What Vivek Ramaswamy's Life Looked Like Before Entering Politics

Biotech millionaire and former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy seemed to leave the 2024 election race as quickly as he entered in February 2023, dropping out of the running 11 months later after a disappointing fourth placement in the January 2024 Iowa caucuses. Often overshadowed by his political opponent, former President Donald Trump, Ramaswamy's departure left many wondering: what was he doing before he decided to run for president?

In short, a lot — between finding a biotechnology firm in 2014, establishing an asset management company in 2022, and raising two children with his wife, Apoorva Tewari, the Ohio native and Harvard grad had plenty on his plate before throwing his hat in the running to become the 47th U.S. president. Thanks to his college-borne love of rapping, the politician could even add dealing with Eminem drama to his lengthy to-do list. 

In his concession speech to his supporters on January 15, 2024, Ramaswamy offered his endorsement of Trump and assurance he'd take his "America First" movement "to the next level."  He added, "I think after that, it's another 250 years and then some still left ahead of us." Ramaswamy may be looking to the future, but here's what he was up to in the decades leading up to his first presidential bid.

Former 2024 presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 9, 1985. His parents, V. Ganapathy and Geetha Ramaswamy, worked as a General Electric engineer and geriatric psychiatrist, respectively. Vivek's mother and father immigrated to the United States from India before he was born. Neither of his parents were citizens when Vivek was born, though his mother would later complete the citizenship process.

Vivek grew up in a Hindu household but became acquainted with other faiths through his Christian piano instructor and his Catholic high school, St. Xavier, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 2003. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Harvard University and later attended Yale Law School. In college, Vivek had a reputation for his brash, libertarian ideals, even calling himself a "contrarian" to The Harvard Crimson in 2006. 

The future millionaire stayed busy in school with political unions and intellectual discussion societies, but he also found time to pursue another passion: music. Vivek performed rap and hip-hop under the stage name Da Vek, even landing an opener slot for a Busta Rhymes concert while at Harvard University. Vivek later rapped Eminem's "Lose Yourself" to a crowd of supporters on the election trail, causing the aforementioned beef between the presidential hopeful and the hip-hop artist, who sent a cease-and-desist letter to Ramaswamy lawyers.

After graduating from Yale Law, Vivek Ramaswamy worked for a New York-based hedge fund firm called QVT Financial for seven years as the firm's biotech portfolio manager before founding his own biotechnology firm, Roivant Sciences, in 2014. He later co-founded a Medicare navigation platform called Chapter Medicare and joined the Ohio COVID-19 response team in 2020, though some have alleged Ramaswamy paid to have the latter endeavor removed from his Wikipedia profile — a claim the former presidential hopeful's team denied to HuffPost. 

In 2022, Ramaswamy moved on to asset management, co-founding Strive Asset Management out of Columbus, Ohio, with a high school friend. He has also written three books: "Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence," and "Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn't Vote For." 

Ramaswamy married his wife, Apoorva Tewari Ramaswamy, in 2015. Apoorva works as a laryngologist and surgeon at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. They have two sons and live in a $2 million estate in Columbus' wealthy Upper Arlington neighborhood.