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April 2001 The 100 Highest rollers - Forbes What bubble? Forbes Digital DC - Forbes Life of Ambedkar - TIME magazine The
100 Highest Rollers 
You think you had a bad year? Consider the case of Toby Lenk. Some 19 months ago this guy's stake in online toy–seller eToys made him worth $325.8 million–landing him in the 69th spot on our list of technology's 100 richest. At the end of January, Lenk owned stock worth $500,000, not even enough to buy an apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. And how about Bill Gates? Last year, his $92.7 billion fortune put him on top of our list and gave him an $80.3 billion lead over Oracle's founder, Larry Ellison. Gates is still in first place, even though $38.3 billion was hacked off his fortune. But now, he's only $12.3 billion ahead of his nemesis, Ellison, on our list. The Oracle founder's decision to switch from client/server computing to an Internet–based model helped boost his fortune by some $29.6 billion, to $42.1 billion, since our last list in November 1999. That said, stocks of companies that build and maintain the Internet's infrastructure held up surprisingly well–and some even delivered gains. Networking companies such as Sycamore, Broadcom, and Juniper made their richest shareholders much richer. And Rich List veteran Sanjiv Sidhu from i2 Technologies is worth $6.8 billion, up 583% from less than a billion dollars last year.
Methodology: Values calculated using closing stock prices as of January 30, 2001. Holdings taken from most recent proxies filed with SEC. Includes only shares and options beneficially owned as defined by the SEC. List confined to individuals associated with information technology companies (public as of January 30, 2001), excluding telecom and biotech companies. Must have been employed by company or retired within the last year. Past stock sales and outside holdings included, when possible. What
bubble? Venture capitalists around the world are pulling in their horns, but not in India. There the amount of money dedicated to venture-capital funds continues to explode. Estimates vary, but it's likely that more than a billion dollars will flow into India-dedicated VC pools this year, up from $750 million in 2000 and only $20 million in 1996. Money
monsoon  Source: India's National Assoc. of Software and Service Companies "This is just the beginning," says Neeraj Bhargava, a partner at Eventures India, a VC firm that raised $190 million from high-profile investors, including Softbank and News Corp. One recent estimate by McKinsey says that India will attract $10 billion in VC money annually by 2008. India has been discovered by venture capitalists. And no wonder. The wealth created by Indian tech entrepreneurs is hard to ignore. Three new tech-related Indians appeared on our billionaires list in the last two years, and seven of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are Indian immigrants, the largest single group of wealthy immigrants. All made their fortunes in high tech. Venture capitalists are now falling over each other to find the next Infosys, Wipro or HCL in India. By and large the billions being raised are coming from outside India, some from the fortunes of such Indian immigrants as Kilaiyur Chandrasekhar (now a permanent U.S. resident), who founded Exodus, the U.S. data-warehousing company. He helped fund the $125 million war chest of e4e, a VC incubator with offices in India and Silicon Valley. "People realize that these Indian entrepreneurs make money," says Chandrasekhar. Yet this flood of money raises the question: Can it all be put to productive use? Kiran Nadkarni, a pioneer in the industry in 1986 and now a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson's Indian arm, says diplomatically, "In the short-term, there is more money chasing fewer good deals, particularly in the later-stage investing segment, and it will take some time to put this money to use." In fact, some investors are finding that raising money may be easier than investing it wisely. A year ago the Australian billionaire Kerry Packer announced with great fanfare that he was starting the largest VC fund in India, KVP Ventures, $250 million strong, with two local partners, Ketan Parekh, a prominent stock investor, and Vinay Maloo, the head of Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL), a tech company in Mumbai. "India is by far the largest investment we have made, and we do not envisage this kind of investment in any other country," said his son, James Packer, at the time. So much for aggressive dealmaking. The money is there, but where are the deals? "There are a lot of venture capitalists who are sitting on their money and selectively investing," says Vishal Bhammer, an IT analyst for Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney in Mumbai. The illusion of easy money has turned a few heads on the subcontinent. One issue: Indian entrepreneurs have inflated ideas of what their companies are worth. "Expectations are lower than a year ago, but they are still not sensible," says Anil Thadani, a longtime Asian investor who is chairman of Schroder Capital Partners in Singapore. "There's more blood to come." Entrepreneurs who could get their companies funded at ten times revenues or higher last year are finding it hard to get eight times. Indeed, Nadkarni says, "It is more like five times revenues now." Even India's vaunted cost advantage may be eroding. "The only people who think that Indian software engineers are underpaid are Indian software engineers," chuckles Thadani. Indian engineers have learned their value on the world market and now demand salaries that can start at $70,000 a year. India's antiquated rules add more costs by forcing virtually all large funds to incorporate on the island nation of Mauritius, off the coast of Africa, which has a treaty with India that allows VC funds to take dollars out of India without being taxed on capital gains. The Indian government, to its credit, has been taking steps to make it easier to operate VC funds inside India. Because of India's riskiness as an emerging market, Western investors pouring money into Indian VC funds generally demand a higher return. Many investors in Indian VC pools are being promised annualized returns of 40% to 50% instead of the normal 20% to 30% annualized historical return in the U.S. market. Bhargava of Eventures India confidently predicts that he can make at least a 50% annualized return. He has great faith in his ability to pick winners, boasting that he expects "one half to two thirds of his firm's" investments to succeed. (A good success rate in the U.S. of VC investments is one out of four.) He expects that in five years, his $190 million pool will have become $1.4 billion on the backs of perhaps 20 successful companies. Subhash Reddy, a principal at e4e, says that his firm has even more aggressive plans: to have six to ten investments grow into "billion dollar companies." The India market is growing quickly, but only a handful of Indian tech companies have market capitalizations of $1 billion or more. Bhargava and Reddy have some reason for optimism. Indian tech companies have held up well in the global slump, with the top six IT services companies reporting an average 135% rise in net profit in the final quarter of 2000 against the same period in 1999, according to Salomon Smith Barney. Aztec Software, a VC-funded Indian software company, was even able to go public, at $1.72, in November. Indian tech companies have come this far in an environment where they have been undercapitalized by venture capital, says Saurabh Srivastava, the chairman of the Indian Venture Capital Association. "A company might get $1 million in the U.S., but in India, the same one used to get only $100,000 to $200,000," he says. The argument is that with increased levels of funding and better support, Indian tech companies will grow richer faster. Somshankar Das, a venture capitalist with e4e, says: "The quality of entrepreneurs in India has come a long way in the last two years." In the next two years they'd better be good enough to provide the returns venture investors are banking on. Digital D.C. Historically, Washington, D.C., was always a company town, except that company was not really a company at all. It was the federal government. For many years, the largest private employer in the city was the Washington Post, which is a fine-sized media company but not exactly Standard Oil. The capital's inhabitants possessed little taste for capitalism, let alone a bold entrepreneurial spirit. That Washington is gone now. Now, the Washington area just keeps cranking out these new Economy guys. One of the latest arrivals on the scene is Reggie Aggarwal, who three years ago-at the age of 28 - started a nonprofit "networking Nirvana" called the Indian CEO High Tech Council in Northern Virginia. Aggarwal grew up in the Washington area-his parents were government engineers-so he loves politics as much as technology. He is now touting cell phone magnate Mark Warner of Alexandria, Virginia, as the future of the Democratic Party. Last year, the British ambassador hosted a black-tie reception for the Indian CEO High Tech Council. There, according to Washington hostess and journalist Sally Quinn, Warner took Chuck Robb by the arm and said, "Let me introduce you to a few people." Robb, remember, is a Vietnam War hero who at the time represented Virginia in the Senate and who is the son-in-law of late President Lyndon B. Johnson. Top of the page
Indians gather annually to pay respect to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. During India's struggle to break free of British colonial rule, Mohandas Gandhi dominated the political stage. But there were two other important leaders who challenged Gandhi's hegemony over the independence movement. One, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, became the founder of Pakistan. The other, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, won crucial victories in the emancipation of India's oppressed untouchables, making them beneficiaries of what is today the world's largest program of affirmative action for education, jobs and political office. His achievement was stunning. Born in 1891, Ambedkar was himself an untouchable, the 14th child of a poor school teacher. He faced extreme prejudice growing up in western India: in school, he had to sit separately from high-born students. During his college education in Bombay, a Sanskrit professor refused to teach an outcaste the language of Hindu scriptures. Ambedkar compensated by becoming one of the most highly educated Indians of his time. After the British left in 1947, Ambedkar helped draft the newly independent nation's constitution and piloted legislation banning untouchability. He grew disillusioned with the slow pace of Hindu reform, however, resigned from the government and, shortly before his death in 1956, converted to Buddhism along with thousands of his followers. This dramatic life, marked by audacious leaps and deep disappointments, great statesmanship and eventual political marginalization, is natural material for a bio-pic. Though there have been major international movies about Gandhi and Jinnah, Ambedkar has been ignored. Indian filmmaker Jabbar Patel has redressed that neglect with Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (that's what his followers call him), an exhaustive three-hour-long English-language docu-drama, with a moving and memorable lead performance by south Indian actor Mammootty. The pair's greatest conflict occurred in 1932 when, thanks to Ambedkar's lobbying, the British agreed to grant communal electorates to untouchables separate from the Hindus. Gandhi went on a fast in a Pune prison opposing that decision, which he saw as a division of Hindu voters. But Ambedkar bargained hard, and the Mahatma agreed to a historic compromise—instead of separate electorates, a specified number of seats in provincial and national legislative bodies were reserved exclusively for untouchables, a reservation system that is still used in India to ensure a voice for untouchables in India's parliament. After his death Ambedkar was all but forgotten, and the political party faded in significance. But the 1990s saw an extraordinary revival of interest in the great untouchable leader. India's 160 million former untouchables (who now call themselves Dalits, or "the oppressed") have become more politically aware and assertive thanks to education and government jobs, and Ambedkar has been resurrected as their rallying symbol. Patel's film on Ambedkar is drawing large Dalit audiences, and the screenings are like political carnivals. The audience identifies completely with the hero, cheers him wildly at every opportunity and hurls insults at his opponents—especially Gandhi. Many watch the film with tears in their eyes. In a corner of New Delhi's Parliament compound stands an oversized bronze statue of Ambedkar. In one hand he holds a copy of India's constitution (the one he helped write); the forefinger of the other points toward parliament. Beyond parliament lies President House, occupied for the first time by a Dalit, K.R. Narayanan, who rose from a poor outcaste family in Kerala to hold the highest office in the land. Every Dalit who goes to see Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar will no doubt walk away with the hope that one day his life too will be transformed. |
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