GREEN RANKING FOR 2009
Ranking: 52=
Worth: £560m
Green investment: Alternative energy

Vinod Khosla arrived in America as a student in the 1970s. Having studied engineering in India, he earned a master's at Carnegie Mellon and an MBA from Stanford Business School. He launched Daisy Systems, an electronics company, in 1980 and then two years later joined fellow Stanford graduates to launch Sun Microsystems, which became a huge computer company. He served briefly as chief executive before turning to venture capital in 1996. Khosla finally launched his own firm, Khosla Ventures, in 2004. It is a leading investor in alternative energy across the spectrum of wind, solar, biofuels and geothermal energy. The firm also invests in cleaner battery technology and building materials. Khosla says he expects more than half the firm’s investments in 65-plus start-up companies to succeed. In October 2008 Forbes valued him at £760m. With prices collapsing since, we cut that to £560m.