Vinod Khosla in Forbes' 400 richest Americans list

Tuesday, 23 September 2003, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: Leading venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is the only Indian American who has been included in Forbes magazine's list of 400 richest Americans for this year. Khosla, 48, a partner at Silicon Valley's venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, ranks 357 with net worth of $700 million, showed data posted on Forbes website Monday. California-based Khosla was also the lone Indian to feature in the Forbes 400 richest Americans list in 2002 with a rank of 391. Born in New Delhi, the "man with a golden touch" graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology and got a masters degree from Carnegie Mellon University. He then acquired a degree in masters of business administration from Stanford. Married with four children, Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982. He "retired" after Sun's initial public offering in 1986 to join venture capital shop Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Bill Gates of Microsoft topped the list of Forbes' 400 Richest Americans for 2003 with a net worth of whopping $46 billion. Famed global investor Warren Buffet, 73, was placed at the second rank with net worth of $36 billion. Buffet has substantial stakes in leading companies like American Express, Coca-Cola and Gillette. Other front-runners in the list included Microsoft co-founder and leading investor Paul Allen, Larry Ellison of Oracle, retail chain major Wal Mart's Alice Walton, and Michael Dell, chief executive officer of personal computer maker Dell. "After two years of declining values, the rich finally got richer," said the Forbes report on the richest American people. "On this, Forbes' 21st annual edition of The Forbes 400, the aggregate net worth of the nation's wealthiest 400 citizens leapt 10 percent in the past year, to $955 billion, just one Bill Gates away from $1 trillion," it said.
Source: IANS
siliconindia