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Sabeer Bhatia rolls the high-tech dice

Sabeer Bhatia, at 31, owns all the trappings of a high-tech guru, including more money than one man could ever spend in a lifetime.

But the Indian-born founder of Hotmail is still hungry for one thing -- the buzz of living on the edge of the high-tech revolution.

"It's an exciting time to be on the Internet," he said in his nondescript offices next to a dusty truck depot here, 100 kilometers south of San Francisco.

Hotmail, the Internet's first free e-mail service, made Bhatia rich, famous and sought after. That was fun for a while.

But it was not enough. Now he is hoping that his latest roll of the high-tech dice, Arzoo.com, will repeat his earlier success.

"I am certainly not doing it for money anymore," he said in an interview. "It's the excitement to go through that challenge."

Bhatia came to the United States from his native India in 1988 as a gifted youngster on a study scholarship.

Born in Chandigarh in August 1968, he grew up mostly in Bangalore. A stint at California Institute of Technology and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University set him on his way.

He teamed up with college friend Jack Smith in search of a piece of the Internet revolution.

They hit on Hotmail by chance, while trying to figure out how to communicate with each other without their bosses at computer firm Apple knowing about it.

"Wouldn't other people want to do that?" they thought. Hotmail's 65 million customers worldwide suggest they were right.

"Hotmail solved a need. We thought if it can be useful for the two of us, everyone else in the world will find it useful as well," he said.

But Bhatia cautioned that unique Internet start-up ideas are not enough. They also have to work, he said.

"People get crazy over uniqueness. Start-ups come up with esoteric ideas which will never work," he said.

He is cagey about his latest idea, Arzoo.com, which he will launch at the end of the month. But clearly e-commerce and the electronic consumer stand to benefit from Arzoo, which translates as "wish" or "desire" in Hindi.

Bhatia says that fewer than two in 100 people who log on to a web site actually buy something.

"They are afraid of the security, or not able to find what they are looking for," he said. His new start-up, he said, provides solutions to both problems.

"You will come to Arzoo.com to download a very small piece of software. Once you have done that, wherever you are online, you will make much better informed buying decisions."

Whether or not the idea catches fire, Bhatia's success is assured. He is worth over $ 100 million and has access to the corridors of power in his native India and also in the United States, where he has been a guest of US President Bill Clinton.

Back in India, millions of youngsters hero-worship their countryman and hope to emulate him.

Asked why he still feels he has to work his fingers to the bone, losing sleep on a new project, he said: "I guess I am crazy."

"I could not stay out of it for too long. All the good ideas will probably be taken," he said.