Success story of young billionaire, inspiring, motivational, motivating
1. Success Story of Young Billionaire - Sabeer Bhatia<br />Sabeer Bhatia (born December 30, 1968) is the co-founder of Hotmail and an entrepreneur. Why Is He Famous? India born computer wizard, Sabeer Bhatia came into limelight when he created the web based e- mail- the Hotmail and later sold it to the software giant- the Microsoft for a staggering $ 400 million in 1998. This deal was struck after hectic negotiations between him and the Microsoft. After selling the hotmail to the Microsoft, Sabeer Bhatia worked with the Microsoft for about a year and then left it to start another venture- Arzoo Inc. It is an e-commerce firm with a revolutionary new way to shop on line. With the hotmail deal, Sabeer Bhatia became the Silicon Valley hero and is still basking in glory. Today, Sabeer Bhatia is an idol for all Indians who wish to make it big in the Silicon Valley. Birth of a computer wizard Sabeer Bhatia was born to a Punjabi Hindu family in Chandigarh, India. His father, Baldev Bhatia, was as an officer in the Indian Army who later joined the Indian Ministry of Defence, while his mother, Daman Bhatia, was a senior official at the Central Bank of India. Bhatia was schooled at the St. Joseph's Boys' High School in Bangalore. In 1985, he began his undergraduate education at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani and was transferred to 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 in 1991. Launch of Hotmail The original Hotmail service was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, and was one of the first webmail services on the Internet. It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996, American Independence Day, symbolizing quot;
freedomquot;
from ISP-based e-mail and the ability to access a user's inbox from anywhere in the world. The name quot;
Hotmailquot;
was chosen out of many possibilities ending in quot;
-mailquot;
as it included the letters HTML - the coding used behind all web pages (to emphasize this, the original type casing was quot;
Hot Mailquot;
). Hotmail was initially backed by venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. By December 1997, it reported more than 8.5 million subscribersHotmail was sold to Microsoft in December 1997 for a reported $400 million, and it joined the MSN group of services. Hotmail quickly gained in popularity as it was localized for different markets around, He globe and became the world's largest webmail service, and reported more than 30 million active members by February 1999.Sabeer intended to complete his degrees and go back to India to work with some Large Indian Company as an engineer. Sabeer did his MS in 1993. Sabeer thought that one should be superhuman to start a company and it was an impossible task for him.But during his graduation in Stanford, he used to spend his lunch hours in the basement of Terman Auditorium. He listened to entrepreneurs like Scott Mc Nealy MBA'80, Steve Wozniak and Marc Andreessen, they all had a common message - quot;
You can do it too.quot;
Sabeer knew that famous people always says so to inspire others.After completing his graduation Sabeer dropped the idea of going home. He took up a job with Apple Computers and so did Jack Smith, his friend and co-worker.Sabeer and Jack had a dream to start a company and they were really working hard on it. They wanted to email notes to each other, but they were afraid of being accused by their bosses of spending their working hours on personal projects. They had personal American Online account, but they could not access it from office network. Jack was frustrated by this entire problem. And this gave birth to an idea of free e-mail accounts that can be accessed anonymously over the web - HOTMAIL.In mid-1995, Sabeer began his business plan for a net based personal database called Java soft. Java soft became the front for Hotmail for Jack and Sabeer in December.Sabeer knew Hotmail was an explosive concept. Sabeer convinced Imperial Bank to loan him $100, 00. Then he convinced McLean Public Relations to represent Hotmail in exchange of stock.In June the product was ready to launch, at that time they had 15 employees working for them. They launched it on July 4, 1996 - Independence Day - as Sabeer and jack thought free email was a great Independent idea and populist tool. Every body who owned a computer had their own email accounts, but with webmail, they could log on from anywhere in the world. The first users found it all by themselves and then it spread like a forest fire. There were 100 in first hour, 200 in second hours and 250 in third hours. The idea was so intuitively powerful that 80% of those who signed up for Hotmail; learned about it from a friend.In just 2 1/2 years, Sabeer built Hotmail's user base faster than any media company in history- Faster than CNN, faster than America Online. By summer 1998, with 25 million active e-mail accounts, the company was signing up new users at the rate of 125,000 a day.On the New year eve, 1997 the negotiations with Microsoft was finalized and the ownership of Hotmail was exchanged for 2,769,148 shares of Microsoft worth $400 million. Everybody in the valley was shocked with the dealing. But 8 months after the New Years announcement, Microsoft’s $400 million price tag looked like a bargain, considering Hotmail had more than tripled in size since it was purchased. Nobody thinks the price was unjust anymore. Sabeer had a 3year commitment (through 200) to head Hotmail for Microsoft.Being the head of the world's fastest-growing media company, backed with Microsoft's financial muscles Hotmail's Juggernaut appears unstoppable. He feels absurd when people call him 'Powerful Man' he is just ordinary flesh and blood like any other man. He says – quot;
If something is success, it is wildly successful quot;
Awards Entrepreneur of the Year,quot;
Awarded by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (1998) Named to the quot;
Elite 100,quot;
Upside magazine's list of top trendsetters in the New Economy Recipient of the TR100 award, presented by MIT to 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology in the next few years Selected by the San Jose Mercury News and POV magazine as one of the ten most successful entrepreneurs of (1998) Named by TIME as one of the quot;
People to Watchquot;
in International Business (2002)<br />