you apply and multiply, there are, in fact, solutions to some of these problems. Examples of companies providing these solutions include Gramine Bank and Aprotech.
Khosla states that it is the team that make the company. At Kleiner Perkins, he notes that everyone has learned much from each other. Personalities and approaches are diverse and combined to create great strength.