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Meet Chennai's K. B. Chandrasekhar, who has made it big in the field of IT
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GRIT SAW HIM THROUGH K.B. Chandrasekhar PHOTO: R. RAGU
K.B. Chandrasekhar epitomises the success story of the high-brow, enterprising, fiercely determined Indian immigrant in the United States. It was, however, not roses all the way for this entrepreneur-cum-technocrat, who is today praised for his pioneering efforts in selling the data centre concept to the world. The challenges were stiff when Chandra (as he is known among friends) bid goodbye to a prestigious job as head of the Rolta India's operations in the West Coast of the Unites States and struck out on his own. His aim: an Internet data centre. With an unimpressive bank account of $4,500, this was clearly a tall order.
There were three overlapping sides to the problem. One, he had limited resources and at that time venture capitalists would not take a second look at a company that was bootstrapping. Two, he was trying to sell an Internet-based concept when a lot of doubts hung over the viability of the medium. And finally, he did not have an American education (He had studied physics from Vivekananada College and electronics and electrical engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology in Anna University) and this turned out to be big handicap.
"Because I was an unknown entity, I also had difficulty hiring local people," says Chandra, who was in the city recently in connection with the convocation ceremony of Great Lakes Institute of Management (where he is a visiting faculty). However, he took the plunge in 1992, when he set up Fouress Inc. in a corner of his bedroom. Ideally, Chandra would have liked to follow in the footsteps of great entrepreneurs who turned to their garage for their first office space (Even Microsoft traces its genesis back to a humble garage). Sadly, Chandra's garage did not have enough space to accommodate his dreams.
Crossing milestones
In 1994, Fouress became Exodus Communications and soon this global web hosting company reached a visibility that surprised many.
His fortuitous meeting with venture capitalist Reiki Kanwal (when Chandrasekhar introduced himself as a student of MIT, Kanwal mistook it for the Mashcchusetts Institute of Technology) played a big role in Chandra's rise. From there, Chandra was crossing many milestones. Today, he is at the top echelons of a dozen companies such as Jamcracker and Aztec, yet he remains the same, tradition-bound man from Chennai, who gave up a fulfilling job at Wipro to chase his dreams.
"I come from an ordinary middle class family in Chennai."
He attributes whatever he has achieved to his father, "who encouraged me to buy stocks and read balance sheets and took me to annual general body meetings (of these companies)" and the great Indian ability to survive on whatever is available. In the initial, difficult years, Chandra could hold on because of this quality.
PRINCE FREDERICK
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