It is likely that you have had or even still have an email ending with @hotmail.com. The messaging protocol later replaced by @outlook.com was a classic of the 90s and early 2000s as part of the most revolutionary messaging platform this is remembered. Yes, even more than the widespread Gmail.
All of Hotmail’s success is fundamentally due to a man with a background at Apple who decided abandon the firm to the apple for a success that it would perhaps never have obtained stay there. This is Sabeer Bhatia, who, with his partner Jack Smith, founded this company which they eventually sold to Microsoft for a fortune.
A young Indian landed in the United States thanks to a scholarship
On the penultimate day of the year 1968, December 30, Sabeer Bhatia was born in Chandigarh, one of the largest cities in North India. However, he did not stay there for long, because at a very young age he moved with his family to Bangalore, a city already located in the southern half of the country.
Those who knew Bhatia in his childhood reported that he had already showed great interest in a still untapped IT sector. And not only was he enthusiastic about this, but he was also able to translate it into his studies to the point that in 1988 he received a scholarship to study at the California Institute of Technology, one of the most important institutions in the era.
So, Sabeer Bhatia packed his bags to go to the United States and graduate from high school. After completing his scholarship in the aforementioned Californian institute, he continued his studies and this time specialized in electrical engineeringfrom which he graduated in 1993 from Stanford University, also in California. It is at the end of these studies that he will begin a career that will lead him to professional and economic success.
The darkest apple as a first step of work
John Sculley (left) left as Apple CEO and Michael Spindler (right) took over.
Having received a scholarship in California would allow Sabeer Bhatia to have started and completed his advanced studies in the heart of Silicon Valley, which already in the 90s boasted of being the epicenter of technology not only locally, but also globally . And it’s all thanks to companies like Apple.
Bhatia ended up at Apple precisely after graduating from engineering in 1993, when he was just 25 years old. Over there joined the hardware department to, among other things, carry out the arduous task of developing the electrical circuitry for PowerPCs, the processors that would soon begin to be used in Apple computers of the time and would end up being the brains of Macs for a decade.
Sabeer Bhatia didn’t see a clear future at Apple and decided to take a chance with his ideas. It went (very) well
Little is known about Sabeer Bhatia’s time at Apple, but his work does not seem particularly notable. Apparently, he must not have seen things correctly either, given that Apple entered its darkest decade
Michael Spindler was the one who succeeded Sculley as CEO of Apple and although he was ultimately relegated due to his failure, before that happened Bhatia had decided to leave Apple. His great contribution to history was before him and, oddly enough, it had more to do with software than with the hardware he had studied so much and devoted his days to at Apple.
From a hardware mind, came a great software idea
We all have ideas. We also think that we all have ideas that are equally brilliant, but the truth is that only a few have ideas that end up being extremely brilliant to the point of changing an industry. Bhatia was part of this second group, although he was not alone.
In 1995 and with Jack Smith, with whom he worked at Apple, they thought about create a web browser-based email that is free and accessible to everyone. Indeed, they had imagined Hotmail, although it would take them a little more time to give it shape.
Between the end of 1995 and the beginning of 1996, both left Apple to found Hotmail. Bhatia and Smith had assigned themselves the roles of director and chief technology officer, respectively. And after several months of development, On July 4, 1996, Hotmail was released to the public.. Not the company, but the postal service.
Microsoft bought Hotmail and the rest is history
Jack Smith was Sabeer Bhatia’s great partner in the creation of Hotmail
The great advantage of Hotmail was that, unlike electronic mail at the time, with an account assigned to each computer, this service allowed be able to access email from a website anywhere in the world.
This brilliant idea finally came to fruition with resounding success when a year and a half after its launch, in December 1997, the Hotmail network already had eight and a half million users
Faced with such resounding success, that same December, Microsoft knocked on Bhatia and Smith’s door. Their goal was clear: they wanted Hotmail to own it. It is unclear how long these negotiations will last and what possible conflicts they will face, but it is clear that they did not last long. On the last day of this month (and also of 1997) the acquisition of Hotmail by Microsoft became official. And all thanks to 400 million dollars.
Taking advantage of the good trend and already being under the umbrella of Microsoft, Hotmail grew rapidly and every month it added almost 4 million new users.
What Sabeer Bhatia has been up to since selling Hotmail
Bhatia did this thing where he took the money and ran. It’s not that he had to flee Microsoft, nor is it clear whether he was offered a position. The fact is that his role as CEO no longer made sense at Hotmail, this company having already been absorbed by the multinational then led by Bill Gates.
Sabeer Bhatia continued on the investment path. In his professional career after Hotmail, he held certain advisory positions, but also senior management of certain companies such as Sabse Technologies. Although perhaps the best known was Arzoo, a website that promised to change online shopping forever and which, unlike Hotmail, ended up being another dot-com bubble fiasco. puntocom.
Of course, beyond the money he made from the sale of Microsoft, Bhatia has received numerous awards as entrepreneur of the year in 1997 or be one of the People to watch in 2002, recognition given by Time magazine to entrepreneurs like him who “must be closely monitored” because of the high expectations of success that they generate in their projects. However, and while this does not detract from the merit of the Hotmail era, the truth is that Sabeer Bhatia did not come close to tasting such success.
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