Sabeer Bhatia (born 30 December 1968)[3] is an Indian businessman who co-founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail.com in 1996.[4] In 2021 he co-founded ShowReel with his co-founder Aji Abraham. ShowReel initially focused on connecting users through short videos for job seekers and founders. But now it has turned into an AI-powered learning platform.[5]
Career
Bhatia briefly worked for Apple Inc, as a hardware engineer[6] and Firepower Systems Inc. He, along with his colleague Jack Smith, set up Hotmail on 4 July 1996, American Independence Day, symbolizing "freedom" from ISP-based e-mail and the ability to access a user's inbox from anywhere in the world.[7]
As president and CEO, Bhatia led Hotmail until its eventual acquisition by Microsoft in 1998 for an estimated $400 million.[citation needed]
Bhatia started a free messaging service called JaxtrSMS. He said that JaxtrSMS would do to SMS what Hotmail did for e-mail. Claiming it to be a disruptive technology, he says that the operators will lose revenue on the reduced number of SMSes on their network but will benefit from the data plan that the user has to buy.[8] To date, JaxtrSMS service has failed to replicate the success of Hotmail. Recently[when?], he invested in email collaboration software, ccZen and another e-commerce technology provider E-junkie.
Bhatia married Tanya Sharma in 2008 and they have a daughter Arianna. Later, they filed for divorce in January 2013 in a court in San Francisco, citing "irreconcilable differences".[11]
