Vivek Ramaswamy at CPAC in Dallas, Texas, on August 5, 2022.
Vivek Ramaswamy announced his candidacy for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination on February 21.
The biotech entrepreneur, who is the son of Indian immigrants, was Harvard and Yale-educated.
He became a conservative firebrand after writing anti-woke books and regularly appearing on Fox News.
Vivek Ramaswamy might not have a background in politics, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the first candidates to announce their run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, behind only former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The biotech millionaire, who was once the CEO of Roivant, will likely struggle for exposure in an eventually crowded field for the Republican nomination but his past shows he isn’t afraid of a challenge.
Ramaswamy is the son of immigrants from India, was an overachiever at school, and even had a short-lived rap career while at Harvard.
Here’s what there is to know about Ramaswamy.
The son of Indian immigrants, he was born and raised in OhioThe skyline of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Ramaswamy was born on August 9, 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to parents who had immigrated to the US from Kerala, India.
He was raised in a traditional Hindu family but attended a Catholic high school.
Sources: The Times of India, The Harvard Crimson
At school, he was considered an overachiever
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Ramaswamy graduated top of his class at St. Xavier High School, a private prep school on the outskirts of Cincinnati, where he was a nationally ranked junior tennis player.
He also spent his time playing the piano for Alzheimer’s patients.
Sources: Forbes, The Times of India
Ramaswamy has an Ivy League education
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He attended Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude with a major in biology.
While at Harvard, he was chair of the university’s political union. He told The Harvard Crimson at the time that he considered himself to be a “contrarian” who liked to argue.
Academically, he thrived. The summary of his senior thesis on the ethics of creating human-animal chimeras was published in The New York Times.
Sources: The Harvard Crimson, Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
At Harvard, he also moonlighted as a rapper
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Ramaswamy would dress entirely in black and take to the stage as his rapper alter ego “Da Vek” during his college days, according to The Harvard Crimson.
The student publication said he rapped “libertarian prose with the utmost of ease.”
In an interview with the publication in 2006, Ramaswamy also said that Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was his life’s theme song.
Source: The Harvard Crimson
When he wasn’t rapping, he was setting up a business
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In 2007, Ramaswamy co-founded StudentBusinesses.com, a resource for college-age entrepreneurs. It was acquired by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in 2009.
Source: Pitchbook
Ramaswamy then became a successful Wall Street analyst
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He worked at QVT Financial, a Wall Street hedge fund manager, from 2007 to 2014.
Successful trades and his knowledge of the potential of certain drugs quickly impressed his bosses, leading to Ramaswamy becoming a partner at just 28 years old.
Source: Forbes
He also attended Yale Law School on the side, befriending J.D. Vance
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While working at QVT Financial, Ramaswamy attended Yale Law School for “the intellectual experience,” a former professor of his told Forbes.
At Yale, he became friends with J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author turned senator for Ohio. He also met his future wife, Apoorva, with whom he now has two children.
They got married in 2015.
Source: The New Yorker
Ramaswamy left QVT Financial to start his own pharmaceutical firm
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He decided to leave QVT Financial to set up Roivant, his pharmaceutical venture, in 2014.
Ramaswamy raised approximately $93 million from investors, among them his former employer.
The idea behind Roivant was to develop drugs that other pharmaceutical companies had abandoned.
The company started with a modest 10 employees but it soon took off. In 2017, it raised $1.1 billion from an investor group led by SoftBank Vision Fund — one of the largest funding rounds for a life sciences company.
Ramaswamy would later be named by Forbes as one of America’s richest entrepreneurs under 40, and would make it onto the publication’s prestigious 30 under 30 list.
Sources: Insider, The New Yorker
He canceled his honeymoon to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange
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Ramaswamy and his wife were meant to be honeymooning in the French and Swiss Alps in June 2015, but instead he brought his new bride with him to ring the fabled bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Ramaswamy led Roivant to a $315 million IPO in 2015, the biggest biotech IPO at that time.
Source: Forbes
But the honeymoon period for his business ended with a ‘humiliating’ failure
BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters
Roivant acquired one of its first drugs, an experimental Alzheimer’s medication called intepirdine, from GlaxoSmithKline in 2014 for $5 million.
In 2017, the drug failed clinical trials, eventually leading to the discontinuation of its development.
Ramaswamy told The New Yorker that the failure was “humiliating” and that he took it really hard.
The company initially pivoted to gene therapies after the Alzheimer’s drug tanked, and now appears to be focusing on medications for psoriasis and dermatitis.
Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO in January 2021, saying he wanted to spend more time writing books and focusing on his political interests.
Sources: The New York Times, The New Yorker, Insider, Roivant
He released “Woke, Inc,” and another book slamming identity politics
Fox News
In August 2021, Ramaswamy released a book, “Woke Inc,” which became a New York Times bestseller.
The book slammed the so-called “modern woke-industrial complex,” which Ramaswamy describes as the mixing of morality with consumerism.
He released another book in September 2022, “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence,” which was a critique of identity politics in America.
Sources: Center Street, The New Yorker
And he also became a conservative firebrand, regularly appearing on Fox News
Fox News
Ramaswamy has appeared regularly on Fox News, has written op-eds for a variety of publications, and made speaking engagements; gaining him a reputation as a conservative firebrand.
His controversial views on “wokeism” made him some enemies, with Ramaswamy telling The New Yorker that a family member and close friend no longer speak to him because of his conservative positions.
Source: The New Yorker
He’s previously toyed with entering politics, and discussed with Kevin McCarthy
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Ramaswamy said he once met with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, then the House Minority Leader, and spoke to him about getting involved in Republican Party politics.
He told the New Yorker that McCarthy had advised him that could have more impact as a thought leader for the GOP than as a junior congressman.
Ramaswamy considered running to be Ohio’s senator in 2022 but ultimately decided against it.
Sources: Cincinnati Business Courier, The New Yorker
And now he’s joined what is likely to be a crowded field of GOP candidates for president in 2024
BRIAN SNYDER/Reuters
Ramaswamy announced that he’s running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on February 21, 2023, while appearing on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
He said in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that by running he was hoping to launch a “cultural movement to create a new American dream” based on the “pursuit of excellence.”
In response to his candidacy, the Democratic National Committee issued a statement saying that Ramaswamy’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show to announce his campaign showed that the “race for the MAGA base is getting messier and more crowded by the day.”
Sources: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal
