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 investments were unicorns. These companies include Twitter, Uber, Poshmates, FourSquare, Wish.com, Poshmark, Thumbtack, SnapLogic, Notion, Opendoor and Stack Overflow.
Wiki/Biography
Naval Ravikant was born in 1974 in New Delhi, India (48 years old in 2022). Ravikant’s early life was full of struggles, as his father left the family and emigrated to the United States when he was four. Five years later, Ravikant’s mother immigrated to New York with Ravikant and his brother. They live in Queens, New York. He studied hard, graduating from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1991, and later earned degrees in economics and computer science from Dartmouth College.
Naval Ravikant in college
Ravikant became a software engineer with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. He once talked about attending Stuyvesant High School in an interview. He said,
That saved my life because once I had the Stuyvesant brand, I went to an Ivy League school, which got me into tech. Stuyvesant is one of those intellectual lotteries that you can break into with instant verification. You go from blue collar to white collar in one fell swoop. ”
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′6″
Hair color: black and gray
Eye color: dark brown
family
Naval Ravikant comes from a Hindu family.
Parents and siblings
Naval Ravikant’s father worked as a pharmacist in India and later worked in a hardware store in New York. His mother raised him and his younger brother Kamal. She worked alone, for low wages and long hours.
wife and children
Naval Ravikant married visual designer Krystle Cho in 2013 and they have a son named Neo.
Naval Ravikant and wife
Profession
Enter the business world
Ravikant was fired as an intern at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell after three months. Using his own experience at Davis Polk & Wardwell, he said:
They wanted me to sit around the conference room with the newspaper – they wouldn’t let me read the paper – just sit there intently in case anyone needed to copy or bind or whatever. This is a matter of corporate legal discipline as a whole. After three months I was completely disobedient. I’d be late, wouldn’t wear appropriate clothes, and I’d be reading message boards on the old Usenet. This definitely doesn’t feel right to me. ”
His first technical job was at DMA as part of the college’s work-study program. At DMA, he provided computer support and database management for the company. He also worked briefly at the Boston Consulting Group before moving to Silicon Valley. His first startup was Genoa Corp, which he founded in 1998. The company was acquired by Finisar. In 1999, he co-founded his second business, Epinions. The startup raised $45 million in venture capital from August Capital and Benchmark Capital. Epinions began as a consumer product review site and later merged with price comparison site Dealtime. The new entity was named Shopping.com and held an IPO in October 2004 at a valuation of $74 million.
Become a venture capitalist
In 2007, he launched a second venture called Hit Forge, an early-stage venture capital fund worth $20 million. Hit Forge has done well with investments in startups like Uber, Twitter, and Stack Overflow. That same year, he founded Venture Hacks, a blog that simplifies venture capital funding concepts and provides advice to startup founders. The blog has been well received and made things visible in the VC space. The blog later became a platform called AngelList. AngelList is a startup fundraising platform founded in 2010 by Ravikant and Babak Nivi. Following AngelList, he acquired AngelList Ventures and AngelList Talent, personal platforms for investors and job seekers. After the success of AngelList, he co-founded MetaStable Capital, a cryptocurrency financing company. The company’s assets were valued at $69 million in 2017. After MetaStable, he founded Spearhead.co, an investment fund that gave its 15 founders $1 million to freely invest in technology startups of their choice. Spearhead’s current total valuation is $86 billion.
Podcasts with loyal fan bases
After building a successful business from scratch, Ravikant launched his podcast on Spearhead.co and Nav.al. In these podcasts, he discusses a variety of topics, including investing, business, philosophy, and happiness. He has also received critical acclaim as a podcast guest on “Coffee with Scott Adams,” “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “The James Altucher Show,” “Village Global’s Venture Stories,” “Farnam Street” and “The Tim Ferriss Show.” .
dispute
Ravikant and the other co-founders of Epinions were led to believe that the company was worth less than $45 million, money raised through venture capital. In 2004, the company went public with its initial public offering. After the first day of its IPO, the company’s market capitalization reached $750 million. Ravikant and other co-founders filed a lawsuit against August and Benchmark Capital. They claim the founders were misled into believing the company was worth far less than the outside funding they raised. This makes them think their stocks are worthless, which is why they quit. The lawsuit was settled in their favor in December 2005. However, it also ruined Ravikant’s reputation. Ravikant made headlines for suing investors and made many statements about him. Some media said,
[Ravikant] Better win this lawsuit, and he better hope he makes enough money because he’ll never be a venture capitalist again. ”
net worth
In 2020, Naval Ravikant’s net worth was estimated at $60 million.
Facts/Trivia
- AngelList launched in 2010 as an email list for angel and seed-stage investors. This list is part of the VentureHacks blog.
- During graduation, he purchased a Mac Classic for $3,000 through a Stafford student loan, which took him ten years to repay.
- During his childhood, he spent most of his time reading in the library.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education