The man in this photo needs no introduction, the India-born IT giant, the co-founder of Hotmail (one of the world's largest e-mail pro...
The man in this photo needs no introduction, the India-born IT giant, the co-founder of Hotmail (one of the world's largest e-mail providers with more than 369 million subscribers). Sabeer Bhatia is also known for its other commercial ventures and associations.
Sabeer Bhatia was born on December 30, 1969, in Chandigarh. It came from a middle-class background. His father was an army officer and his mother worked for the Central Bank of India. Sabeer Bhatia had his previous schooling at Bishop Cotton School in Pune and then at St. Joseph's College in Bangalore.
After leaving school, I joined the Birla Institute of Technology (BITS) in Pilani. In Pilani, he was qualified to try to transfer scholarship to Cal Tech, considered the most competitive scholarship in the world. Sabeer Bhatia was the only candidate in the world in 1988 to obtain an approval rating of 62.
After graduating from Caltech, Sabeer Bhatia went to Stanford University in 1989 to pursue Mr. M. in Electrical Engineering. At Stanford, Sabeer Bhatia worked on 'Ultra Low Power VLSI Design'.
Eventually, during his stay at Stanford, Sabeer Bhatia was inspired by entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy and decided to become one himself. He would have pursued a Ph.D. After his masters, Sabeer Bhatia decided to join Apple in 1991.
He worked for a short time at Apple and then joined an initial company called 'Firepower Systems Inc', where he spent two years successfully. In 1994, Sabeer Bhatia began working on innovative ideas on the Internet and started a team in association with Jack Smith, a colleague of Apple Computer, Inc. Both of them came up with the concept of a web-based database titled 'Javasoft'.
Birth of the Spark
One day Smith called Bhatia with an intriguing notion. "Why not add mail to Javasoft" was your idea. It was a small leap with revolutionary consequences for the email from any computer, anywhere on the planet.
This was a rare thing, an idea so simple, so obvious; It was hard to believe he had not thought of that before. Bhatia saw the potential and panic that someone would steal the idea. I sat down all night writing the business plan. Then they wrote down all the variations of mail - Speedmail, Hypermail, Supermail. Hotmail made perfect sense: it included the letters "HTML" - the programming language used to write web pages. Things started to move in a new direction.
A brand was born. Bhatia had $ 6,000 in her kitten. It was time to find investors. Drive today through San Francisco and all the other flyers promote some Internet company. Four years were very difficult for Bhatia.
Few people believed that the network was real. They thought it was a fashion, like CB radio. When he reached the offices of venture capitalists, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, 19 doors had struck behind him. Steve Jurvetson and his colleagues quickly saw the potential and put $ 300,000 as an investment.
Bhatia and Smith stretched out all the money they had, the day of the launch was July 4, 1996. By the end of the year, they were saluting their millionth customer. When Microsoft came to buy the brand, 12 months later, they signed almost 10 million users. But what was worth 10 million subscribers? Microsoft offered $ 106 million.
Bhatia consulted with his investors. Doug Carlisle, whose firm Menlo Ventures had pumped $ 1 million into Hotmail, guessed $ 200 million. Bhatia scolded him for giving the lowest estimate and joked that he could handle a billion. Carlisle promised that if Bhatia won $ 200 million, he had erected a life-size bronze statue in Menlo Ventures' foyer. The negotiations continued.
Bhatia did not know how to sell a company. But he did not know how to buy onions. I'm an Indian, he's good at negotiating. They came in low with $ 160 million and then the Bhatia reached $ 700 million.
Bhatia would not move and Microsoft's representatives would continue to leave. And screaming and swearing insults. But the Hotmail team had been warned of Microsoft tactics. "It was like a record being played," says Jurvetson, "which we found very funny. It gave them a sense of strength."
Bhatia always had faith in the product
Bhatia came back and told Microsoft: "If this is the brand we built in a year and a half, imagine what it will be in 20 years. Hotmail will be bigger than McDonald's." Microsoft was convinced by his words.
With $ 200 million, Doug Carlisle started looking for a sculptor, as he promised. With $ 350 million, Hotmail investors agreed to sell. Bhatia returned to the table, alone, and again said, "No." The contract was signed on December 30, 1997, the 29th anniversary of Bhatia. The price: about three million shares of Microsoft - worth $ 400 million at the time and twice now. The deal was ready
