Jyoti Bansal sold AppDynamics to tech giant Cisco for $3.7 billion, according to Forbes estimates. This increased his wealth to several hundreds of millions of dollars. Jyoti Bansal, Co-Founder AppDynamics and Harness(Bloomberg) Jyoti Bansal moved from India with an engineering degree from IIT Delhi with a dream of becoming an entrepreneur in the US, but quickly learned that you are not allowed to start a company while on an H1-B visa. From there, the journey to becoming a billionaire was never easy, says a Forbes article that interviewed Bansal. At 21, Bansal told Forbes he hopped on a plane to California with nothing but a few hundred dollars and a big dream to become an entrepreneur. But getting a green card and starting a business required him to work first. This prompted Jyoti Bansal to work for seven years as an engineer at three small enterprise technology companies, which sponsored his H1-B visa. A green card and a dream come true Seven years later Jyoti Bansal finally got his hands on the long awaited green card – a path to follow his passion to start a business. That’s when Bansal came up with AppDynamics in 2008 – a troubleshooting platform for complex websites like Netflix, which made it easier for their engineers to reduce downtime related to technology issues. The entrepreneur scaled AppDynamics over six fundraising rounds for more than a decade after facing initial rejections and wanted to take it public when the company started making more than $200 million in revenue. But instead, Bansal sold the platform to tech giant Cisco for $3.7 billion, according to Forbes estimates. This increased his wealth to several hundreds of millions of dollars. “I strongly believe that to build a company, you have to spend a lot of time on it,” he told Forbes in the interview. “At least ten years.” Come out of retirement, become a billionaire After the sale, Jyoti Bansal wanted to retire. “I tried to retire,” he said. “People say, ‘Once I retire, I’m going to do what I enjoy. I asked myself, ‘Did I enjoy playing golf all the time or being on the beach all the time?’ I don’t really. I realized why not just go back to what I enjoy, to build a company.” After traveling across countries for nearly half a year, Rajasthan-born Bansal got tired and thought he could follow his passion and start more companies. This led to the birth of Harness, an AI-based software delivery platform, which recently raised $240 million in a funding round. I strongly believe that to build a company, you have to spend a lot of time on it. At least ten years. The funding, backed by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Institutional Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures, valued Harness at $5.5 billion, effectively making Bansal a billionaire. According to Forbes estimates, Jyoti Bansal’s net worth is now around $2.3 billion, thanks to an estimated 30% stake in Harness. Much of his wealth also comes from the cash he raised after selling his first company.