Naveen Jain

Naveen K. Jain (born September 6, 1959) is an Indian-American business executive, entrepreneur, and the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace.

InfoSpace briefly became one of the largest internet companies in the American Northwest, before the crash of the dot-com bubble and a series of lawsuits involving Jain.

Naveen Jain was born in 1959 to a Jain family.

He grew up in New Delhi and in villages in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Jain moved to Roorkee, where in 1979 he earned an engineering degree from IIT Roorkee.

He moved to the United States that same year.

He looked up to business people who made their own fortune, especially Bill Gates.

Jain's first job out of college in 1983 was at Burroughs (now known as Unisys) in New Jersey as part of a business-exchange program.

He moved to Silicon Valley for its warmer climate and worked for "a bunch of startups" before joining Microsoft in 1989.

Jain worked on OS/2, then MS-DOS, Windows NT, and Windows 95.

He was awarded three patents related to Windows 95 and became best known for his work as a program manager.

Jain joined the management team for Microsoft Network, prior to its launch.

According to Red Herring, he became restless after eight years at the company and said he didn't feel a single person could make a difference at a large company like Microsoft.

Naveen Jain was working on the launch of Microsoft Networks (MSN), when Netscape Communications raised $2.2 billion in an initial public offering in 1995.

NetScape's IPO was considered the start of the dot-com bubble, because it showed that Internet companies can have large IPOs without making a profit first.

Naveen quit Microsoft to start InfoSpace that year, with the aim of having his own initial public offering as quickly as possible.

Jain founded InfoSpace in March 1996 with six employees, mostly from Microsoft, and began developing e-mail and telephone directories.

InfoSpace provided content and services, such as phone directories, maps, games and information on the stock market, to websites and mobile device manufacturers.

The company grew at low cost without funding using co-branding strategies.

It went public on December 15, 1998.

The company raised $75 million in the offering.

Jain's net worth grew to $8 billion.

He began purchasing expensive homes and yachts.

Jain owned 47 percent of InfoSpace's stock.

Many lawsuits from partners and employees alleged he used promises of stock options to attract talent and business partners, but then fired employees or broke off relations without providing the promised shares.

An investigation by the board found evidence that Jain may have failed to fulfill his contractual promises for stock options to seven former employees and eight business partners.

Many of these cases involved employees or consultants that said they were offered deals where they could buy shares for 1 to 10 cents each, but shortly afterwards Jain tried to change the deal or fired them over a dispute without the promised stock-based compensation.

Jain alleged the deals were set up such that their shares wouldn't vest until they've been an employee for a year.

As the dot-com bubble ended in March 2000, InfoSpace's stock fell from $138 to $1.56 by July 2001.

In March 2000, even as the stock price declined, Jain said InfoSpace would one day have a greater market-share than Microsoft, Intel and Cisco combined.

Early the following year he sold $80 million of his own shares at an even lower price.

Jain led a merger with Go2Net that was purchased with the shares.

Shortly afterwards the founder of Go2Net quit and the company was reduced in size.

After the merger, Go2Net CEO Russell Horowitz became president of Infospace.

Also, in 2000, InfoSpace used a controversial accounting method to report $46 million in profits when in fact it had lost $282 million.

Company executives skirted SEC trading restrictions to sell large blocks of their personal stock.

Jain resumed the role of CEO in 2001.

As revenues decreased, Jain indicated to investor analysts that revenues were expected to go up, even though all indicators showed a continued decline.

In 2001, InfoSpace said its revenues would go up to $360 million, then laid off 250 staff shortly afterwards.

In 2010 Jain co-founded Moon Express where he is the Executive Chairman, and in 2016 founded Viome, where he is the CEO.