Sanjukt is the Founder/CEO of
One Billion Minds. Previously he headed the Indian business of Patton Electronics, a global telecom equipment manufacturing company. A Mechanical Engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology, he received a general management MBA from the European School of Management and Technology, Berlin where he was awarded an Axel Springer scholarship and elected Class President. He previously attended an advanced executive program offered by INSEAD & McGill. When not minding his own business, especially over weekends, Sanjukt enjoys mentoring early stage ventures. He can be reached at:
sanjukt.saha@onebillionminds.com
Idealab is a little different than most people think. We’re actually an operating company, and not a venture firm or investment firm. We have our own internal development team – marketing, engineering, design, business development, etc. In particular, I am leading a lot of research on low cost solar energy, and other projects. When we find success in one of our prototyping efforts, and we find market acceptance, then we spin that out into a separate company, so that we can recruit additional employees with significant equity stakes, etc. It’s definitely an unusual model, and it’s very hard to execute well, but it works very well for us. Now that we have been in business for nearly 12 years, we have learned a lot of the pitfalls, and hopefully we can have a higher success rate on each new venture. That’s of course what we try to do! If you’re ever in Southern CA and you can visit, I think you would get a much better sense of how we work.
Bill