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.

1. Bit by the Entrepreneurship Bug
2. Career: Learning from Failure Early On
3. Taking Risks
4. Build a Company to Change the World
5. Company Building to Change the World
6. Role of VC in Valuation
7. When You Don't Know What You Don't Know
8. Envisioning the Future
9. Any Big Problem is a Big Opportunity
10. Think Big and Act Small
11. Technology as Driver of Change
12. Social Entrepreneurship
13. Strength of a Team
14. Juniper Networks: Customer Feedback
15. Entrepreneurship is the Driving Engine of the Economy
16. Cycles of Fear and Greed
17. Career Development: Go Deep
18. Right Time to Build the Team
19. Great CEOs Build Great Teams
20. To Get an MBA, or Not?

An interview with Vinod Khosla on Entrepreneurship for Stanford University students, on April 24, 2002. 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.

Vinod Khosla

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



Course Details:

- Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture

- Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner (ecorner)



Original Course Name: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture.