K.B. Chandrasekhar
Dr. K.B. Chandrasekhar ("Chandra"). CEO and chairman, founded Jamcracker in 1999, and was also co-founder and Chairman of e4e Inc., a business process outsourcing company.
Overview[edit]
Chandra’s journey started at Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu where he was born, moving on to Trichy where he spent his early years, and then to Chennai where he received his college education, and finally to Silicon Valley in the United States.[1]
Chandra entered the world of computers very early, back in 1983 when he joined Wipro, an Indian multinational information technology consulting and outsourcing service company.[2]
In the early 1990s, shortly after arriving in the United States from Chennai, India, Chandra used his $20-per-month Internet connection to pass software code between U.S. companies and Indian developers. He stated, Sun Microsystems and other U.S. software companies liked the offshore model, but they wanted someone in the States who could act as a liaison.[3]
Chandra went on and found Exodus Communications in 1994 as a way to serve growing dot-com companies like eBay that needed bigger IT infrastructures but didn’t want to invest in their own data centers. He saw an opportunity to expand his $20-per-month Internet connection model to democratize Internet access for small businesses.[4]
After taking Exodus public in 1998, Chandrasekhar founded the K.B. Chandrasekhar Research Centre at India’s Anna University, where he’d earned his electrical and electronic engineering degree. He felt that India had the potential to be the knowledge capital of the world, but there needed to be someplace where research could be done.[5]
In late 1999, The K.B. Chandrasekhar Family Foundation was founded in late 1999 to help developing countries. He wanted to make a contribution similar to what Bill Gates was doing by helping create sanitation and awareness of diseases, starting with India and moving to other countries as well.
Chandra describes himself as “a serial entrepreneur and risk-taker who empowers others to accomplish their dream.”[6]
Career[edit]
Move to the USA
In 1990, Chandra moved to the US on a job assignment.[7]
In 1983, Chandra wrote a small business plan to create ‘Casio calculator-based ticket punching machines’ for bus conductors, and sent it to Casio. He also dabbled in starting companies by importing game kits from Korea and Taiwan for $1 a kit. Those business endeavors did not take off partially due to his middle-class background, lack of funds and inexperience.[8]
Fouress
Chandra had packed and was ready to go back to India when one of his friends at Sun Microsystems had a project for him that needed to be done in the US. That was Chandra’s entrepreneurial spirit came into play.[9]
Chandra jumped at it with just $4,500 in hand, and no capital. Along with two other individuals, Chandra started Fouress, a software design company.2 He took the company from nothing to over a million dollars a year in the first two years.[10]
Exodus Communications
By the end of 1993, Mahua Venkatesh did NOT join Chandra as a cofounder, in fact he was never at Exodus until possibly post 2000+, BV Jagadeesh joined Chandra as a co-founder. They then started dreaming of building a bigger company, something that would be revolutionary.[11]
Exodus Communications led to become the leading provider of enterprise hosting services. The company went public in 1998 in one of the most successful IPOs of the late 90s.[12]
“What was really exciting for me were all the start ups that launched their businesses from Exodus data centers – Google, Yahoo, eBay and Hotmail are a few notable examples,” said Chandra. “The level of innovation that we saw was incredible, and what was very different was that these companies were completely internet-based. Exodus helped enable them, and in turn their growth helped fuel ours, which led to our IPO in 1998.”[13]
Jamcracker
Now Chandra is working on Jamcracker (originally called Vitaltone), a company he co-founded with two Stanford M.B.A. graduates, Herald Chen and Mark Terbeek, in February 1999. The company focuses on three service categories: business services, enterprise wide services and core services.[14]
Chandra started his current passion at Jamcracker with a vision to create a central clearinghouse and distribution network for what he viewed would be an explosive growth in the supply and demand of internet-based services. The objective was to help innovative services get access to market, and more readily accessible and manageable by businesses.
Jamcracker's Services Delivery Network (JSDN) now powers dozens of private-labeled cloud marketplaces that are operated globally by telecommunications and service providers, IT distributors, enterprise and government IT organizations, and other “intermediaries” who are now referred to within the industry as Cloud Services Brokerages (CSB).[15]
Chandra aims to make Jamcracker the destination of choice for IT and business services within the next three years. “My dream is that…people [can] demand, order, and get delivery of any and all IT services...I think IT services in the future should be like electricity,” said Chandra. “When you flip the switch, you get electricity, and you don't think twice about it. That’s what I want for IT.”[16]
“We struggled initially, but today Jamcracker has become a leader in on-demand IT as a utility.”[17]
Education[edit]
Chandra joined the Vivekananda College to do his BSc in physics. In 1980, he got admitted to the Madras Institute of Technology at Anna University.[18]
Chandra was awarded with an honorary Doctor of Science degree by Anna University in recognition and appreciation of his laudable achievements in the field of Information Technology and his outstanding contribution in promoting research and development in India.[19]
Key Quotes[edit]
“Don't think if you don't have money, you cannot do anything. All you need is a big dream! And the willingness to give up everything in the pursuit of that dream. Others will take a risk with you only if you are totally committed to your dream.”
“Most times companies implode because they are not able to scale effectively. The key is to put in a structure that will enable a company to scale successfully when the opportunity is in the market.”[20]
“If you are an early stage company and entrepreneur, you may not have all of the parameters to back up everything that you do, which means you are going to rely a lot on your intuition, on your gut and your perception of where the market is going. It’s important to have that third dimension of that.”[21]
Awards[edit]
In 1999 Chandra was honored as the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year.[22]
References[edit]
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Greenemeier, Larry. "High Five: Meet K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO Of Jamcracker". Information Week. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
- ↑ Greenemeier, Larry. "High Five: Meet K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO Of Jamcracker". Information Week. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
- ↑ Greenemeier, Larry. "High Five: Meet K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO Of Jamcracker". Information Week. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ [1. http://www.jamcracker.com/about-us/leadership "Leadership"] Check
|url=value (help). Jamcracker. - ↑ Chandrasekhar, K.B. "The Direction of Cloud Computing in 2013 and Beyond". CIO Review.
- ↑ Doyle, T.C. "K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO, Jamcracker". CIO Review. Retrieved 2000-11-10. Check date values in:
|accessdate=(help) - ↑ Chandrasekhar, K.B. "The Direction of Cloud Computing in 2013 and Beyond". CIO Review.
- ↑ Doyle, T.C. "K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO, Jamcracker". CIO Review. Retrieved 2000-11-10. Check date values in:
|accessdate=(help) - ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ Warrier, Shobha. "The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar". Rediff India Abroad. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ↑ "JAMCRACKER CEO HONORED BY ANNA UNIVERSITY". JAmcracker. Retrieved 2006-11-13.
- ↑ Green, Laura. / "K.B. Chandrasekhar keeps the vision alive at Jamcracker" Check
|url=value (help). Jamcracker. Retrieved 2011-07-11. - ↑ Green, Laura. / "K.B. Chandrasekhar keeps the vision alive at Jamcracker" Check
|url=value (help). Jamcracker. Retrieved 2011-07-11. - ↑ [1. http://www.jamcracker.com/about-us/leadership "Leadership"] Check
|url=value (help). Jamcracker. horizontal tab character in|url=at position 3 (help)
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