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17. DHEERAJ PANDEY
Co-founder and CEO, Nutanix
Dheeraj Pandey founded Nutanix, a company that offers an all-in-one
hardware box for corporate data centers that combines a computer server
and storage. Nutanix is essentially changing the datacenter as we know it,
and the company looks like it’s set firmly on the IPO path.
Before Nutanix, Pandey was a VP of Engineering at Aster Data and worked
on the development of Oracle’s Database storage engine.
“I’ve always challenged the status quo, but I’ve also learned a lot about what
not to do,” he told Forbes at the end of last year. “While our company is
growing exceptionally fast, I also know that business is not a ‘Hail Mary’—
you need to build the business 10 yards at a time,” says Pandey.
18. NAVEEN JAIN
Founder, Immunity Project
Serial entrepreneur and investor Naveen Jain is working with a team of
scientists and entrepreneurs who are trying to cure HIV/AIDS through
their non profit organization Immunity Project.
They have already developed a prototype vaccine and completed
preliminary lab testing, but are raising $20 million to start an official human
clinical trial.
19. NEAL MOHAN
Vice President, Display Advertising Products, Google
Neal Mohan is the $100 million man.
He came to Google in 2008, after the company acquired DoubleClick for
$3.8 billion, where he was senior vice president of strategy and product
development. DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt ended up working for
Twitter, and tried to poach Mohan from Google in 2011. It looked like Mohan
would accept a position at Twitter, but in the end he didn’t. Why? Reportedly,
because Google made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: More than $100
million in stock.
Colleagues have described Mohan as a visionary who predicted how brand
advertising would fund the Internet, turned this vision into a plan, and then
executed it. Besides working for Google and DoubleClick, he has served in
strategy and consulting roles at Microsoft and Accenture.
20. GURJEET SINGH
Founder and CEO, SlideShare
Fast Company named Gurjeet Singh’s startup — Ayasdi — one of this
year’s most innovative companies in big data. Ayasdi helps people find
new trends in their data without the need to write code, queries, or ask
questions by creating 3D visuals. The goal is to make it easier to use data
to solve complex problems and the company has raised $44 million.
He develops multi-legged robots in his spare time.
August 2014
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