Naval Ravikant is an Indian American investor and entrepreneur. He is the chairman, co-founder and former CEO of AngelList. (PitchBook)) Ten of his early-stage investee companies are unicorns. These companies include Twitter, Uber, Poshmates, Foursquare, Wish.com, Poshmark, Thumbtack, Snaplogic, Notion, Opendoor, and StackOverflow.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Naval Ravikant was born in 1974 (age 48 years; as in 2022) in New Delhi, India. Ravikant’s early life was full of struggle as his father left the family and moved to the United States when he was just 4 years old. Ravikant’s mother moved to New York with Ravikant and his brother after five years. He lived in Queens, New York. He studied hard and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1991, and he later went to Dartmouth College to pursue degrees in economics and computer science.
Naval Ravikant in his college years
Ravikant became a software engineer, holding a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. He once talked about attending Stuyvesant High School in an interview. He said,
It saved my life because once I had the Stuyvesant brand, I got into an Ivy League college, which got me into tech. Stuyvesant is one of those secret lottery states where you can get in with instant verification. You go from blue collar to white collar in one step.”
Physical Appearance
Height (Approx): 5′ 6″
Hair Color: Black and Brown
Eye colour: dark brown
Family
Naval Ravikant belongs to a Hindu family.
parents and siblings
Naval Ravikant’s father worked as a pharmacist in India who later worked in a hardware store in New York. His mother raised him and his younger brother Kamal. He worked alone for long hours for low pay.
wife and children
Naval Ravikant married Crystal Cho, a visual designer, in 2013 and they have a son named Neo.
Naval Ravikant with his wife
livelihood
Stepping into the world of business
Ravikant interned at Davis Polk & Wardwell, a law firm, and was fired after three months. In his own words he said of his experience at Davis Polk & Wardwell,
They expected me to sit in the conference room with a newspaper – they wouldn’t allow me to read the newspaper – just sit there attentively in case anyone needed photocopies or binding or anything else. This is a matter of complete corporate legal discipline. After three months I became completely disobedient. I’d be late and not properly dressed and I’d be reading message boards on the old Internet, Usenet. “It was definitely bad for me.”
His first technical job was at DMA, which was offered as a part of the college’s work-study program. At DMA, he worked providing computer support and database management for the company. He also worked briefly at Boston Consulting Group before moving to Silicon Valley. His first startup was Genoa Corp., which he founded in 1998. This company was acquired by Finisar. In 1999, he co-founded his second venture, Epinions. The startup raised $45 million in venture capital from August Capital and Benchmark Capital. Epinions was originally a consumer product review site that merged with price comparison site DealTime. The new entity was named shopping.com, which held an IPO in October 2004, reaching a valuation of $74 million.
becoming a venture capitalist
He launched his second venture in 2007, known as Hit Forge, a $20 million early-stage venture capital fund. Hit Forge pulled off a masterstroke with its investments in startups including Uber, Twitter and StackOverflow. That same year, he started with Venture Hacks, a blog that simplified the concept of venture capital financing and provided advice to startup founders. This blog got a good response, which led to things appearing in the VC domain. Later this blog changed into a platform named AngelList. AngelList is a fundraising platform for startups founded by Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010. After AngelList, he purchased AngelList Ventures and AngelList Talent, which were personalized platforms for investors and job seekers. Following the success of AngelList, he co-founded Metastable Capital, a cryptocurrency funding company. The company reached an asset valuation of $69 million in 2017. After Metastable, he came up with Spearhead.co, an investment fund company that gave $1 million to its 15 founders to independently invest in technology startups of their choice. Spearhead now has a combined valuation of $86 billion.
Podcaster with a loyal follower base
After building a successful business from the ground up, Ravikant brought his podcast to Spearhead.co and Nav.al. In these podcasts, he discusses a variety of topics including investing, business, philosophy, and happiness. He has also been praised as a podcast guest on shows such as Coffee with Scott Adams, The Joe Rogan Experience, The James Altucher Show, Village Global’s Venture Stories, Farnum Street, and The Tim Ferriss Show.
Controversy
Ravikant and the other co-founders of Epinions were led to believe that the company was worth less than the $45 million it had raised in VC funding. This company was listed in IPO in 2004. After the first day of IPO, the company was worth $750 million. Ravikant and other co-founders filed a lawsuit against August and Benchmark Capital. He claimed that the founders were misled to believe that the company was worth much less than the amount they had raised from outside capital. This made them feel that their shares were worthless, which was the reason for their exit. The case was settled in his favor in December 2005. However, this also tarnished Ravikant’s reputation. Ravikant was in the news a lot for suing his investors and many statements were also made about him. A media house said,
[Ravikant] He better win this case, and he better hope he earns enough for the rest of his life, because he’ll never work as a VC again.
net worth
Naval Ravikant’s net worth was estimated at $60 million in 2020.
Facts/General Knowledge
- In 2010, AngelList was launched as an email list of angel and seed-stage investors. This list was a part of the VentureHacks blog.
- During his graduation, he purchased a Mac Classic for $3,000 with a Stafford loan for students and it took him ten years to pay off that loan.
- As a child, he spent most of his time reading books in libraries.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn