Naveen Jain – Entrepreneur Savant
Intelius’ CEO, president and founder Naveen Jain is an Internet visionary in more ways than one. An emigrant from India, he is now based in Washington, where he has a history of launching nationally renowned businesses.
His latest and most resilient is Bellevue’s Intelius, Inc., which supplies consumers and businesses with personal intelligences regarding any American. Such intelligences can make a difference with, for example, companies looking for the best job applicant or parents seeking to identify neighbors who might pose a danger to their children. One of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States, Intelius received the Stevie Award for Best New Company in 2006 — the equivalent of an Oscar, according to the New York Post.
His former company, InfoSpace, was world-famous in its own right. Naveen Jain founded it in 1996, and two years later, took it public on NASDAQ at the height of the dot-com stock boom. Subsequently, Naveen Jain became a multi-billionaire, ranking on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 Richest Americans in 2000. Meanwhile, InfoSpace drew investors like Paul Allen and clients like AOL, Lycos, MSN, Disney, and more.
Before all these, Naveen Jain was just another company’s employee. Albeit not just any company — Naveen Jain worked for Microsoft Corp. no less. As Bill Gates’ employee, he left his mark on such successful Microsoft products like MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows NT, and Windows 95. Eventually, he ascended to the rank of group manager for The Microsoft Network, the online service that became MSN.
Naveen Jain had been employed for The Burroughs Corporation during his early years in the US. He originally came from India, where he was raised by his civil engineer-father. He finished a degree in engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology and got an MBA from the Xavier Labour Relations Institute.
Information Week once called Naveen Jain one of “6 People Who Will Change the Internet.” With all his achievements, such claim could not be too hard to believe.
