Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, which became one of the most important computer hardware and software companies of the 1980s-1990s. He joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner before founding Khosla Ventures in 2004. Khosla Ventures is distinctive for its willingness to back technology companies with high probability of failure but potential for transformative impact — particularly in clean energy, synthetic biology, AI, and materials science. Khosla personally led the firm's cleantech investment wave, backing companies working on solar power, biofuels, and energy storage. Not all these bets paid off, but Khosla argues that venture capital should fund the experiments that established institutions won't. His investments that did succeed include DoorDash, Instacart, and Square. He has been an outspoken advocate for AI's transformative potential across healthcare and other sectors, arguing that artificial intelligence will replace most human work in medicine and that this displacement is net positive for society.