Netscape's IPO was launched in 1995, Marc Andresseen, the founder of the company, was a super star. The first big success of the cyber world, the beginning of the 'great Dotcom rush'. Andresseen was a millionaire overnight, a success to be emulated.

Sadly for him, Microsoft decided to run him out of business and by the end of the 'browser war', Netscape was bought out by AOL and in 2005, Marc launched a venture named Ping.

Sometime between the launch of Netscape's IPO and Google, a non-descript Sabeer Bhatia with his co-worker Jack Smith launched an email service titled as Hotmail. It was an instant success, clocking millions of users in the next few months. In 1997, Microsoft acquired Hotmail for $400 million.

Bhatia arrived in the U.S. in 1988 on a transfer scholarship. He was nineteen and had some $250 dollars in his pockets. By the end of the next decade, Bhatia was a millionaire and the world was at his feet. He was the new wonder boy in the Silicon Valley, and globetrotting, meeting up with venture capitalists, getting invited to A list parties, Sabeer Bhatia had become 'hot'.

From that point on, every venture that Bhatia would float would always be compared with Hotmail, the first few questions will always be on Hotmail and he would be eternally dubbed as Mr. Hotmail (or rather hot-male). Yet he does not begrudge the comparison and has no misgivings about how things have turned out.

It has been close to a decade since Bhatia shot up in the stratosphere. Nowadays, he is shuttling across the globe, and is a constant visitor to India. He had come down to India for the launch of his latest ventures, Voi-fi, an IP-telephony service, and Blogeverywhere.com. He talks effusively on how his latest ventures will hit bull's-eyes. He is quite passionate on his latest offering and is not ruffled even on being grilled on the value proposition. Hardly surprising, as Bhatia carries a reputation of being a master negotiator, a clever, astute businessman.

According to legends, Bhatia had stuck to his guns against the tough nut negotiators from Microsoft. He was labeled as crazy on rebuffing Microsoft on a lesser deal; everyone thought that he had blown it. USD400 million for a simple email service? Impossible!

Fortunately for him the guys at Microsoft blinked first and the deal was inked on New Year's Eve in 1997. Though it has been nearly ten years as the cliché goes 'old love dies hard' Bhatia continues to innovate and improve user experience around Hotmail. He shares that he could have done better with Hotmail than what Microsoft has. Today according to reports there are 35 billion mails being exchanged, Bhatia had the first mover advantage then, was it a futile endeavor with Microsoft could he have been better off, the answer is subjective.

A few years back, amidst a lot of fanfare, Bhatia had launched Arzoo, an online venture where people could pose their tech problems to experts for a small fee. The venture was a disaster and the company folded up soon enough. Bhatia turns a bit philosophical while discussing Arzoo, “I will be launching Arzoo in a new avatar in the next few months. It will be a travel and tourism venture now,” he informs.

But, why name it Arzoo why not anything else? “Because, the name Arzoo still has a lot of resonance and I want to prove a point to people who labeled it as a colossal failure,” he clarifies. Indeed, if Hotmail can be termed as Bhatia's zenith, Arzoo would be his nadir and Bhatia is trying hard to redeem himself.

So is he one of the flash-in-the-pan success stories, doomed to spend rest of his life trying to duplicate his early success? Hard to answer that one, but one thing is for certain, Bhatia is trying too hard. He admits that till-date, he has launched close to 25 ventures. But, none of his current ventures can be termed as revolutionary in a true sense of term. Most of his ventures are on convergence of Internet and telephony. He has also collaborated with Jack Smith (Hotmail co-founder) on a few other ventures.

Lady Luck seems to be biased for young, zestful people in twenties; will she smile again on Bhatia, who has recently turned 37? Will he be able to break the jinx? Time will tell, but he is certainly not alone, he has Marc Andresseen (founder of Netscape) for company as of now.

(With inputs from Minu Sirsalewala)

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