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Meet Jay Chaudhry, the 10th richest Indian: From studying under a tree to earning Rs 153 crore per day
Jay Chaudhry was born in a tiny village called Panoh in Himachal Pradesh to parents who were small farmers. His village lacked basic amenities like electricity and drinking water. Instead of inside the house, he found it easier to study outside under a tree.
From those humble beginnings, Chaudhary, the Founder-CEO of California-based IT security firm Zscaler, recently became the newest entrant into the list of 10 richest Indians in the world. As per IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich list 2021, Chaudhry’s “Daily Wealth Creation Velocity” in the last year stood at a mind-boggling Rs 153 crore.
Before Zscaler, Chaudhary founded a number of successful companies like AirDefense (acquired by Motorola), CipherTrust (merged with Secure Computing), CoreHarbor (acquired by USi/AT&T) and SecureIT (acquired by VeriSign in 1998). But before going on to become a successful serial entrepreneur, Chaudhry worked in multi-national corporations like IBM, Unisys and IQ software for 25 years. In 1996, Chaudhry and his wife Jyoti, both left their well-paying jobs to put their savings into founding a successful startup, thus starting his journey to the top.
His rise came on the back of stellar growth in the wake of the increased demand of cybersecurity among US institutions after a series of major ransomware attacks. Chaudhry saw an 85% increase in his wealth, which today stands at over Rs 1,60,000 crore ($15.7 billion). His wealth comes from his 42% stake in Zscaler, the New York Stock Exchange listed company with a market cap of Rs 2,81,000 crore, that he founded back in 2007.
On Zscaler’s success which propelled him to the 10th richest Indian in the world, Chaudhry had once stated in an interview, “When I started Zscaler, at that time the market wasn’t ready for it. But I could see the market was coming. Starting it early on gave me time to build a great architecture that scales. And as the market got hot, we were there way ahead of anybody else.”
Chaudhry is an alumnus of IIT-BHU (Varanasi) from where he pursued Bachelor of Technology in Electronics Engineering before going on to pursue three masters degrees in the US after leaving for the country in 1980s. He did an MBA in Marketing, MS in Computer Engineering and MS in Industrial Engineering, all from the University of Cincinnati. He then pursued his Executive Management Program from the prestigious Harvard Business School. The 62-year-old currently resides in Nevada after relocating from the Bay Area in the US.
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What monkey fled with a bag containing evidence in it: Read full story
The court, generally, considers a person who commit a crime and the one who destroys the evidence, as criminals in the eyes of law. But what if an animal destroys the evidence of a crime committed by a human.
In a peculiar incident in Rajasthan, a monkey fled away with the evidence collected by the police in a murder case. The stolen evidence included the murder weapon (a blood-stained knife).
The incident came to light when the police appeared before the court and they had to provide the evidence in the hearing.
The hearing was about the crime which took place in September 2016, in which a person named Shashikant Sharma died at a primary health center under Chandwaji police station. After the body was found, the deceased’s relatives blocked the Jaipur-Delhi highway, demanding an inquiry into the matter.
Following the investigation, the police had arrested Rahul Kandera and Mohanlal Kandera, residents of Chandwaji in relation to the murder. But, when the time came to produce the evidence related to the case, it was found that the police had no evidence with them because a monkey had stolen it from them.
In the court, the police said that the knife, which was the primary evidence, was also taken by the monkey. The cops informed that the evidence of the case was kept in a bag, which was being taken to the court.
The evidence bag contained the knife and 15 other important evidences. However, due to the lack of space in the malkhana, a bag full of evidence was kept under a tree, which led to the incident.