(This column first appeared in The Ken on October 14, 2021)
- These names might not mean much to startup folks in India in 2021. But in 1997, when US tech giant Microsoft acquired a fledgling company that offered a free “electronic mail” service for a whopping sum of US$500 million, it made for major headlines. For all practical intents and purposes, Hotmail was an American company with just one tenuous link to India—its founder’s roots. But this was enough for Bhatia to be lionised and deified as a startup hero in India, particularly in Bengaluru, where he had spent his childhood years…
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