Sometimes his own bookkeeping is quirky; in midconversation with me on a cell phone several years ago, he pulled into his driveway, announced that he was "officially at home," and kept right on talking for an hour. But when I ask how often he skied last year, he answers immediately and precisely: 45 days.
Fellow investors describe Khosla as driven, arrogant, sometimes single-minded. He likes to argue and is so tenacious that his former partners often sent him into negotiations to defeat, or at least wear down, the opposition.
"What makes him invincible is that he doesn't care if you don't think well of him," says an ex-partner. After Khosla expressed skepticism about hybrid cars, he responded to every last criticism of his position on the Gristmill blog. "I want to test my ideas," he explains. "I don't really care what they think, but one in 10 responses is something I should consider."
"What makes Khosla invincible is that he doesn't care if you don't think well of him," says an ex-partner.
Initially rejected by Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, Khosla lobbied the dean's office for two years, sometimes making weekly calls, until he was finally admitted. "The best way to get Vinod to do something," says longtime friend Doerr, "is to tell him you don't believe he can do it."
Image: Sugarcane is being used to extract ethanol for fuel purposes in many parts of the world. | Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images
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