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PART (^
Compulsory question carrying 20 marks
An Icon of creativity
Sabeer Bhatia, the co-founder of Hotmail is the 'recipient of the TR 100 award
presented by MIT to 100 -young innovators -who are expected to have greatest
impact on technology in the next few years. He has Won several laurels. People
to watch’ in International Business by TIME (2002), "Entrepreneur of the Year'
by a venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (1997) , and one of the ten
most successful entrepreneurs by San Jose Mercury News and POV" One needs
to know what has gone into making him a highly creative person. Born in
Chandigarh, India, he completed his early schooling at Bangalore, in schools
with ethical values. His parents were both professionals; father, Baldev, a senior
officer in Ministry of Defence, and mother, Daman, a senior officer in the
Central Bank of India, who attached great value to education. He has been a
brilliant student who would solve problems on the blackboard. He was a
perfectionist and would feel miserable if he was unable to write everything he
knew in his answer book during an exam, due to limited time. He has also been
entrepreneurial during his school days and once opened a sandwich shop, He
joined the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), which he left to study at
California Institute of Technology (CIT) after winning full scholarship. He
completed his masters from Stanford University and joined Apple, where he
worked for nine months. He had an urge to do something unique using the net
and he came up with “ avasoft” a method of using the web to create a personal
database, where people could preserve their personal things. He shared his plan
with his colleague Jack Smith, who suggested to e-mail to javasoft. Bhatia
worked the whole night to develop the business plan. The two tried various
Options and came up with' Hotmail’ as their final choice, and a brand was
launched in 1995. After a year Microsoft approached them, and Hot-mail was
sold to Microsoft for $400 million. Bhatia worked with Microsoft for a year, and
has launched two more products: Arzoo and Blog Everywhere. From the above
account it is obvious that Sabeer Bhatia is brilliant, persistent, and innovative
and has scientific and technical knowledge. His friends find him "persistent
focused and disciplined”. To top it all, he is a perfectionist and entrepreneurial at

heart. He has an unquenching desire to create new ventures, and bubble with

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