Jobs, Gates & Me: Silicon
Valley Dhurandhar Kanwal Rekhi's Memoirs
May 05, 2026
Kanwal Rekhi is a peaceful techie who
ardently believes in competitive market economics and democracy, despite the
trauma his family suffered during Partition and his narrow escape from violent
mobs in 1984.
Key Points
·
Kanwal Rekhi, an IIT Bombay alumnus, was a pioneering Indian
entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, founding Excelan in 1982.
·
His autobiography, The Groundbreaker, details his
encounters with tech giants like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, and
Excelan's successful Nasdaq listing and merger with Novell.
·
Rekhi became an influential angel investor and co-founded TiE
(The Indus Entrepreneurs) to mentor and network Indian tech professionals in
Silicon Valley.
·
He played a crucial advisory role in India's telecom policy
reforms, contributing to the growth of Internet bandwidth and the nation's
digital revolution.
·
Rekhi also championed changes allowing alumni to donate to
Indian engineering institutions, making a significant $3 million contribution
to IIT Bombay.
Kanwal Rekhi, an IIT Bombay graduate
in electrical engineering (1967), pursued a master's degree in the US and
became one of the first Indian engineers to venture out and become a Silicon
Valley entrepreneur.
His Local Area Networking Company,
Excelan, was founded in 1982. Along with Vinod Khosla's Sun Microsystems,
Rekhi's Excelan was one of the earliest Indian startups in Silicon Valley.
His experiences as a Dhurandhar in
Silicon Valley are told in a highly readable style in his autobiographical
work The Groundbreaker: Risks, Rewards, and Lessons from a Legendary
Entrepreneur.
A Pioneer's Journey and Business
Acumen
The word Dhurandhar in Hindi and Sanskrit means a stalwart, expert, master, ace, or leader.
Rekhi is a peaceful techie who
ardently believes in competitive market economics and democracy, despite the
trauma his family suffered during Partition and his narrow escape from violent
mobs in 1984.
He narrates his story effortlessly,
from his childhood in Kanpur to life on the IIT Bombay campus, and then his
travails in initial years in US academia and the tech industry.
The portion about his life as an
entrepreneur should be read by all modern-day entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists. He shares business lessons without being preachy or professorial.
His business meetings and
negotiations with Silicon Valley's 'golden boys' like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates
and Larry Ellison are very interesting and leave readers wanting more.
The successful listing of Excelan on
Nasdaq in 1987 and its later merger with Novell in 1989, along with his close
association with the legendary Ray Noorda, the then chairman of Novell, make
for compelling reading.
It also sheds light on boardroom
dynamics and Rekhi's personal ambition to overcome his speech defect and become
the CEO of the company.
It is notable that while today it is
common to see Indians as CEOs of many leading tech companies in the US, this
was not the case then; Indian founders often became CTOs but not CEOs.
Mentorship, Philanthropy, Policy
Impact
After his exit from Novell, Rekhi embarked on another chapter in his career, once again becoming a pioneer.
He became an angel investor and
mentor for many startups, and also one of the founders of TiE (The Indus
Entrepreneurs) to facilitate networking and mentoring of Indian entrepreneurs
(including Pakistani techies) in Silicon Valley in the 1990s.
In the heady days of the Internet
revolution in the late 1990s, TiE played an important role in encouraging
Indian entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley.
Later, TiE chapters sprang up in
India too and in the 21st century even tried to internationalise it further
into Pakistan, South East Asia, etc.
His memoirs also cover two other
aspects where he proved to be a 'Dhurandhar'.
His advisory role in the reforms of
the Indian government's telecom policy led to the growth of Internet bandwidth
and the privatisation of telecom in India.
Internet availability has now proved
to be a great strength of the Indian economy and a facilitating factor for the
digital revolution in India, as well as the growth of a $300 billion IT
services industry that has become the envy of many other economies.
The other significant contribution is
the role of alumni in the growth of Indian engineering institutions.
Earlier, private individuals like
alumni could not donate to their alma maters like IITs, which were set up by an
act of Parliament, as there was no provision for it in the statutes.
Rekhi fought for it and ultimately
brought about changes in the statutes, making a pioneering contribution of $3
million to IIT Bombay to set up the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information
Technology in 1999.
Since then, many alumni have
contributed millions of dollars to these fund-starved institutions.
The memoirs capture this last social
phase of Rekhi's life quite well. Overall, the book justifies the title Groundbreaker.
Shivanand Kanavi, a frequent
contributor to Rediff, is a theoretical physicist, business journalist and
former VP at TCS.
He is the author of the award winning book Sand to Silicon: The Amazing
Story Of Digital Technology and edited Research by Design:
Innovation and TCS.
He can be reached at skanavi@gmail.com
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff
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