Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an Indian-American billionaire, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on technology and sustainability. As of July 11, 2026, he entered into a binding agreement to purchase the Seattle Seahawks. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas including networking, software, and alternative energy technologies, and has been described by The Information as one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.
Khosla is an early signatory to the Giving Pledge. In 2026, he was ranked No. 10 in the Forbes 250 list of America's Greatest Innovators and 14th on Forbes' inaugural "250: America's Most Successful Living Immigrants" list. In June 2024, he was featured on the cover of Forbes for "The Epic Battle for AI's Future" issue alongside Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman. In September 2024, he was named to Time's TIME100 AI list and featured on the issue's cover. He was No. 1 on the 2026 Forbes Midas List and on the inaugural list in 2001. Red Herring called him "The No. 1 VC on the Planet" in 2001, noting he created six jobs every day from 1976 to 2001. As of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth at $15.6 billion.
Early life and education
Khosla was born on 28 January 1955 to a Punjabi Indian family in Pune, Maharashtra. His father was an officer in the Indian Army, posted to New Delhi, and wanted him to join the army. He attended Mount St Mary's School in New Delhi for elementary school. As a teenager, he became interested in entrepreneurship after reading about the founding of Intel in Electronic Engineering Times, which led him to pursue technology as a career. He was inspired by Intel co-founder Andrew Grove, a Hungarian immigrant who acquired funding for Intel in Silicon Valley when it was a startup.
From 1971 to 1976, Khosla attended IIT Delhi, earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. At IIT Delhi, he started a computer club focused on programming; when the institute's IT staff went on strike, the club was given access to the computer center. As a student, he wrote a paper on parallel processing before the technology became mainstream and helped launch what has been described as India's first biomedical engineering program, involving collaboration between IIT Delhi and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. In 1975, he attempted to start a soy milk company to provide a milk alternative for Indian consumers without refrigerators, but the business had no funding, and after hearing he would wait seven years for a phone line, he decided to go to Silicon Valley.
In 1976, at age 21, Khosla emigrated to the United States to pursue a master's in biomedical engineering on a full scholarship. He applied to Stanford Business School's MBA program twice and was rejected. However, three weeks after beginning an MBA program at Carnegie Mellon, he was accepted to Stanford's MBA program and received his MBA in 1980.
Career at Sun Microsystems and Kleiner Perkins
After completing his MBA, Khosla decided to become an entrepreneur, rejecting several employment opportunities. In 1980, at age 25, he developed a business plan for an electronic design automation company. He became the first full-time founder and chief financial officer of Daisy Systems, one of the first companies in the computer-aided design software market. The company spent 80 percent of its resources on custom computer hardware, and Khosla left before its IPO, which was one of the most successful of 1984. In 1981, he co-founded Data Dump with former Stanford classmate Scott McNealy, which failed.
In 1982, Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems (SUN stands for Stanford University Network) with Stanford classmates Andy Bechtolsheim and Scott McNealy; UC Berkeley graduate student Bill Joy later joined as co-founder. Sun sold servers, desktop computers, and created the Java programming language. It pioneered open systems technology, RISC processors, and distributed systems, creating NFS, among the first open-sourced commercial software, and the first RISC-based SPARC processors. Khosla raised $300,000 in seed capital from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The original business plan was later used as a Harvard Business School case study. Within five years, Sun made $1 billion in annual sales. Khosla recruited early executives such as Eric Schmidt, later CEO of Google, and Carol Bartz, future CEO of Yahoo!. He served as first chairman and CEO from 1982 to 1984.
In 1986, Khosla joined Kleiner Perkins as a general partner, alongside Sun board member John Doerr. He managed investments in video games and semiconductors. He helped create NexGen, the first successful Intel microprocessor clone company, sold to AMD for 28 percent of its market cap. He invested in Go Corporation, a stylus-operated computer company seen as one of the largest Silicon Valley startup failures. In 1994, he suggested Excite adapt its search engine for the internet and financed a special disk drive, starting with a $5,000 check to test his theory. He was also involved in suggesting the advertising model as a revenue source.
Khosla Ventures and AI investing
Khosla founded Khosla Ventures in 2004, focusing on early-stage investments in technology, including alternative energy, networking, and software. The firm has backed numerous companies, and Khosla has become a prominent investor in Artificial intelligence and Generative AI. He has invested in AI startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Inflection AI, among others. His firm has also funded companies in areas like Machine learning, Deep learning, and Large language model applications. Khosla has been vocal about the transformative potential of AI, often writing essays and giving talks on its societal impact. His investments have contributed to his reputation as one of the most successful venture capitalists, with a focus on long-term, high-risk bets.
Personal life
In 1980, Khosla married Neeru Khosla, his girlfriend since he was 16. They have four children and have lived at the same residence since 1986. In 2001, he said he makes a point of having dinner with his family at least 25 times a month. On most days, he fasts until dinner because he says food slows him down. He is a signatory to the Giving Pledge, committing to give away the majority of his wealth. In 2026, he agreed to purchase the Seattle Seahawks, marking a significant move into sports ownership.