The Indians Of Silicon Valley The hidden geniuses of the tech revolution are Indian engineers--here's how one bucked stereotypes, got rich, and has become godfather to a generation of...
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(FORTUNE Magazine) – Kanwal Rekhi's got these big eyes that flicker when he talks. His shoulders are rounded and his large, thick frame shows marks of age. But when he speaks, his face, large and jowly, emits youthful energy. His...
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(FORTUNE Magazine) – Kanwal Rekhi's got these big eyes that flicker when he talks. His shoulders are rounded and his large, thick frame shows marks of age. But when he speaks, his face, large and jowly, emits youthful energy. His speech is rapid and subdued, perhaps racing to keep up with his mind. Rekhi often leaps into new thoughts and words before he's finished the last ones, which can make him hard to understand. This effect is compounded by a slight accent, an artifact of Rekhi's having spent most of his first 18 years in Kanpur, India. Between the speech and the physique, he has more than a passing resemblance to Vito Corleone, the Mafia don played unforgettably by Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Which is rather fitting because Rekhi, 54, is the unofficial but quite undisputed godfather of Silicon Valley's Indian mafia. Not that it's really a mafia, though some people call it that for fun. Rekhi, who sold his company, Excelan, to Novell in 1989 for $210 million (which was, at the time, believe it or not, a lot of money), doesn't strike the slick pose Brando assumed as Don Corleone. Rekhi's gray hair is always slightly disheveled, and befitting his background as an engineer, he comes off as disarmingly rumpled. Last year, Rekhi wore a tie exactly six times. For all but a few occasions, he dresses new-economy casual--khakis and a cotton shirt that's likely to say something on it like EXODUS.COM and to have been a freebie from a company he's funded.
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Highlights:
The $1 million he eventually put into Exodus for an initial 2% stake is now worth $130 million.
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