Kavitark Ram Shriram (born 1956/57) is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred t ...

billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is a founding

board member A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

and one of the first investors in

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

. He was earlier employed by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

, working for

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former presi ...

. Shriram came to Amazon.com in August 1998, when the company acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Shriram was president. Before Junglee and Amazon, Shriram was a member of the

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was on ...

executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'', as of September 2020, his net worth was $2.3 billion.

Early life

Shriram holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from

Loyola College, Chennai Loyola College is a private Catholic higher education institution run by the Society of Jesus in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in 1925 by the French Jesuit priest, Francis Bertram, along with other European Jesuits. It is an auton ...

of the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

Career

Shriram started his career with

Bell-Northern Research Bell-Northern Research (BNR) was a telecommunications research and development company established In 1971 when Bell Canada and Northern Electric combined their R&D organizations. It was jointly owned by Bell Canada and Northern Telecom. BNR w ...

. In 1994, he became a vice president of

. Later, he also served as a president of Junglee. Shriram started Sherpalo, a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...

firm that invests in promising new disruptive technologies, in January 2000. In 2020, Ram Shriram was selected for the Ellis Island medal of honor.

Philanthropy

Shriram and his wife have donated funds through education-focused Dhanam Foundation. They have funded Shriram Family Professorship in Science Education and the Shriram Family Fellowship in Science Education at Stanford Graduate School of Education. They have also funded $57 million to establish Shriram Center for Bioengineering & Chemical Engineering at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. In 2014, the Shriram along with his wife donated $61 million to the newly established Stanford School of Bioengineering.

Personal life

He is married to Vijay Shriram. They have two daughters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shriram, Ram Living people 1950s births American computer businesspeople Indian emigrants to the United States Stanford University trustees Amazon (company) people American billionaires American Hindus American philanthropists Tamil billionaires American corporate directors Businesspeople from Chennai University of Madras alumni American people of Indian descent Tamil entrepreneurs Indian Tamil people Directors of Alphabet Inc.