iNDICA News Bureau-
The Indian diaspora in the United States is filled with people who have made a tremendous success out of ideas that started as small business ventures. Of these, Vivek Ranadive and the Ranadive family are particularly prominent. Their success at business and entrepreneurship is well known.
Vivek Ranadive is the founder and former CEO of TIBCO Software, a real-time computing company, and of Teknekron Software Systems. He is also co-owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings team and founder of Bow Capital, an early-stage startup investment firm. Ranadive is also the author of three books and numerous articles and has been described as “the quintessential entrepreneur”.
Ranadive, one of the eight grand keynote speakers at TiEcon 2022, the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs earlier this month, was joined by son Aneel, founding partner at Soma Capital, an investment firm focused on automating software, and daughter Anjali, a coordinator for the Kings, a philanthropist and a Billboard-charting singer and songwriter.
For the Ranadives, entrepreneurship is very much a family affair. Ranadive has been a lifelong investor, who moved to the U.S. to build his company. His son described his father as someone who “worked hard and played hard, and was very passionate about the companies he built and the work he did”. According to his daughter, Ranadive’s motto is “be tough and never give up” and he passed it on to his children from a young age.
Ranadive’s lifelong passion for his work also provided a foundation for his children. Aneel said seeing what true passion and drive for success looked like gave him lessons for his own investment firm. He also said that having lived in a home which balanced work and family, he believes that even for the busiest entrepreneur, it is possible to have a healthy work-life balance.
Vivek Ranadive attributed a fair portion of his success to luck, stating that his move to the U.S. and success at university came through a combination of hard work and being in a position to make the most of any opportunities.
His philosophy of hard work paying dividends is well known, and the example of his work in coaching his daughter’s baseball team has been featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath. He also believes that the world in which he grew up and the one in which his children live are very different, and has thus been supportive of their choices to pursue different careers. Anjali runs a nonprofit called Jaws and Paws that is dedicated to the conservation of animals like wolves and sharks, and gathered the seed capital for it by singing professionally.
Aneel, on the other hand, is the founder of Soma Capital, an organization that believes software leads the world in every sector, and that it is software products that will reduce human error, create more efficiency, and push humanity into an age of greater efficiency, health, education and progress.
Aneel’s company funds B2B software, fintech and frontier technology (space technology and logistics technology such as self-driving car companies, self-driving truck companies, and low-cost telecom satellite companies). Soma Capital works primarily in emerging markets, and a large part of its investments are in South Asia (India) and South America.
Ranadive said there has never been a better time to be a young person and an entrepreneur as we live in “an age of services and information, and the raw materials are data and imagination”.
According to him, “There is an infinite supply of imagination and an increasing supply of data, which will lead to more disruption, more wealth creation, more opportunities than have ever been seen.”
Aneel echoed his sentiments, saying that “at this moment, anyone with a connection, who has a will and who has some talent, now has the opportunity to organize other people and create something more valuable”. It is a time where the internet and newer technology empower people to reach new heights, and both Ranadives place special emphasis on crypto assets and the blockchain.
Anjali, whose non-profit work has been greatly enhanced by technology, said that simply “integrating crypto into the company has helped immensely” in raising money, bringing in donations, connecting with other people, etc., and that it has been transformative for nonprofit work, particularly to give access to those who don’t have it.
This interview with Vivek Ranadive, Aneel Ranadive and Anjali Ranadive was one of the eight grand keynotes at the three-day TiEcon 2022 which ended May 7. The event featured a discussion on topics of entrepreneurship, industry trends, and opportunities.
