2003 Forbes Midas list: Khosla, at 48, stands 357th in the list of 400 richest Americans, is the only NRI in the list. He has been ranked 357th this year with a wealth of $700 million.

Fortune magazine has named successful venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Kleiner Perkins general partner, in its list of 400 richest Americans for the year 2003 while placing him at the top of the 2003 Forbes Midas list.

A Delhiite, Khosla is considered the man with the "golden touch." He confounded Sun Microsystems and "retired" after Sun's IPO in 1986 at the age of 30, to join venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Among the first to understand that Internet technology and fibre optics could make communications fast, cheap, and easy to install that it would unleash a flood

of productivity growth, Khosla has also been the driving force behind many telecom companies.

He serves on the boards of Asera, Corio Inc, Corvis Corp, BigVine.com, Juniper Networks, Redback and QWEST Communications, in addition to several other private companies.

He holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, a Master's in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Khosla is based in Menlo Park, CA and lives with his wife and four children.

Last year, Fortune ranked him 445th with a personal wealth of $1 billion. He has been ranked 357th this year with a wealth of $700 million.

Khosla has been featured continuously on the Forbes list for the last several years at various rankings. He was at 490 on World's Richest People 2001, 391 on Forbes 400 2002, 246 on Forbes 400 2001, 274 on Forbes 400 2000, 243 on Forbes 400 1999, 2 on Midas 2002.

The Midas list, that identifies individuals who deploy venture capital to create wealth for investors also has some more names of the other venture capitalists of the Indian origin.