| Balaji Srinivasan Quick Info | |
|---|---|
| Height | 5 ft 8 in |
| Weight | 70 kg |
| Date of Birth | May 24, 1980 |
| Zodiac Sign | Gemini |
| Spouse | Boonsri Dickinson Srinivasan |
Balaji Srinivasan is an American entrepreneur and investor who co-founded a genetic testing (also known as DNA testing) firm called Counsyl in 2007. It was chiefly focused on providing tests to prospective parents to screen for Mendelian diseases (caused by mutations in one gene, they sometimes run in families) like sickle cell anemia, muscular dystrophy, thalassemia, color blindness, hemophilia, etc. The company was acquired for USD 375 million in 2018 by Myriad Genetics, Inc., an American genetic testing and precision medicine firm. In April 2014, Balaji co-founded Teleport, a job search engine. It was acquired by Topia (a unified global talent mobility platform that enables companies to deploy, manage, and engage employees anywhere in the world) in 2017. In 2018, Fortune (an American global business magazine) ranked him 26th on its ’40 Under 40′ list.
Born Name
Balaji S. Srinivasan
Nick Name
Balaji
Sun Sign
Gemini
Born Place
Long Island, New York, United States
Residence
Singapore
Nationality
Education
Balaji, after his high school graduation, joined Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, a census-designated place in Santa Clara County, California, United States. There, he attained BS (Bachelor of Science), MS (Master of Science), and Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) degrees in electrical engineering as well as an MS degree in chemical engineering.
Occupation
Entrepreneur, Investor
Family
- Father – His father was a physician.
- Mother – His mother was a physician.
- Siblings – Ramji Srinivasan (Brother)
Build
Slim
Height
5 ft 8 in or 173 cm
Weight
70 kg or 154.5 lbs
Girlfriend / Spouse
Balaji has dated –
- Boonsri Dickinson Srinivasan (2015-Present) – Balaji married independent filmmaker, digital artist, and journalist Boonsri Dickinson on December 6, 2015, in a ceremony held in San Francisco, California.
Race / Ethnicity
Asian (Indian)
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Light Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
- Slender frame
- Close-cropped hair
- Affable smile
- Often sports a rugged stubble
Balaji Srinivasan Facts
- In 2013, nearly 6 years after co-founding a genetic testing firm called Counsyl, Balaji became a general partner (a person who has responsibility for the actions of the business and is personally liable for all of the business’s debts and obligations) at Andreessen Horowitz, a private American venture capital firm.
- MIT Technology Review (a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States) included him in its list of ‘Innovators Under 35’ in 2013.
- That same year, Balaji co-founded 21e6 (later known as 21, Inc.) a Bitcoin mining (the process that Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies use to generate new coins and verify new transactions) startup. Although 21, Inc. raised more than USD 120 million from investors, it failed as a business.
- The company then pivoted to become Earn.com, a website that allowed senders to pay users in cryptocurrency to reply to emails. It was acquired by Coinbase Global, Inc. (an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform) in April 2018.
- After the acquisition, Earn.com became known as Coinbase Earn and Balaji became Coinbase’s first chief technology officer. He left the company in 2019 and Coinbase Earn was shut down in December 2019.
- In April 2021, he donated USD 50k in cryptocurrency to help India’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. He posted about it on Twitter and pledged to donate USD 50 every time this post was retweeted – until reaching a total amount of USD 100k.
- In July 2022, Balaji self-published a book titled The Network State: How To Start a New Country. It described a concept in which digital communities crowd-fund resources to build autonomous cities and states. It also talked about online nationality and the breakaway from geographical governments.
Featured Image by TechCrunch / Instagram
