Kavitark Ram Shriram (born 1956/57) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is a founding board member and one of the first investors in

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. He worked earlier in

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

. 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 o ...

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

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'', 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 government aided private Catholic higher education institution run by the Society of Jesus in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in 1925 by the France, French Jesuits, Jesuit priest, Francis Bertram, along with other ...

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

Career

Shriram started his career with Bell-Northern Research. 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 (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

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 Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

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

Personal life

He is married to Vijaya Shriram. They have two daughters, Jhanvi and Ketaki, graduates of Stanford University and founders of Palo Alto–based AI startup Krikey AI.

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. Year of birth missing (living people)