Raghu Raghuram is Former CEO of VMware and is now a General Partner at a16z, where he works with the infrastructure and growth investing teams to help founders build the next generation of great companies.

He earned his M.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1986 and an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in 1996. Before VMware, he held product management and marketing roles at Netscape (1996-2000), Bang Networks, and AOL (2001-2003).

Raghuram joined VMware in 2003, beginning his tenure by leading product management for ESX and vSphere. Since joining VMware in 2003, Raghuram helped steer the company's strategic direction and its technology evolution throughout VMware's rich history.

He was appointed Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors, effective June 1, 2021. He stepped down as CEO of VMware when Broadcom completed the acquisition in November 2023, after leading VMware for three years through a journey that spanned raising debt financing, spinning off from Dell, and being acquired by Broadcom.

He played a pivotal role in VMware's strategic and technological evolution, helping grow the company from a startup to a Fortune 200 enterprise with approximately $13B in revenue, 37,000 employees, and over half a million customers in over 100 countries worldwide. Raghuram oversaw the creation and growth of VMware's technology portfolio with over 5000 patents awarded over the last two decades.