Vinod Khosla pledges half his $1.4 bn fortune to charity

Seema Hakhu Kachru
Houston, May 9 (PTI) Indian-American Silicon Valley
venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and his wife Neeru are among
the latest billionaires to have pledged half of their vast
fortunes to charity either during their lifetime or after
death.
Ten more families, including the Khoslas, signed the
pledge on April 28, bringing the total number of signatories
to 69.
Several of Silicon Valley's leading entrepreneurs,
including venture capitalist John Doerr, Oracle CEO Larry
Ellison, hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and Facebook's Mark
Zuckerberg have previously signed on to the pledge.
"I am delighted that so many wealthy Americans are
taking a public pledge that supports philanthropy," Warren
Buffett, pledge co-founder and the chairman and CEO of
Berkshire Hathaway, said in an April 28 statement.
56-year-old Khosla is Silicon Valley's most prominent
"green" venture capitalist and a dominant personality in the
cleantech community. A co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Khosla
was a general partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers before striking out on his own with Khosla Ventures in
2004.
The Sand Hill Road firm focuses on cleantech and
information technology start-ups, with a portfolio that
includes carbon sequestration and storage, solar, batteries,
biofuels, building materials, energy efficiency and
next-generation lighting and appliance companies.
Khosla is keenly interested in funding technologies
that can be widely adopted in fast-growing India and China,
what he regularly refers to as the "Chindia test."
As of March, Khosla's net worth was USD 1.4 billion,
according to a calculation by Forbes.