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What goes around comes back around. Karma will catch up to you. You get what you give. There are many adages that indicate the cyclical nature of life, encouraging one to reflect on their bounty of success, and in good faith, provide resources for the next generation of individuals to succeed in a similar fashion. Some successful business people donate monetary funds to a charity of their choosing, whilst other successful entrepreneurs attend black-tie galas. However, few entrepreneurs feed into this cyclical system of resounding success in a poignant, meaningful, insightful, and truly selfless way like self-made success Vinod Gupta.
Throughout his life, Gupta has understood the vast value of education, and has seen the opportunities that education has allotted him firsthand. Through self-motivation, determination, business savvy, and moxie, Gupta has created an empire within the information systems field. With incredible insight, Gupta has recognized the profound effects that education can have on marginalized populations, and the ways in which educational opportunities can change lives. Thus, he has devoted large sums of the well-deserved fruits of his labor to opening doors for others via educational scholarship foundations, large donations to his alma maters, and the development of a women’s polytechnic school in his native India.
Vinod Gupta was born in India, and attended primary school at a local village school, about one hundred miles north of New Delhi. His parents, whom he cites as being an inspiration for ongoing education, instilled the value of education, hard work, and remaining focused on carving a path to success from a young age. Excelling within his education, Gupta was accepted to the Indian Institutes of Technology, where he focused his studies within the realm of agricultural engineering. Post-matriculation, he recognized the opportunity that awaited him through furthering his education abroad. With $58 US dollars in his pocket, clutching only a suitcase of clothing, Gupta embarked on his journey to the United States, where he earned his engineering degree, and subsequently, his MBA from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Throughout his collegiate studies, Gupta excelled, and remained focused on the realization of opportunities that would not have been so readily available to him in his native India.
Relocating to Omaha after the completion of his formal studies, Gupta entered the professional sphere at Commodore Corporation, a mobile home manufacturer. As a Marketing Research Analyst for the well-established company, Gupta’s tasks included the collection of information, on a national scale, of mobile home dealers that his company could directly solicit. Within this task, Gupta swiftly recognized the absence of such a collective listing of niche information. With an entrepreneurial streak quickly realized, Gupta’s response to the non-existence of this needed product was to create the product. Ever the resourceful fledgling entrepreneur, he utilized his own funds to purchase local telephone books, and set upon the daunting task of compiling comprehensive lists of mobile home dealers. Upon completion of this painstakingly tedious task, Gupta’s awareness of the need for this type of product parlayed into a monetary valuation for the completed product, and a realization that this product could translate into further sales for other business to business ventures.
With a historic $100 initial bank loan, Gupta invested his first round of venture capital into direct mailers, which advertised his new niche listing services. Immediately receiving orders for his specialized databases, Gupta’s business intuition was reaffirmed through immediate interest from customers. Following this success, Gupta fully embraced his entrepreneurial spirit roughly one year after the sale of his initial list. He left his employer, and ventured forth as a newly minted small business owner, founding his first company, then called American Business Information.
A little over a decade later, ABI had the entire contents of the yellow pages, nationally, sorted within various lists, available for purchase in any capacity, suiting the needs of countless of businesses. Through hard-work, savvy business sense, and continued integration of adapting technologies to assist in his work, Gupta turned the one-man operation into a massive success. By 1994, the company earned over $75 million in revenue, and was publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange, with Gupta’s acquisition of six million shares. Merely three years later, annual revenue rose to over $100 million, and Gupta’s sole operation employed in excess of 1,500 employees.
In the coming years, with continued global growth, the company changed names as it acquired additional territories, technologies, and scopes of interest, becoming InfoFree. The company continued to form into a global data-collection juggernaut, and was ultimately sold in 2010 for $680 million, showcasing an undoubtedly unprecedented return on an initial $1,000 loan.
Following the sale of the data giant, Gupta developed Everest Group, a single-office venture capital, private equity, and business consulting firm that specializes in the development of failing companies, and the niche field of database technology. Within his role as Managing General Partner, Gupta parlays his extensive experience within business development to achieve profitability for underperforming assets, and bolster funding for fledgling businesses alike. In essence, the benefits of his advisement can be seen as a means of paying it forward, and developing a new crop of thriving businesses that will pave the road ahead, just as he previously did with his own business. By allowing, and encouraging other budding entrepreneurs to forge ahead on their journeys in an educated manner destined for success, Gupta has become somewhat of a mentor within the community, providing opportunities for young entrepreneurs to flourish.
On a personal level, Gupta’s own experiences have shaped his understanding of the power of education, and the lasting effects of giving individuals an opportunity in which to thrive. Having experienced poverty firsthand as a child, and witnessing physical barriers to education, Gupta dedicated his philanthropic efforts to the empowerment of marginalized individuals through education, providing opportunities for individuals to thrive in an environment conducive to repeating the process in the future. Through his extensive charitable efforts, Vinod Gupta has embodied the spirit of the cyclical nature of prosperity, flowering the proverbial seeds that would then grow into flowers, providing food for the birds, who would, in turn, continue to pollinate the flowers.
From donating funds, supplies, and other educational tools throughout many schools in his native India, to developing scholarship opportunities at his alma mater, Gupta’s dedication to providing educational opportunities has spanned the entire globe, and has aided countless individuals with their educational journeys. Through his various education-based philanthropic endeavors, Gupta has embodied the notion of investing in the future of the world, confident in the notion that educated youth will become successful adults who will better the world, and in turn, provide the same opportunities for the generation that will follow.
Throughout India’s history, education for girls has not always been a priority, and many girls have been marginalized in terms of access to education, for a multitude of reasons. Within Gupta’s own hometown of Rampur Maniharan, he has chosen to disrupt these binding conditions through the $1 million endowment, utilized for the creation of the Ram Rati Gupta Polytechnic School. Established in 2000, the school has assisted many women in earning post-graduate degrees, often in as little as 24 months. The school offers areas of study that include textile design, computer applications, information technology, and web design, which enable women to take independent routes post-matriculation. In turn, these fast-paced programs have opened new career pathways for women, perhaps offering them opportunities that would not have been so readily available to them without the existence of such a safe space, conducive to learning, success, and prosperity.
In addition to the development of the Polytechnic, Gupta has also donated funds to assist in providing essential implements for operation within a village girls’ school. By providing everything from textbooks, to writing implements, Gupta has ensured that each student will be able to excel within various fields of study. By providing buses for the school to utilize, Gupta has ensured that no child will be unable to attend school due to their residence being in a highly rural area, a factor that previously dictated the fate of many school-aged children. This seemingly minor change, then, has changed the scope of the future for countless children, literally providing them with the opportunity to attend school, and garner an education that may have been vastly unattainable for their parents. These contributions have significantly helped in bridging the gender inequality within Gupta’s native country, and perhaps, served as an inspiration on a global scale.
As part of the cyclical manner of recycling prosperity and opportunity, Gupta’s own father, a physician, became the source of inspiration for Gupta. Often, he has cited his father as being the source of development for his unparalleled work ethic, and the importance of education in the quest for self-betterment. These lessons had a profound effect on Gupta, and thus, it was only natural that he focused a large portion of his philanthropic efforts on the impressionable youth that would benefit from his investments, much like he previously benefited from his father’s teachings.
Prior to earning his post-graduate degree at the University of Nebraska, Gupta earned his Bachelor’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. In the spirit of returning opportunities to the places that have provided him with opportunities, Gupta naturally reinvested $2 million within his alma mater, via the creation of the namesake Vinod Gupta School of Management. As the only school dedicated to business under the IIT umbrella, the Vinod Gupta School of Management is touted as one of the premier business schools within the region, a prestigious reputation that undoubtedly opens doors for graduates. As the school previously provided Gupta with the opportunity to earn a degree, and move forward with his studies, his reinvestment into his alma mater has created similar opportunities for future generations of students, looking to emerge as leaders within the business sector.
Additionally, the school’s unique structure has provided exceptional opportunities for non-traditional students to excel, and earn degrees at a rapid pace. With a traditional full-time MBA program, as well as a fast-track to a PhD program offering, and flexible offerings for working students, the school allows for eager students from all backgrounds, within all stages of life, to excel academically.
The school’s massive library, made readily available to all IIT students, remains the largest library in Asia. By allowing all students access to the expansive library, Gupta has once again opened the doors for all students to receive the needed tools to succeed within their academic endeavors.
In 2006, Gupta expanded his contributions within the IIT umbrella via the development of the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law. Nationally ranking as a leading educational provider, the prestigious law school has partnered with Washington DC’s renowned George Washington University, earning clout, prestige, and the benefits of a collaboration with a globally recognized leader in law education. After receiving Gupta’s generous $2 million donation, India’s government chose to match the donation, creating the infrastructure needed to successfully operate the school. Forward-thinking and progressive, the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law was the first school of its’ kind, focusing on combining the growing global fields of law, and technology. Though this field was not specifically related to Gupta’s own career path, his recognition of the impacts of globalization, and subsequent desire to engage students in an educational field that would provide them with future opportunities is a testament to Gupta’s desire to continue the cycle of succession.
Having received his final degree from the University of Nebraska, which ultimately spearheaded his professional career in the state, Gupta paid it forward via the development of an annual scholarship fund at his alma mater. Specifically, the recipients of this scholarship would be a minority students seeking to enter the science, or engineering programs at his alma mater. In essence, recognizing the success of his education at the University of Nebraska as a catalyst for the early stages of his career, Gupta has ensured that other individuals with similar dreams, from similar backgrounds, would be able to receive the opportunity to attend the same University that aided in his own successes.
Amassing a total of over $50 million, Gupta’s various contributions to education have undoubtedly impacted the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of individuals. Though difficult to quantify exactly, his philanthropic efforts have provided hope, opportunity, and success to disenfranchised groups, and have set the tone for a progressive future, especially concerning gender-based discrimination within global educational spheres.
Though Vinod Gupta has amassed great wealth, he has often cited that wealth is not a source of happiness, and thus, has not equated his personal wealth with satisfaction. He has valued the opportunities that wealth has allowed him, and thus, has vowed to provide those opportunities for others in return. According to Gupta, true happiness lies within one’s ability to exist within the world, and create a positive impact upon it. The statement reigns true for Gupta, who has certainly created a positive impact, on a global scale, that will result in positive change for countless individuals.
If the nature of success can be cyclical, it can be surmised, then, that the direct impact of Gupta’s contributions to society will be felt immediately through the successes of the individuals he was directly provided with educational, and vocational opportunities. In effect, it will create tertiary benefits through the lessons this generosity will impart on benefactors, who will, in turn, create contributions in the future, keeping the cycle of prosperity moving forward. After all, what goes around comes around.
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