High Five: Meet K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO Of Jamcracker

Photograph by Steve Labadassa

1

JUST BROWSING
Using Jamcracker's IT infrastructure, companies can deliver software as a service to their employees and customers. "Think of us as the Amazon.com for software as a service, except we're the ubiquitous arm for delivering software, not books."

2

MIDDLE MAN
Chandrasekhar's IT infrastructure efforts came from humble beginnings. In the early 1990s, shortly after arriving in the United States from Chennai, India, he used his $20-per-month Internet connection to pass software code between U.S. companies and Indian developers. "Sun Microsystems and other U.S. software companies liked the offshore model, but they wanted someone in the States who could act as a liaison."

3

DEMOCRATIZE THE NET
Chandrasekhar went on to found Exodus Communications in 1994 as a way to serve growing dot-com companies like eBay that needed bigger IT infrastructures but didn't want to invest in their own data centers. "I saw an opportunity to expand my $20-per-month Internet connection model to democratize Internet access for small businesses."

4

COMMON KNOWLEDGE
After taking Exodus public in 1998, Chandrasekhar founded the K.B. Chandrasekhar Research Centre at India's Anna University, where he'd earned his electrical and electronic engineering degree. "I saw that India had the potential to be the knowledge capital of the world, but there needed to be someplace where research could be done."

5

FOLLOWING BILL
The K.B. Chandrasekhar Family Foundation was founded in late 1999 to help developing countries. "We will be able to make a small contribution similar to what Bill Gates is doing by helping create sanitation and awareness of diseases, starting with India and moving to other countries as well."