Famous As Entrepreneur
Born On December 30, 1968
Born In Chandigarh, India
Nationality Indian-American
Sabeer Bhatia, an Indian born engineer has created history in the hi-tech world with his biggest venture - Hotmail. Along with Jack Smith, Bhatia created Hotmail, a web e-mail service that attracted clients from around the world. The effect of this project was so strong that Microsoft, the software giant, decided to own it and bought Hotmail for a whopping $700 million. This deal changed the life of Sabeer Bhatia and made him one of the popular multi-millionaire entrepreneurs in the global map. This also fetched him honors and recognitions from noted organizations and magazines around the globe. After Hotmail, Bhatia developed popular online firm called Arzoo.com. However, it failed after Dotcom bubble burst. However, he re-launched the website years later to match the growing demand of travel firm. Some of the other noted creations of Sabeer Bhatia are Live-Documetns.com, Blogeverywhere.com and Sabsebolo.com. 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.
Early Life
Bhatia was born on December 30, 1968, in Chandigarh, to a Punjabi Hindu family. His father, Baldev Bhatia, was an officer in Indian Army and later joined Indian Ministry of defence. His mother, Daman Bhatia, was a senior officer at Central Bank of India. Sabeer Bhatia completed his schooling from St. Joseph's Boys High School in Bangalore. From his early childhood, Bhatia was inclined towards science and technology, and decided to do his graduation in the same field. In 1986, Bhatia joined Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani to fulfill his dream. However, two years later, he moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 1989, after completing his graduation from Caltech, Bhatia joined Stanford University to pursue his M.S. in Electrical Engineering. Years spent in Stanford University have helped him a lot in building entrepreneur qualities. Inspired by great entrepreneurs such as Scott McNealy and Steve jobs, he decided to follow suit. After completing his M.S., he chose to work at Apple instead of going for further studies.
Career
After working with Apple for a few years, Bhatia joined hands with Firepower Systems Inc, where he worked for two years. Later in 1994, he started working on his innovations and teamed up with Jack Smith, a colleague from Apple to create groundbreaking inventions. Both Jacks Smith and Bhatia worked on the concept called Javasoft, which is a web based database. While working on Javasoft, they thought of importance and usefulness of a web based e-mail system. The result of this is popular HoTMaiL, which created history in Cyber world. The upper cases used in HoTMaiL represent HTML, the language that is used in webpage creation. The service of this project was launched on July 4, 1996. In the early days of its creation, this e-mail was advertised on websites and even it was made available to public free. In less than six months, Hotmail created history by attracting more than four million subscribers. The popularity of Hotmail was noticed by Microsoft who decided to buy it. Finally, the project came under the management of Microsoft for a handsome amount of $700 million and Sabeer Bhatia became one the richest entrepreneurs in the world. After selling his biggest project to Microsoft, he worked for the company for one more year. In April 1999, he left Microsoft to start his invention on new project called Arzoo Inc. Bhatia launched Arzoo Inc as an e-commerce firm with a new way to shop online. In 2010, he re-launched it as a travel site. Sabeer Bhatia along with Shiraz Kanga and Viraf Zack developed BlogEverywhere to support the demand of new art blogging. In 2006, he became the main investor for 'NeoAccel', which is a network security vendor and the maker of SSL VPN-Plus. In November 2007, Bhatia released Live Documents, an online office similar to Microsoft office, which allows users to use their documents both online, and offline, edit it and share with other users. In 2008, he announced his latest project SabSeBolo.com, which is related to teleconferencing system.
Personal Life
Sabeer Bhatia is married to Tanya Sharma, his long-time friend.
Timeline
1968: Sabeer Bhatia was born.
1997: Hotmail was sold to Microsoft for $700 million.
1998: Hotmail was sold to Microsoft.
1998: Received 'Entrepreneur of the Year' award by the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
1998: Selected as one of the ten most successful men entrepreneurs of the year by San Jose Mercury News and POV magazine.
2002: He was named by times as one of the 'People to Watch' in international business.
2006: became an angel investor for NeoAccel
2008: Launched SabSeBolo.com
