Sabeer Bhatia co-founded Hotmail and helped transform email into a mass-market communication tool. The platform grew to 8.5 million subscribers within eighteen months, demonstrating the global demand for free web-based email. Its rapid adoption attracted the attention of Microsoft, which acquired the company for approximately $400 million in 1997. Hotmail’s success established Bhatia as one of the first Indian-origin entrepreneurs to build and exit a major internet company during the dot-com era. His achievement demonstrated that immigrant founders could create consumer technology products capable of reaching millions of users worldwide.
