It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the AID degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. And Ram Shriram, CEO, Sherpalo Ventures has got all, three-attributes rolled in one. No wonder he has been ranked sixth on the Forbes list of men with the Midas touch. A BSc from Madras University, Shriram did his MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Harbor, US and became a member of the Netscape executive team. At Netscape, he was instrumental in drugging the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get distribution for its browser and server products during those legendary early days of the Internet.

Shriram, then went to join Junglee as its CEO. When Amazon.com bought Junglee in 1998, he became vice-president (Business Development) at Amazon.com, reporting to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO. During his tenure at Amazon, he grew the customer count from three million to 11 million users. In 2000, Shriram started Sherpalo, a venture capital firm, with the goal of applying his wealth to promising early stage ventures. As a technology industry insider for over 25 years, Shriram has worked in several companies and has done exemplary well during short span of his career. In facr, real opportunity for Shriram came in the form of Larry Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google.

He joined them as a "mentor capitalist", advising Page and Brin during the company's salad days, earning a spot on its board of directors - and making a fortune in the process. Google's outstanding success raised Shriram's reputation no end. As a result of his work at Google, Shriram emerged from the company's IPO with more shares than any other solo investor - 5.1 million, to be precise, for which he paid pennies apiece. The Google success also helped him gain entry into two of the most-hyped startups of the Web 2.0 generation: Friendster and Plaxo. Besides Google, Shriram also served as a board member of 24/7customer.com, Elance and Plaxo and Business Signatures and is an investor in Friendster and Trymedia, two other consumer online-service-related companies.

So, what sets Shriram apart from other venture capitalists? His eagerness to roll up his sleeves and work closely with founding teams on the challenging issues that confront and sometimes confound early stage ventures. He has the ability to create the right DNA for a young growth company with a focus on revenue and profitability. Unlike other venture capital firms, Sherpalo is a one-man show. "It's very post bubble," he once said in an interview. "I have no staff, no office, no institutional scaffolding. There are times I think it might be nice to have deep-pocketed limited partners to provide me with some cushion. But I enjoy having no responsibilities except to myself, financially. And so far it's turned out quite well." No wonder, Sherpalo's business line is - Guiding entrepreneurs with disruptive ideas and technology to the summit of business success!