Jay Chaudhry, Vinod Khosla, Romesh T Wadhwani, and Rajiv Jain make Indian Americans proud
Our Bureau
Jersey, NJ
As per Forbes, the wealthiest individuals in the US have seen their wealth increase by $500 billion as compared to last year. Primarily, due to a resurgence in the stock markets and a surge in the AI (artificial intelligence)-driven technology sector. Their collective wealth stands at $4.5 trillion, matching the previous record set in 2021.
The Forbes 400 list comprises self-made billionaires, with 70 percent (279 individuals) on the 2023 list having earned their fortunes rather than inheriting them. The minimum wealth required to join the elite club has risen to $2.9 billion, up from $2.7 billion last year, reaching an all-time high.
A preview of People of Indian origin on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans 2023 list includes:
Jay Chaudhry, ranked 89 with a net worth of $9.2 billion, is the CEO of Zscaler, a cybersecurity firm he founded in 2008 which went public in March 2018. Before Zscaler, Chaudhry founded four other tech companies that were all acquired: SecureIT, CoreHarbor, CipherTrust, and AirDefense. Hailing from a small village in the Himalayas, he moved to the US in 1980 to attend graduate school.
Vinod Khosla, ranked 161 with a net worth of $6.5 billion, is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that invests in experimental technologies such as biomedicine and robotics. Khosla co-founded computer hardware firm Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy, and spent 18 years at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (now called Kleiner Perkins) before launching his own fund.
Romesh T Wadhwani, ranked 215 with a net worth of $5.1 billion, is the chairman of Symphony AI, an enterprise AI firm with operations in retail, financial services, and manufacturing that he founded in 2017. He stepped down as CEO of SymphonyAI at the start of 2022 in a move to prepare the firm for a potential public offering. He is also chairman of ConcertAI, an AI company focussed on health care and life sciences. An IIT graduate, he received a PhD in 1972 in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon.
Rajiv Jain, ranked 366 with a net worth of $3.1 billion, is the founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Fort Lauderdale-based asset management firm GQG Partners. Jain co-founded GQG with Tim Carver, the firm’s CEO, in 2016; which went public on the Australian Stock Exchange in October 2021. Born in India, Jain moved to the US in the early 1990s to pursue an MBA at the University of Miami. He joined Swiss firm Vontobel Asset Management in 1994 and rose through the ranks to become co-CEO in 2014 until his departure in 2016.
