Desi’s + Porn Princesses

Not customers but rather, business partners

In 1998 a California porn princess commissioned a 25-year-old Indian computer wiz to write a piece of software…She had sold all her porn interests and it was time to invest the proceeds. Online gambling was the new buzz and she found a friend of a friend, Anurag Dikshit, a computer engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, to create a programme for casino games such as roulette.

The outcome — the newest Sabeer Bhatia –

The extraordinary result of that meeting was seen yesterday when PartyGaming, the company they created, announced plans to float on the London stock market. Its PartyPoker website is the dominant force in the explosive online poker market and the business will be valued at up to $10bn, or a shade over £5bn – only a little less than Marks & Spencer, or the combined value of British Airways and EMI. At the top price, Mr Dikshit, who owns 42%, will be worth £2.1bn at the age of 33. Ms Parasol, in her late 30s, and her husband, Russ DeLeon, each own 20%, worth £1bn apiece. Billionaire status has rarely been achieved so young or so quickly.

Actually, given that he’s a multi-billionaire, Mr Dikshit will actually be worth several Bhatia’s (who’s estimated to have pocketed only ~200M off Hotmail). My big question for those in the know, don’t most folks with his last name transliterate it to Dixit?

20 thoughts on “Desi’s + Porn Princesses

  1. hotmail was sold for 400 million. the man lives in india now too, so his 400 million in us currency will go way further than 2.1 billion british pounds in england.

    either way, i’m jealous of them both.

  2. hotmail was sold for 400 million. the man lives in india now too, so his 400 million in us currency will go way further than 2.1 billion british pounds in england.

    You can eat only so many idlys.

    When you spend on that scale, you find the things you want to buy cost about the same everywhere.

  3. Michael, not true; bribing politicians would cost far less in India than in England. With $400m, he could bribe the full Indian parliament, whereas he’d only be able to bribe about 25 MPs in England.

  4. Dik Shit. Dik Shit. Jeez. I would say ‘poor guy’ but that doesn’t apply anymore. I’ve never seen it spelt that way. Was it a personal choice, I wonder? It doesn’t really translate to a desirable porn name even.

  5. I think Dikshit is a common spelling.

    Punjabi Boy imitator: are you trying to make a point by imitating someone’s name? Are you trying to be funny? Nobody’s laughing, be original.

  6. Why is this person trying to imitate me???

    He’s servin’ up puns and bhaji, he’s got an ümläüt. What more do you want? 😉

  7. Why cant things like this happen to me? Like meeting porn stars and then becoming a billionaire?

    Injustice and inequality is rife in the world, man.

  8. Actually, I am flattered…

    i’m glad that you are flattered dear PB 🙂 but the situation can be confusing. when your imitator started talking about buying off MPs in England, i had to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t you.

    there are millions of possible handles to choose from. why “punbaji boy”? i’m with banglawarrior on this one.

  9. Punjabi Boy: often imitated, but never duplicated. Ask for it by name…

    ümläüt munda may fool a few; buyer beware…

  10. Big love going out to my girls smurfette and DesiDancer of the Punjabi Boy Girlz Crew!

  11. Yeah, it CAN be spelled that way…but why would you? It’s kinda like Shetty – which can be, um, unfortunate. (Less so, but still up there, Panneker/Panicker.)

  12. Mais oui, Maisnon, true say. You know, someone down the Dikshit family tree had to succumb to the Angrezi spelling. Who knows, there might have been a brawl, one said “Dixit” the other, “Dikshit”. The two would be spelled the same in any Indian language but that crazy English phonetic translation, there’s just no rule of thumb that can’t be broken.

    At least he didn’t end up like my friend Denis Jacob’s brother, Penis Jacob (pronounced ‘peh’ not ‘pee’).

  13. Dixit name is an example of a Brahmin last name. It derives from “Diksha” (or Dixa).