(January 31, 2026) On a freezing cold night in 1967, Kanwal Rekhi arrived at the Michigan Tech campus as a student. He was part of the first wave of Indian émigrés, known as the $8 Men — a moniker born out of India’s effort to stem the loss of brainpower by allowing those leaving the country to take only $8 in currency. In the decades that followed, he went on to create history in the global technology and entrepreneurship space — eventually shaping Silicon Valley, influencing India’s IT policy, and, most recently, laying the groundwork for rural entrepreneurship through initiatives such as KREST.
Dubbed the “Godfather of Silicon Valley’s Indian Mafia” by Fortune magazine, Rekhi rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison on his meteoric ascent in the tech industry. He even advised former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a relationship that helped trigger India’s IT revolution.
“Looking back at my journey, it’s incredible how a young boy from a lower middle-class family in UP went on to become the first Indian to take a company public in the US and changed global policies,” smiles Kanwal Rekhi, in conversation with Global Indian.
Kanwal Rekhi during his younger days in the US
Kanwal Rekhi — the first Indian-American founder and CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ — founded and built The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) into the largest global network of Indian entrepreneurs. He also co-founded Inventus Capital Partners, where he applies his time, energy, and attention to building the venture franchise into a catalyst for India’s tech revolution.
From advising Presidents and Prime Ministers on culture-shifting policies to launching the careers of several entrepreneurs — many of whom became millionaires and billionaires — Rekhi’s life mirrors the rise of modern India. Born at the dawn of Independence, educated at IIT soon after they were formed, emigrating to the US as part of the ‘brain drain’, and eventually helping put India on the map as a global tech powerhouse.
The Groundbreaker
His book The Groundbreaker — which hit the stands recently takes readers through his inspiring journey. Through the book, Rekhi shares a firsthand account of what it meant to be an American at the dawn of the digital age, what it means to be an American now amid massive change and uncertainty, and why democracy is crucial to the role entrepreneurs play in moving the world toward a better tomorrow. More than a memoir, he says, the book is a call to action for dreamers, doers, and those brave enough to bet on themselves.
A guidebook for dreamers
“This book is more than my personal story; it is a guidebook for those brave enough to follow their dreams, who let nothing stop them, and in doing so, change the world,” says Rekhi, who went to the US for graduate studies, advanced through the engineering ranks in a number of technology companies, and then co-founded Excelan in Silicon Valley to commercialize Ethernet and TCP/IP — standards that became the basis of the internet as the world knows it today.
With lessons on resilience, leadership, innovation, and purpose, it’s at once a deeply personal story of overcoming adversity and an urgent rallying cry for the next generation of changemakers.
His son Ben’s push
Rekhi says his son Ben Rekhi pushed him to document his life’s journey. “He felt it would interest a lot of people.” A lot of material for the book was drawn from the blogs Rekhi had been writing for a long time, his speeches available online, and several news articles.
He hired a co-author, Todd Gold, an American journalist and at one time the publisher of People magazine. “The two of us spent almost three years to get the story right. It’s hard to do a memoir and keep it interesting and not be a chest-thumping self-glorification.” After the first couple of versions did not interest Rekhi much, the final version turned out to be “pretty breezy, easy to read, and very focused on entrepreneurship and my transformation from being an engineer to an entrepreneur to a CEO, and eventually becoming a mentor,” he mentions.
Kanwal Rekhi with then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and others
Rekhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee
Speaking of his association with then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Rekhi recalls Vajpayee’s speech where he mentioned that India was just emerging as an IT hub. “IT is India’s tomorrow,” he had said back then. Impressed with the speech, Rekhi requested a meeting with the Prime Minister. “I met Vajpayee and told him that if IT is indeed India’s tomorrow, then he would have to do something about the telecom infrastructure in India, which was poor at the time.”
Vajpayee asked Rekhi to help transform it, following which the entrepreneur spent time at Stanford University and developed a potential policy framework India needed to follow. “Our recommendations were adopted by India and the revolution was underway quickly,” says the visionary, who played a key role in laying the foundation for the country’s IT expansion.
Networking with Bill Gates
Kanwal Rekhi met Bill Gates when he was still an early entrepreneur. “We had a partnership with Microsoft back in 1987–88, where we provided networking to Microsoft, DOS, and Windows,” recalls the entrepreneur, who has had a long association with Gates ever since. “Microsoft was a big company and they were partnering with us. But while they were doing business with us, they announced a big networking partnership with another firm, which was confusing. Eventually, our partnership with Microsoft fell apart.”
Kanwal Rekhi with Bill Gates
Why Steve Jobs was upset
Rekhi worked with Steve Jobs when the latter was out of Apple and running NeXT, a computer platform development company.
“Steve wanted to partner with us. But ours was a server company and we didn’t want to do the desktop. He wasn’t really happy about that,” recalls Rekhi.
Steve then invited Kanwal for dinner at an Indian restaurant in the Bay Area, San Francisco. Seven of his associates were present. “Towards the end, when I told him that we were not interested in partnering with him, he was very upset, and he stomped out of the dinner.” He recalls how Steve Jobs had come to India before starting Apple. “He was a bit of a hippie and had travelled through India before becoming an entrepreneur.”
On Donald Trump
So has he advised US President Donald Trump yet? “I haven’t had any interaction with him, and I don’t expect to have any interaction with him because I’m not even a moderate Trumpite. I think what Trump is doing in America is pretty nonsensical in some fashion,” says the octogenarian.
He says America has five million Indian Americans who are well-settled in society, including doctors, entrepreneurs, professors, and CEOs. “They are, on average, twice as wealthy as Americans because 80 percent of adult Indians in America have either a postgraduate or professional degree, which makes the community useful to America.”
Kanwal Rekhi with the former President of United States, Bill Clinton
A refugee’s early years
Born in 1945 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Rekhi left Pakistan and came to India as a refugee. “My early childhood was somewhat unsettled,” recalls the entrepreneur, who first went to school in Agra. “I was tested to see which grade I fit into and was placed in grade four. ”He then moved to Holman Institute for a year before shifting to Kanpur. “I moved to different places in the state and studied in various institutions,” says Rekhi, who ran the household budget from the age of 12 until he went to IIT Bombay in 1963. Some of his best moments were from the NCC camps. “The most notable one was at Bhimtal, near Nainital. That was the first time I ever went into the Himalayas. It was two weeks of pure fun,” he recalls.
A mother’s belief
When it came to his career, Rekhi says his father had written him off, believing his son would not do well. “My mother, on the other hand, was always confident I would do well as she thought I was smart.” Joining IIT Bombay was his own decision, and his father was surprised when he got in. “His attitude towards me changed from that day,” says Rekhi, who headed straight to Michigan Tech in the US in 1967.
A childhood image of legendary entrepreneur Kanwal Rekhi
Building KREST for Bharat
Rekhi recently inaugurated KREST (Kanwal Rekhi Rural Entrepreneurship and Startup Centre) in Nizamabad, Telangana. The founder and CEO of Sierra Atlantic, Raju Reddy — who was mentored by Rekhi, played a significant role in setting up the facility.
“It was our commitment to build an ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs from and for Bharat. Our vision is to create 10 million entrepreneurs when Bharat turns 100 years old in 2047.” He says it opens doors for students, innovators, and founders who want to solve real problems of rural and semi-urban India. “India resides in third-tier cities, fourth-tier cities, and villages. Local entrepreneurs have to be enabled and empowered to solve local problems using technology, especially in villages.”
Poshmark and RedBus
Among the several companies Rekhi was associated with are Poshmark and RedBus. The US-based Poshmark enables users to buy and sell new and second-hand fashion, home goods, and electronics.
“It was a marketplace where we didn’t hold any inventory. We managed the transactions, but we weren’t in charge of the process, and so Poshmark went public in 2021,” says the entrepreneur, who was on the company’s board and an early investor. Recalling his association with RedBus and its founder Phanindra Sama, Rekhi says Phani always had trouble getting bus reservations, which led him to come up with the idea of organising end-to-end bus bookings. “The company’s revenue is over a billion dollars. Phani sold the company too early, but that’s okay.”
A vibrant, rising India
Rekhi says the new, emerging India is a powerhouse of technology. “India is a fun place to be — it’s vibrant and full of energy,” remarks the visionary, who earlier used to visit the country about four times a year. Post-Covid, his travels have reduced drastically.
Life at 80
So what keeps Kanwal Rekhi busy in his 80s? “For the last three years, I was busy writing a book and taking care of Anne, my wife. I still read three newspapers a day and work on puzzles to keep my mind sharp,” says the entrepreneur, who spends almost half a day on computers writing blogs and doing Zoom sessions with entrepreneurs. “I’m still very busy with angel investing,” he says. Rekhi is also into American football and basketball. “I need to stay fit, so I go to the gym three days a week. I still do small weights. I’m not able to bicycle as much.”
He describes his granddaughter Rumi as the joy of his life. “I spend as much time as I can with her.”
- Follow Kanwal Rekhi on LinkedIn
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