In 1979, Naveen Jain set out from India to become one of the most successful Indian emigrants in recent history. He shortly became an employee in Microsoft, but even then, he showed promise.

Fast-forward to the present, when Naveen Jain has gone through no less than two companies as Chief Executive Officer. He founded these companies too.

From March 1996 through April 2000, he served as CEO of InfoSpace, a web content provider and Internet software developer. He resumed his duties again in 2001, until his resignation in December 2002. He also served as InfoSpace Chief Strategy Officer for a year.

Vowing to take the Internet to wireless technologies, InfoSpace caught the attention of investors, Wall Street analysts, and the media. InfoSpace became one of the biggest technological companies in the dot-com stock boom. The media even groomed Naveen Jain as the recipient of Bill Gates’ torch.

Bill Gates had been Naveen Jain’s boss. Naveen Jain worked at Gates’ software company from 1989 right until InfoSpace’s founding in 1996. During his stint, he co-developed Windows 95, Windows NT, and MS-DOS and managed the debut of The Microsoft Network in 1995.

Naveen Jain is now the President, CEO, and a Director of Intelius, Inc. The company sells award-winning identity theft protection products and performs background checks of persons against public-records databases. Intelius is an Inc. 500 company, one of the fastest-growing private technological firms in North America, with eight million served. Naveen Jain founded Intelius in January 2003, after leaving InfoSpace.

Naveen Jain was one of Red Herring’s “Top Entrepreneurs of 1997″ and Directory World’s “Most Influential People In 1997.” He twice received a nomination to the prestigious Ernst & Young Awards.

Truly, he has come a long way from his Indian roots.

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