TechStuff Classic: The Riches People In Tech

the Richest People in Tech Enjoy. We're taking a list from the top tech billionaires off of Forbes list, which they published pretty much on a yearly basis. So this

is from the list of tech billionaires. We kind of want to talk about who these people are and what they've done to kind of get to where they're going, and maybe some little trivia facts about yeah, a little bit of a profile, just to see, you know, because these these are the people that are running all of the businesses that are creating all of the cool stuff that we talk about basically, and so there's some of

them are who are working for the same company. There's three from one company in fact, that rhymes with shmoogle. Spoiler alert. Um, but uh, we're going to talk about the folks that are on this list, and uh, and keep in mind, you know, this is this is like the people who have the most money. It does not necessarily mean they're the most influential, because at least a couple of them are for the most part retired, right, right.

And and also it doesn't necessarily mean that they have you know, like that kind of Scrooge McDuck giant swimming pool of goal of coins. It's mostly wrapped up in stock options, so you know, right, but nonetheless, right, they may not have a lot of liquid assets compared to what they have in investments. But hey, you know, I'm sure that I'm sure they're not they're not hurting, probably none of them are. Now. They can probably afford a nice ice cream cone on a warm summer's day. So

let's let's talk about some of them. So yeah, coming in at number fifteen is James Goodnight, who has probably the most awesome name. I know he's I think I think he's a PhD. So it's doctor good Night, Doctor good Night. That is amazing. I did not think about that until you said it. Dr Goodnight is awesome. Well, Doctor Goodnight is worth, according to Forbes, about seven point seven billion dollars. And and this this is the I mean, this is the bottom of our list. Yes, so yeah,

we're going. We're going from number fifteen down to number one. It's a countdown. You can actually all play along at home if you like, and place bets on who you think is in the top five. Well, we'll try not to give any spoilers. No, but we've already said that three of them are from the same company. So as as we get down, you're gonna be thinking, huh, all right, which you can think of a couple of names that

haven't been mentioned yet. All right. Well, what good Night did was he co founded a company called s A s. John Saul's back in nineteen seventy six. And this is a business analytics software company. Yeah, and originally it was part of a research project. You see. Uh, James good and I grew up in North Carolina, so he's a neighbor of mine as far as I'm concerned. I'm born in Georgia, so I consider folks from North Carolina my neighbors. And he began to work with computers back when he

was a sophomore at North Carolina State University. So he graduated with eventually with a pH d in statistics. All right, he's he's seventy right now. If that gives you an idea of what kind of era he was working in computers. Right when he was working in computers, it was before computers were really I think people worked on. Yeah, there certainly were no personal computers at the time where he

was getting into them. He didn't find you know, he and John Stiles founded the company in nineteen seventy six, that's just when personal computers were barely getting their start. So he uh, he had helped design some equipment for ground stations to communicate with the Apollo mission, which is awesome,

pretty amazing. Yeah. So he then joined the faculty of North Carolina State and while he was a faculty member there, he began to work on this project which was called a statistical analysis system or s A S I was for agricultural research actually to crunch some of that data exactly statistically analyzing the information coming back from an agricultural project. And he realized that there was a broader application for this kind of statistical model for lots of different industries.

And so that's when he and Saul's got together and UH and founded s A S and UH. He led the company to grow every single year. And he's been the CEO for essentially thirty five years now, and every year he's been CEO, the company has grown. And perhaps the most remarkable thing, I think, according to what I read, the company has never laid off a single employee. Yeah, they're they're supposedly completely excellent to work for. I think there are number two behind all companies aside from Google,

uh in like employee satisfaction ALVE. I mean, it's it's pretty amazing. Now, that doesn't mean that someone hasn't been fired from that company, but no one has been No one's job has been eliminated due to like cutbacks or something, which you know, when you're when you're talking thirty five years, that's amazing and UH And there have been books written about his management style. He's he's often shown as sort of an example to folks about how to manage a company.

I had heard that he kind of developed his philosophy while he was working on these ground systems for NASA, because those projects had a lot of turnover, and as a result, he was like, this is not the best way to get anything done because you have to you have to ramp people up as they come into replace people. You're set back when someone leaves, so and a lot

of time to reading and spinning whales. Yeah, but yeah, it's you know, it's one of those companies that add has all kinds of services on its campuses and and lots of educational support and snacks in the break room, you know. And uh, from a from a personal standpoint, he met his wife Anne while he was a senior at at North Carolina State and she was attending Meredith College. And they have three kids. So you gotta think, you know, a kid of a billionaire. Now, a lot of these

billionaires were gonna be talking about. Another interesting thing I found out about a lot of them is that many of them are philanthropists. Some of them are philanthropists to such an extreme as to it, you know, they plan on giving away a large amount of their wealth before

they pass on. And uh, and I know that there there's actually a fairly common thing I've heard among a lot of these people who have said they want to make sure that their their kids understand the value of hard work and the responsibility and not just coast along on the accomplishments of the parents. Right. Yeah, Since so many of these people, you know, worked themselves with the ground up, they kind of go that that was a

good life lesson. Yeah. Yeah, a few of them had somewhat privileged upbringings, but a lot of them actually came from from pretty humble beginnings and had worked their way up to uh, you know, not just not just the top of their their company, but the top of the financial industry. So let's move on to number fourteen. This is our first Schmoogle person, as I recall, that's uh Eric Schmidt. Yes, yes, he's worth a reported eight point two billion in net yep, and he was he used

to be the CEO for Google. He was the CEO for Google for several years. He's currently the executive chairman and international Ambassador. I think that's a honorary title. He actually, well not just honorary, because he went to North Korea. Yeah, she just went with that with his daughter and um Bill Richardson to talk to the leaders of North Korea about opening up internet channels. And apparently some of those

talks actually started to see some some results. Apparently, UH, North Korea began to allow foreign visitors more access to things like WiFi, and some folks are saying it's a direct result of Eric Schmidt's visit. That being said, as we're recording this podcast, there is a kerfuffle in the North Korea area, and so I would imagine some of those issues are becoming a bit more complicated at the moment, as as they tend to do when nuclear warheads are involved.

But he's you know, I always heard of Eric Schmidt as the CEO of Google and being like a kind of this shrewd businessman. I did not realize because I mean I just never had looked into his background very much. I didn't realize that he has a background not just in business, but in actual programming. Yeah, he got his engineering degree than a PhD in computer science. I think

he didn't. He was brought on to Google back in two thousand one as the chief executive to bring a little bit more business experience into the next Right, he had been the CEO of Novel before that, and but he he had actually co authored the lex analysis software program for Unix and UH, and so yeah, he's he's also he's our second PhD. Um and uh. He got that the University of California while he was actually working

on another project there. So he's working on a project at the University of California and pursues a PhD at the same time. Of course, he was at one point the technology advisor to President Obama. He was also at one point on the board of directors for Apple, right. He did resign from that position after it was sort of like there was some tensions between Google and Apple, mainly stemming from iOS versus Android. In fact, I don't think it was called iOS at the time. Yeah, because

because he joined it in two thousand and six. Um. And and then when when everything was kind of golden and people were going like our Google and Apple going to make beautiful babies together, and then they were like, yeah, no, they're not. Is that they both had they both had babies, and they both thought their baby was the most and then they tried to fight them with Pokemon. Right, Yeah, you just gave me a great business idea that I'm going to pursue after this podcast. Bat Hey, hey, hey, hey,

don't get away Vocabama. Uh. Yeah, So he he was on the board of directors for Apple for a while, he stepped down. There were there was some mounting tensions between the two companies, and it was pretty clear that it was going to be difficult to maintain a advisory position at one company when York, the company you are the CEO of, is seen as an increasingly as a competitor, so considered a conflict of interest, and he stepped down.

He married a woman by the name of Windy Boyle and had two children with her, but they separated in two thousand eleven, and now he's dating a concert pianist. I think one really interesting thing about a bunch of these big, big names is that technically their salaries are are practical nothing. In in Eric Schmidt's case, as of two thousand eight, anyway, his salary was technically one dollar per year. And you know, all of his fortune is

is wrapped up in all of these stock options. Yeah, you usually end up getting the majority of your compensation ends up coming in the form of of stocks and other investments, uh, which which which is fair when you know it's you go from a stock value of eighty five dollars to over six hundred and three years it does suggest that that you might have made one or two good calls right in your time, especially when when you're the one who who created the launch of those

stock options. That, yeah, that speaks well for you. I'm almost certain that taxes have something to do with that one dollar salary, but since I'm nowhere near a billionaire, I don't know for sure. Uh. Let's move down to the next person, number thirteen. Now here's the first person whose name I'm going to butcher. It's Pierre Amadyar, who is worth eight point seven billion dollars. He's better known as the founder of eBay. And of course eBay is

that auction site that did really, really well. I mean it was it exploded on the Internet when it shortly after debut. I think a debuted in in like ninety five, it was pretty early. Yeah, eBay launched in and it did it. Of course, was one of those companies that gave a lot of other people the idea that the Internet was a place to make your fortune. And uh, and I mean, how could you deny it? I mean, obviously, this this one idea was doing incredibly well, and it

made Pierre Almadyar a billionaire overnight. When the afternoon over afternoon afternoon. In fact, yeah, in the middle of the day. He became a billionaire when they held the initial public offering for eBay. Yeah, so three years after he launches, he becomes a billionaire because of the you know, the interest in this company. So again that's before the dot com bubble bursts. So eBay had a lot of the right parts in place to survive the dot com bubble.

But it also I think helped create the dot com bubble in a way because all these other people said that was possible, Why can't I Yeah, there's a lot of bandwagoning that happened, and and at a certain point, you know, yeah, you can't support hence bubble. Yeah. Yeah. Now he was born in France, uh and he now makes his home in America. He is his parents were Iranian. Still are I mentioned he's only forty five years old. Forty five years old, and he's given away a lot

of his wealth already. He is known as a philanthropist, and he's one of the people who signed something called the Giving Pledge. The Giving Pledge was something proposed by the number one entry on our lists. That's something for you to listen for when we get there. It was co pledged by um Co co created by Warren Buffett. Right, Warren Buffett was one of the creators of the Giving Pledge. The other one is the number one on our list.

Warren Befett is not the number one in tech and Warren Buffett does not does not He does not appear on this list as he is not one of the tech guys. But he also created a philanthropic investment firm called the Amadyar Network. And this is also not unusual.

There are several people on this list who have created uh foundations that are actually investment firms because what they do is they were given a certain amount of grant money to start and then they invest that money and then from the returns on those investments, they fund various charitable efforts. Uh So. He graduated with a degree in computer science from Tufts University and for a while before he founded eBay, he worked for a subsidiary of a

little company called Apple Computer. The subsidiaries called Claris and that's when he then went on to co found a company called in Development, which was originally pen based computers. So any sort of computer that would have a pen based operating a stem that you would use that's what he originally went into. It eventually became a shop which was an e commerce site, and then from that he got the idea for eBay. Yeah, I think was auction web. The first thing that he technically sold was a broken

laser pointer. Yeah, fantastic. That just makes me think of the weird al song about I bought it on ebit. Uh and Uh and almady are married Pamela Kerr Almadyar who supposedly had a huge pest dispenser collection, and that that is this is part of why he decided to found eBay because of his wife's pest dispenser wow collection. I did not know that. It's always amazing to me

to hear the the what was the genestic alright number twelve? Oh, here we go with a German uh Entry Hasso Plotner, who was worth eight point nine billion dollars acoring of Forbes and he is the co founder of German software company s A P, s A P A G and U s A P stands for a system analysis and program development or if I'm going to butcher my German system and a system analyze on program the vic lunk that's I a thrish dish The only thing that I can pronounce in German is my own last name. So

that's that's fair. I got my German is terrible. Uh. He he founded this company along with four other former IBM colleagues. So he used to work for IBM along with these other four gentlemen, and and they they founded this and it was a company that made enterprise software. Now that means that they made software for other companies. It wasn't software for you know, you to bring home and install in your personal computer. This is something that

large companies would use. And in the case of of S a P, it was software that's designed to manage business operations and customer relations. So you know, this is not something that would appeal to small businesses. It was meant for big, big, big, big big. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of database kind of crunching going on in the process. But that means, you know, big companies mean big customers. So it's it's one of those things that

a lot of other companies have looked into. You know, some of the names we're going to be talking about will be familiar to you, but maybe not as a customer like a direct customer, but rather that you know, of you know the name, and maybe if you work for a big company and work with those those products you know the name of, you know some of the software, but you know, yes, yeah against on your computer at home, you're not going to have this kind of stuff installed.

But um yeah yeah he he um co founded this back in two he's he's sixty nine as of right now. Yep, and uh he uh he he has an interest in lots of different things, including yachting and uh. And his interest in yachting, he has seen himself compete head to head against another person who will appear on our list

further down. I'll go ahead and spoil it because it's too funny and I will never remember by the time we get down to to this fellow Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, So Larry Elson very well known for his yachting uh interests and uh and how so Platner have had. So they've both participated in yachting events where their individual yachts went directly head to head against each other. And apparently there have been words exchanged battle yachts, some in

German battle battle yachts driven by babies. All right, we're getting a little too far. That's sorry. It's maybe like after season four or five and things are starting to peter off, we have to introduce a new twist. But yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting that these guys and I got really snarky in my notes, didn't. I said, it shows that the CEO still know how to have fun, just like the rest of us common folk. Uh. He

has also Plattner has also supported philanthropic efforts. In his case, he has spent a lot of money UM to support effort in South Africa to combat AIDS and the AIDS crisis there, along with other charitable efforts not just not just that one. UM. And he is married and has two kids. Alright, moving up to number eleven. Now, Lauren, I'm gonna let you take this one because because she's the woman. What what is I get that I don't I don't understand what you're getting at, Lauren because we

share the same name. That's why do you know? Is it pronounced Lauren? And okay, all right, Lauren Powell Jobs worth a net ten point seven billion UM. She is she is the wealthiest woman in tech in fact, and this is this is um Steve Jobs widow who we are talking about so um. She she most of her wealth comes from the fact that she owns seven point three percent of a little entertainment company you may have heard about, Disney, yep, seven point of Disney. That that

translates to about six point nine billion dollars worth of cares. Yeah, and this is through the trust that Steve Jobs left to her when he passed away. Yes, but she's also I mean, you know it's not she has inherited quite a bit from Steve Jobs, but she herself has been very instrumental in several different companies. Oh. Absolutely, she's She's only forty nine years old. She's um. She's got a few degrees in business, and unlike Jobs, she stuck with

her her studies. But he met her when she was in college, I believe, and so at the at Stanford University. And she is the co founder and president of the board of for College Track and College Track as an after school program that's designed to help high school students study and and excel and also to succeed in college.

And uh. And her interest in education goes well beyond that, which is you know, this makes sense too, because Steve Jobs was very much interested in education when he was the head of the Next Computer back back when Steve Jobs initially left Apple or was fired for Apple, depends on your point of view. When he left, he founded a new company called Next Computers, and it was really for to make an educational computer, like a computer for

education systems for students. Uh. And then he was called back to save Apple when it was on the brink of bankruptcy and he uh, he never really lost his his passion for education, but he definitely had a lot more on his play at that point. Well. She has dedicated much of her life to working on ways to improve education and to give students tools that they could use to improve themselves. And she also co founded tera Vera,

which is a natural foods company. She served on the board of directors for a couple of other companies like Achieva, which is a company that makes study tools for students. Again and um, she was appointed in twenty ten to be part of the White House Council for Community Solutions. She was appointed by President Barack Obama himself. Um and yeah. She received an NBA for Stanford and n and married

Steve Jobs that same year and they had three kids together. Yeah. Right. Lately, she's been really into promoting the Dream Act, which is the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. It's failed to pass through Congress a couple of times now, but it would give undocumented US citizens, undocumented US citizens, undocumented US youth a chance to gain citizenship by um either joining the armed services or going to college. Yeah.

The idea of being that these are people who are going to uh to contribute positively to society, and therefore society should extend to them the opportunity, right, especially if they came here before they were fifteen. And you know that's because that's not at that point, that's not their fault, so right, and beyond that, just the idea of for the United States to succeed, we have to encourage uh, you know, excellence, and so you know, this is one

way of doing it. Yeah, it's really interesting. Well that's that's our first batch of five. Uh. Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. All right, let's get back to talking about some of these uh, these really

influential billionaires in technology. So at number ten, we have a Zeem PMG who is worth about eleven point two billion dollars and he's an Indian businessman who's the chairman of white Pro Limited, which is one of those companies that started doing one thing and then dramatically changed its focus. I know, I know currently they do they work with outsourcing. Yes, it started out making vegetable oil. Vegetable oil, that is

a jump. Yeah, I started making vegetable oil for for Indian food and then um, it eventually began to diversify. It started making hydrogen atdive, fats, toilet trees, soaps, lighting products, hydraulics. It's it is. It is still diversifying right now. It's well, the the entire outsourcing industry is getting pretty tough right now, and so they're they just spun off its consumer products arm and two why Pro Enterprises and bought a skincare

firm in December. Yeah, so this is um. This is one of those things where if you were to have the you've heard of the elevator's speech right when you you are in an elevator with someone else and they asked you what you do, you have to have like a way of summing up what you do in just about fifteen seconds that that explains accurately what you do. I bet this guy has a hard time doing that, um,

especially since he's considered Asia's most generous person. He has donated a two point three billion and shares a hy pro to his educational foundation in February after signing that that Buffett giving pledge Buffet slash somebody someone who could it be? And that was on top of two billion dollars that he had already donated. So again a very generous philanthropist. Uh. And he actually holds a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. UM. And he's married to

Yasmine prim g and they have two children. All right, so let's move on to number nine. Now, this is kind of interesting, number nine. This is a guy who has been on this list several times and hash seeing his his ranking changed pretty dramatically year over year. Uh. We expect to see that happen a lot now because the company he founded had an initial public offering last year back in two thousand twelve, and his personal value hinges directly upon the stock price of his company. We are,

of course, talking about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Yes, he is worth a net thirteen point three billion. He is also only twenty eight years old, which somehow had escaped me up until I was researching this article, and that was that was what it hurts it really, it really does. Yeah. I am nearly a decade older than Zuckerberg and I haven't seen my first billion yet. But then I haven't founded a company that has over one

billion active users either, so I can't really complain, I guess. Yeah, yeah, you haven't been working quite as hard. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook when public last May at a thirty eight dollars per share and had fallen to under twenty by August. It's

it's rebounded about thirty according to Forbes. Since then. Um yeah, this is this was one of those you may remember, Chris and I did a podcast all about Facebook going public and the issues that surrounded it, and part of that was that, um, there was there was a scandal, something of a scandal anyway, that when the the company, you know, when the actual public offering happened, that Facebook had told some of its larger shareholders who would have

started off right at the very beginning, that the company was going to be worth less than what they had projected earlier in the year, and that that would in

turn affect the stock price. But the actual stock price itself the starting stock price didn't change, Okay, so uh so it's like saying that, you know, this five dollar uh, this five dollar thing you bought, turns out it's really worth more like three dollars fifty cents, but they don't tell you that, and you go and spend the five dollars and then you go around to you turn around, you decide you don't want you turn around to sell it to someone else, but you can only get three

dollars and fifty cents for it. Um. It's an oversimplified way of saying what happened, but that's it's that's essentially what happened. And some people or some really some financial institutions knew about this and some didn't, and that caused a bit of the scandal. Technically, nothing was illegal, but some people say that it may have been kind of underhand, and yeah, so, uh you know that that was a

bit of a black eye. And also again because the stock price took a hit, Zuckerberg's personal net wealth took a hit. Yeah, but like eight point one billion dollars, Yeah, that's that's a lot of money. He attended Harvard College, but he did not finish matriculating. He dropped out. Um, he created Uh, you may remember we've talked about this

in the past. He created an application called facemash, which allowed people to vote on the attractiveness of their fellow students and are right, yeah, I remember that from from the social network more than anything else. Um, yeah, you know, I mean it was just if you could, you could call it tacky, but we've seen plenty more of those sort of things pop up, mostly from people who voluntarily share their image. Face mash was kind of similar to that.

But then he launched Facebook in two thousand and four while he was a student at Harvard, and it dropped out to focus primarily upon Facebook, and it got kind a little popular hit you know again one billion users,

so that was pretty exciting. He also is one of the people who has signed this giving pledge that we talked about that Buffett and uh came up with, And so he's probably that pledge, by the way, states that the people who signed it are promising essentially to give away at least half of their wealth before the pass right. So yeah, he's he's also um Glass Doors top employee rated CEO. Oh okay, yeah, he also I remember back when he was known as the guy who would only

eat what he could kill. I don't know, did you ever read that or hear about that? I heard, I heard a crazy internet rumor about it, but I don't think that I saw it on a reputable story. So I heard I heard about on so many tech podcasts back when that that kind of news story broke. But then in he posted on his Facebook profile that he is now a vegetarian. So maybe he's a really bad hunter and he can only catch cucumbers. I think only carets would be about my speed personally, Mrs Zuckerberg, I'm

just joshing, Please don't hunt me. Um. He got married in to Priscilla Chan and uh so, yeah he's Um. He's doing pretty well for himself. Not too bad that despite that one point year old and ranked number nine and tech Building well last year he was six, So really he should he should feel bad. He's bad, and he should feel bad right, exactly, just like I do

every day. Number eight. Paul Allen. Allen worth that he's one of the co founders of Microsoft, the other one being well, you know anyway, So he co founded Microsoft. He made a lot of his current wealth in real estate. Yeah, Vulcan real Estate. It's the name of his company, Vulcan Incorporate, Yeah, which also manages his philanthropic efforts, because, like several the other billionaires on this list, he is a philanthropist. He

is also another dropout. He went to Washington State University but dropped out after two years to start working in Honeywell in Boston. Um And he owns a couple of sports teams, right, yeah, the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland's Trailblazers. Yeah, it's a it's a football game in our football game football team and the basketball. I'm not big on the sports as it turns out. Yeah, yeah, we neither of us. I think are really really only to two sports I

follow in either of them are football or basketball. Just baseball and hockey. And I don't follow hockey anymore because I was gonna say pro wrestling sport that sports entertainment. Okay, alright, but anyway, Paul Ellen lately has been selling off a lot of his shares with Microsoft and starting to um invest and diversify in a bunch of other stuff. And he's he's also he lost his mother recently to Alzheimer's and related complications and has been UM really active in

brain research. Um donated five hundred million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Yeah, he's He's made some substantial contributions financial contributions to lots of different nonprofit organizations. Um. He also just another here's a little trivia for you. When he took the S A T S he got a perfect score, perfect scoring math. That was back in both sides. I have heard about the math, but I hadn't heard about Yeah back when the s S went up to sixteen. Yeah, that was by the way, back

back in then. That's how it was when I took to so back in the day, kids, was the top score you could make and you could not You couldn't fudge that like that was a perfect score. You know, because there are versions of the S A T since then where you could quote unquote hit a perfect score even if you didn't answer all the questions. Um. Also, there was no essay back then. It's just math and the math and the words things English. That's it, those word things that we do. Yeah, we do them anyway.

He made a perfect score on that. So, yes, smart guy. UM. He never never married. He is he's a bachelor he's had, uh had just the only bachelor I think that we have on this list. Is there a call I might be wrong about that. We'll find out when we get towards the very bottle him. But um, yeah, never married number seven. Interesting guy. Uh, this is a guy that I've seen in action on stage in person, and he is a force to be reckoned with. We're talking about

Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft. So we just and chairman. Yes, we just went from the one of the co founders of Microsoft to the current CEO. He's worth a net fifteen point two billion. He was born in Detroit and uh. He also went to Harvard University, but he finished Uh he like Zuckerberg, he earned a degree in mathematics and one in economics. UM. And he met he met one of the the other co founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.

He met him back in college, right, yeah, yeah, he he had he had started going to Stanford for a graduate degree. Um, and that was about when Bill Gates was like, Hey, do you want to come work on this crazy project? And he was like yeah, sure yeah. So Bill Gates and Paul Allen had founded a Microsoft in the seventies. They invite the bomber to come and work for Microsoft. He drops out of grad school at Stanford and he becomes the thirty employee of Microsoft and

was a business manager. His salary was about fifty thou dollars a year when he first started, and he had also received a percentage of ownership in Microsoft. Uh and so when it went public, he held about eight percent of the company. And since since that time, he sold some of that stock off about a little bit about around half of it, a little less than half um and became the executive vice president of sales and Support.

Then shortly thereafter he became the president of Microsoft. And then when Bill Gates decided to resign to step down as CEO, he became. Yeah, so he's he's been he's been working there for a total of thirty three years and it's been CEO for thirteen. Um. He's he's actually a little bit of a contentious CEO right now. He only has a forty seven percent approval rating by the

employees over at Microsoft, according to glass Door. And um, yeah, the the Microsoft stock has been down, it's down like like one point three two over last year or over the past five years, with a seven percent drops it's last year. Yeah, there's been There have been several uh critical reports about Steve Bomber's performance as CEO and whether

or not the company's on the right track. Uh. And you know there are people who point out products like Windows Vista or Windows eight and saying, you know that this is an indication that perhaps there needs to be someone else leading the way. Um. And also the mobile performance of Windows versus Apple, and that they said that the Microsoft didn't move on that fast enough and they

weren't innovators, they were followers. There are some areas of Microsoft that I think you can say pretty strongly are are are doing really well. One of them is something that Lauren and I both enjoy, which is the Xbox as console. Um. But you know, there's definitely been a lot of criticism. Uh. Also there's the famous if if Chris were here, he would demand that I do this.

There was the famous presentation where Steve Bomber got up on stage and started chanting developers, developers, developers, developers, developers and clapping his hands and moving around like like well, like a crazy person. There's no easy way of saying this. If you've not seen the video, the famous Steve Bomber developers, developers, developers video. Go to YouTube and do a search. You really just have to search for the word developers and it looks gonna pop up, trust me. So he he's

an interesting guy. He married Connie Snyder in nineteen and they have three kids. Uh. And he's only the second person ever in the United States anyway, to become a billionaire due to stock options he received as an employee of a corporation where he was neither the founder nor the relative of a founder. So the very first person was Roberto Goizetta of Coca Cola. He is he is also and this is going to come back in a minute, leading a group of investors that's trying to buy the

Sacramento Kings, which is a which is a basketball team. Um, and moved them to Seattle, right, So I've heard of basketball. That's interesting. So yeah, interesting guy. And you know, again, there's a lot of debate about his performance, about his management style. UM. And I'll be curious to see, like the next over the next five years, what happens over

in Microsoft. It's it's one of those things where even I have some years said I'm surprised that the shareholders haven't made But you know, at the same time, uh, you know, Balmber's had decades of experience at that company. So and you know, I'm not a business person, so for me, for me, it's all like you know, oh, well, I could easily see that someone else needs to be right right, It's easy for us to sit back here

and go like, wow, why are you doing? And then but if you were to put me in charge of that company, we'd be bankrupt in two days, you know. All right? Moving on to number six, Jonathan liquid fied all of our shares to kid cats himself off in the back off butterfinger actually, but yes, yeah, that's that's not a bad guest. I'm sure will be at least a few kit kats. Oh good times, all right. Number six is uh is the co founder of another company or a founder of another company. Michael Dell worth a

net fifteen point three billion. Dude, He needed lots of delves there. He's the founder and CEO of Dell Incorporated, Dell Computers. So that was one of those companies that made personal computers a viable business, right, this was they founded it? Yeah, yeah, it was as while he was attending the University of Texas at Austin, which he dropped out of. He's another dropout, ye, and became the youngest CEO to have his company ranked in Fortune's Top five corporations.

He was only twenty seven at the time that that happened. Uh so, you know, again, pretty amazing and and uh very determined. He became interested in investments when he was still a teenager, Like he would take part time jobs, and instead of just you know, putting the money away or or spending it on something frivolous, he was actually investing in things like precious metals and stocks as a team. That's that would probably be why he's worth fifteen point

three billion and I'm worth a negative. And I also, I also read an interesting story. I all know if this is true or not. And I'm I'm paraphrasing because I didn't write this down on my notes, but I wrote a story that he had discovered, um like, he had essentially was what amounted to a paper route where it was really him selling newspapers, selling newspaper subscriptions. Okay, so he's selling newspaper subscription He's really more of a salesperson for a newspaper and he noticed a trend, and

this is something that he got really good at. It is is UH analyzing systems and seeing how best to work within a system or to manipulate that system, not in a bad way, but just the most advantageous way.

He started to notice that people who were moving into the city were more likely to subscribe to a newspaper as part of establishing their new home, and so he began to target people he had, like he would get records showing where houses had just been bought, and he would target those as his as his places to sell papers.

So he was I think in college at this time, or maybe it was actually I think it was high school at this time, and if I'm not mistaken, he made something like eighteen thousand dollars doing this, which was more than what his teacher was making. Yeah. So so he was putting that kind of brain power to use when he was in the university and he began to

realize that. He started to to offer to build and sell PCs to other students and noticed that this was a viable way of making money, and so he became he started a company called PCs Limited that would eventually become del incorporated. UH He married Susan Lynn Lieberman in ninety nine and they have four children together. And they also established the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, which a philanthropic organization that focuses primarily on child health and family

economic stability. They are committed to donating a hundred million a year to that. UM. Dell meanwhile, is not doing extraordinarily well these days there. Um uh, their stock is done I think from as a February from last year, and um, Michael Dell has announced that he wants to take Dell private and is trying to strike an agreement with the shareholders right now, who are not really excited

about the deal. Yeah. He his plan was to buy back all those shares make it a private company again, so essentially reversing the I p O. Yeah, for point four billion, which the shareholders are going like, that's what. Yeah, they're saying that's way too that's that's that's undervaluing the company, is their argument, whereas his argument is, if we keep going the way we're going, this company is going to

be worthless. So um, it'll be interesting to see how that works out, because you know, it's one of those there are times when a company goes public, where you realize further down the road that that was that was not a good deal, because again you have to answer or to shareholders. Sometimes that's a great thing. Sometimes it's exactly what a company needs to succeed. Other times, like in this case, you can tell that maybe that was the you know, maybe it was the right decision at

the time, but it's no longer. Yeah, yeah, it's it's at this point, you know, it's it's computer industry needs to be nimble, and dealing with shareholders is never really a nimble. It's pretty hard to reverse that decision once it happens, too, But we'll see if that pans out. Well, we're about to go into our top five. Before we do, I'd like to take a quick moment to thank our other sponsor. So we're getting into the top five here,

Number five is another person from Schmoogle Google. We can say the name now, it's not I kind of I kind of can't can't help myself at this point, we're talking about Sarah A. Brenn, who was one of the

co founders of Google. Yes, he is worth a net twenty two point eight billion and he's the director of Special Projects at Google, which means that he so oversees the super awesome, cool ridiculous stuff like the autonomous cars, Google glass, yeah, things, things like that kind of stuff where you know, we've heard rumor that Google might have a smart watch in the works that could have an

augmented reality application included in this. UM I I would imagine that falls under his jurisdiction and as a special project. So it's pretty clear that Sarah a Brand wants to become a cyborg and rule us all. Uh. He he's a smart, smart guy. His parents were both from Moscow and right then they moved the family to America when he was six, yes, six years old. His father was a mathematics professor at the University of Moscow and his mother ended up being a researcher for NASA. Sorry, sorry

I cut off here. You know, it's just gonna be it's gonna be smart. But you d smartified me. That's fine. The listeners wish they could do it all the time. Yeah, But so the point being that his parents wicked smart, like you know, already, mathematicians, researchers, really smart people. Um some of the people on this list we've talked about our folks who you know, they came from maybe not you know, humble beginnings, but not there the parents were

not necessarily normal people more or lest. Yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I mean, you know, I personally don't have any parents who have worked for NASSA, so I'm a little bit impressed when I hear about that kind of thing. Neither of my parents have worked for NASA either. Um. But yeah. When he was six, the family immigrated to the United States. He received degrees in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland, and then he went to go do some graduate study

research over at the at Stanford University. He wanted to eventually get a PhD Uh. He's still working towards that. His studies are on indefinite hold right now, so technically he hasn't dropped out of grad school right in Stanford. Doesn't really want to go get in the boot, I don't think. Yeah, but I mean it all depends. Like the Stanford's already got that that record of other people who said, can I get a deferment and they said no, And that's fine. I'm going to become a billionaire. That's

happened a few times. But uh, but so he and when I had became a billionaire. But maybe maybe one day he'll end up finishing that work and earning his PhD. He he's only thirty nine, so he's got a minute. Yeah, he's got a little while. He also, while at Stanford, met the other co founder of Google, Larry Page, and not that first meeting. Supposedly, Paige and Bren were both, um, let's call them smart Alex. Okay, so they're both smart Alex.

They're both a little snarky, and apparently that snarky and snarky when they first met, kind of sparks flew like things were not but it wasn't necessarily a friendly kind

of snark. Yes, supposedly they did not totally get along upon first meeting, but they ended up spending a lot of time together because they were working on the same research project called back rub, which was this project to help index the up They were talking about how a link on a web page is kind of like a site, like a c i T. E. Site, not sitation excitation exactly, and that if you were to index all of these you could easily navigate around the web, so that was

the basis of BackRub, which eventually became Google. And and this had been pages idea at first, I believe, and he kind of needed somebody with with a stronger computer background and mathematical skill. Yes, so Brent came on. Brent had already been at Stanford for a while, and in fact, originally Brent had shown Page around for the graduate program. That's time when they first met, and then he ended up working on pages project. And as they worked together

they became they became buddy buddy. They got past that initial he's kind of a jerk. That guy's kind of a jerk. Uh. And in two thousand seven, Sarah Gey Brenn married Anne wagis Ki. Together they have two kids and um. And he's also done a lot of philanthropthropic work himself directly actually for Google dot org, which is

the philanthropic arm of Google. And it's a division that looks at lots of different problems, including ways of creating clean energy, reducing environmental impact in general, battling climate change. So he's dedicated a lot of his his time and efforts towards these sort of projects too. It's pretty heavy stuff, right, which then leads us nicely into number four, which is Larry bag Change. So the other half of the Google co founder duo's He's worth a net twin ye, so

point two billion more than h than Sarage. So I'm sure they lord it over each other whenever they're fortunate, they go to when they go to the Billionaire Club and they play play monopoly with real cities. Uh. I was gonna make a joke, but I'm gonna stop on that one. So anyway, Uh, he's actually been the acting He's been the CEO for Google since April eleven, so Eric Schmidt, of course was the former CEO. When Schmidt stepped down, they were talking about who was going to

be the next CEO. Was there going to be an interim CEO? Would they pick someone from outside the company, But Larry Page ended up taking that role. And uh, he's originally from Michigan. His parents were both computer science professors at Michigan State University, so again Larry Page grew up in a household that was already familiar with and

interested in the computers, so he picked right up on that. Uh. He attended the University of Michigan and earned a degree in computer engineering and then he went to Stanford and earned a master's degree in computer science. That's, of course we just mentioned where he met Sarah gay Brinn and they started working on the BackRub project. UM. He's also an investor in a company that we talked about in a recent episode of Tech Stuff, Tesla Teslamotors. Ye have

Tesla Motors. Um I found both him and Aswer I think, okay, I believe I knew that page was um and he married Lucinda Southworth in two thousand seven and they have one child together. And um Google is doing incredibly well. There's Stacros, which earned page four billion personally, So don't don't knock you right up the list pretty quickly. Yeah, he's He's also in the in the top twenty of

Forbes businesses overall. UM billionaire, right, because this is this is specifically the list we're doing is just the tech folks. But obviously there are people who work in their businesses other than technology. I've found one or two. I guess I was unaware of this until I just happened to read the wrong link on a while I was researching, and uh, and my heart shrunk three sizes that day. Sad story Number three. Moving on Jeff Bezos, worth a net five point two billion, and he of course is

the founder of Amazon. Yeah, and we've talked about Bezos quite a bit when we did our our Amazon two part two part. Keep talking about doing the third part, but we keep putting it off because we're we think after covering Amazon so thoroughly that we didn't want to you don't want to turn tech stuff into the Amazon podcast. But we have to do it for a little while because he's number three on the list. Um, so he you know, he his mom ended up, uh, you know,

he remarried, divorcing his father and then remarrying. Uh, and she married Mike Bezos, and uh, Jeff decided he essentially took his last name from his adoptive father. Um, he's very very close with him. He considers him his real dad. That's his real dad, because he was there to raise him. And so he his maternal grandfather worked for DARPA on space technology and missile defense technology, and he was a very instrumental figure in early life. On a calm, Jeff, Jeff, Well,

you guys are so I'm so tight. Yeah, I've ordered three day It's Jeff this and Jeff that I ordered so many things from his site, you would think he would know me by name. At this point, he at least knows my address. So he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton. He met his wife, mckensey Bezos while they were both working at

a hedge fund company called D. E. Shaw. And while he was working there, he was working on some database projects and that's when he got the idea of you could create a website that could become an online retail space for books, which is exactly what Amazon dot Com was originally. When it first started, it was just about the books books only. Yeah, they shipped their first one um, but had expanded so much that they went public in

h didn't take long at all. So again, this is one of those companies that existed before the dot com bubble burst and uh and really quite well through it. They didn't they didn't make a profit for a long time. No, they weren't. Their revenues were not profitable, but they were

growing quite a bit. And and the reason that they weren't profitable was was not because they were not doing well, but because they kept you know, they were growing so quickly and expanding so quickly into so many new distribution centers and so many new areas. The costs were higher than what they were bringing in, but they were Their revenues were increasing year over year, so there was lots of growth. There just wasn't a lot of of actual profit for the first few years. But it did start

to turn profit and then didn't stop. Yeah, yeah, it's not a problem anymore. They their stock last year, earning Bezos personally six yea, and he was in He was named Time Magazines Person of the Year because that the Amazon had become so influential even back then in ninety nine before again the dot com bubble went Carr pluey. So yeah, he's done quite well for himself. He's number three on the list, which leads us to number two.

Mr Larry Ellison, one of the more controversial figures from technology where worth worth the net billion controversy or now he is. He is America's third richest man. In fact, Yeah, it's kind of interesting. We went from twenty five point two billion with Bezos to forty three billion with Larry Ellison. He of course, is a co founder of the Oracle Corporation. UM and uh, he's. He's made quite a name for

himself for multiple reasons. One is that again he's the guy who sets his yacht against the fellow we mentioned earlier in the podcast Great Right. He's he's also removed to be exploring a deal to purchase the Sacramento Kings to prevent them from being moved to Seattle, so he's in direct conflict with two of the people on our list. He also he's he's bought some pretty famous places, like an island of Hawaii, Lennai, of one of the Hawaiian islands.

It's a hundred and forty one square mile island. He owns pretty much all of it, including two resorts that are on the island. Um, you know, he just dropped five hundred million on It's not not a big deal. Half a billion dollars buying Hawaiian island. He also owns a one million dollar home in Woodside, California. He owned several properties in Malibu. Apparently one of those properties in Malibu has a one million dollar entertainment system that uses

an empty swimming pool as a sub bliffer. That is the best thing I've ever heard. So if Az you're in Malibu and you think there's an earthquake, make sure that Ellison's not having a house Parker starting. Yeah. Yeah. If he's dropping some mad beats, that might be what you're feeling instead. He's another college dropout, not from both in the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. Yeah yeah he um. He believes in

doing it wholeheartedly in multip full universities. UM. His adoptive father actually assumed the name Ellison to commemorate the fact that he came to America and passed through Ellis Island. So Ellison Ellison is from that. UM. He worked at a few companies in California when he was in his twenties, and he designed a database for a little organization called the c I A UH, and that database was called Oracle, and that's when he got the idea to found a

software company. It was originally called software Development Laboratories, not laboratories, um, which is how I usually say it, and that's what eventually became Oracle. UH. This is again enterprise software. So the Oracles one of those names that I think like Oracle, Sun Microsystems like these are these are big names that people are familiar with, even IBM to some extent, they're familiar with, but they haven't necessarily used it in a personal person unless they work for a company that has

these systems and they're in charge of him anyway. Um. I believe he's been married and divorced four times, so he's had some issues in his personal life. Um. He's also known as being a very outspoken and blunt person. Yes, yeah, I've I've heard that once or twice. He has signed on to the to that Warren Beffett and our number one number one is yet that's it's amazing. Yes, he's

thus far donated um million, mostly by Oracle Stock. Right. So, yeah, so he's another one of the members of this this elite club of billionaires who have signed the giving Pledge to to really try and make the world a better place. I can't criticize that at all. That's a phenomenal thing. I mean, that's why I would like to think that if I were a billionaire, I would do the same thing. But of course I'm not in that position, so it's

really easy for me to say it. Right now, I'm pretty sure that you would be a mad scientist and would be really busy doing mad, So you gotta at least be a frustrated scientist if not outright mad. But you can still you can, you can still participate in have you sharity? Have you watched? If you watched the forward thinking episode about our cities growing, you'll see me deliver one of my megalomaniacal monologues. And I guess man scientists is pretty accurate, you know, based on that. So

that's fair, all right. So that takes us up to number one. And number one, of course is the the other person along with Warren Buffett, who said let's do this pledge, and that is of course Bill Gates, Yes, um net sixties seven billion, yes, seven billion dollars, has a huge amount of money um and he he only retains about five percent ownership of Microsoft, so most most of that wealth comes from investments that are in other industries and things in bonds and stocks. He's invested in

other companies, He's founded other companies. UH. He was the CEO of mike or Soft for many years. He stepped down in two thousand. Of course, Bomber became the CEO at that time. UM he stayed on as the chairman and chief Software Architect for a few more years. Uh. A transition from full time to part time at Microsoft in two thousand six, and retired in two thousand eight. And I actually remember when you retired because I went to c E S when they were talking about the

fact that Gates was going to retire. It was his final keynote at c E S UM, and so they presented this very cute video package that showed a typical day of Gates. Yeah, and it was absolutely ridiculous. It was very clear that Bill Gates has a very healthy sense of humor about himself. He seems to enjoy poking fun at his own reputation. Uh and um. And that's also clear. If you guys know where the phrase conquistadors they run tight, then you know he's a goofy guy.

If you don't know about that, go to YouTube again. After you've watched Steve Bomber screen about developers for a good thirty seconds, go and type in Jerry Seinfeld Bill Gates. Uh. There was a commercial that ran several years ago that was really just to promote Microsoft. It wasn't any particular Microsoft product, just a Microsoft men and a half long and it was mostly about Jerry Seinfeld walking through the mall and seeing Bill Gates getting fitted for new shoes

and then having a bizarre, absurd conversation with him. I have somehow completely missed this. It was it only aired a few times. But one of the things they talked about the type of shoes. They talked about our conquistadors and they run tight, as you find out in the in the commercial. Chris and I would quote that all the time because we both really appreciated how goofy that commercial was. He was also once arrested in nineteen seventy

seven d traffic violation. So it is nineteen seven. Mug shot is on the internet and it is the goofiest looking thing you've ever seen. By the way, that mug shot also appears in that contest door commercial herschell yeah. Uh yeah. And like Jonathan said, he's only retained five percent of ownership and Microsoft, So most of the money that he is making right now, and which is he's he made six billion in has been from investment in uh,

you know, other stocks and bonds and etcetera. He uh, when he went to college at Harvard and he of course dropped out uh and went to work with Paul Allen at Honeywell first, and then the two of them. Actually he was still going to Harvard when he went to work for Honeywell. He dropped out of Harvard when Paul Allen said, Hey, we should get together and make a company. And so Allen, essentially, according to what I read, convinced Bill Gates to drop out and to co found Microsoft.

So if he had not dropped out, we might not have ever had a Microsoft, and the world would be a very different So he and Allen co founded this company. Of course, it went on to amazing success, and he went on to great success both at company and a

part of from it. So he and his wife, Melinda Gates uh founded the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has done an incredible amount of philanthropic work, a lot in developing nations, really all concentrating on things like access to clean water, healthcare, education forms Forbes lists and is the world's most generous person. It's it's pretty phenomenal,

and of course he's still making boatloads of money. I know that this foundation has received criticism because the way that the foundation ends up funding the various projects it works on is through investments, just like we've spoken about earlier, and sometimes some people have said that there are times where the foundation has invested in companies that are causing some of the very problems that the foundation is trying to So things like companies that through their operation contribute

to pollution and air quality, things like that, and if that's in fact how they are funding the projects, then

that might be counterproductive. And they the Gates Foundation said at one point that they were going to uh instill a new policy where everything would be reviewed before it would be funded, but then eventually apparently went back to look, the MORESS really compresme, this is leading us to not actually get money out to people, not quite not quite so far as to say the ends justify the means. But that's what the critics have said, right that that

was their position. But ultimately they have funded a lot of charitable efforts to make the world a better place. Yeah, they Bill and Milinda have personally given over billion. That's incredible. And like we said, you know, Bill Gates was one of the ones who founded this giving pledge idea uh and there are a lot of people who have signed onto it, not just the tech billionaires. We've mentioned um. He also owns a one hundred twenty five million dollar

home on Lake Washington. Not actually on the lake. It's actually just on the shore of the lake. It's should should be on the lake, that would be come on floating home. Technically it's underground, or most of it is. We did a Chris and I did a great podcast about Bill Gates's house, like a couple of years ago and the place from what we could what we were able to read, because you know, there's not not all the details are available. But he didn't invite you over

when he found out that you were doing the episode. Yeah, sadly that invitation has been lost in the never been written. Male. Uh. Yeah, but it's an incredible house. It's one of those places where they incorporate a lot of environmental design in the house itself to make it kind of a compliment to the area, not just you know, not just a big house that's sitting on a pretty day. It's part of

a pretty hill. Uh. They also incorporated a lot of technology, including and I'm I'm assuming that he's upgraded this since then, but I remember one of the first systems I I read about was an r F I D system where you would get something that would have an r F I D chip in it, and you could program the chip to whatever specifications you like, so you could say, you know, I like it when a room is seventy degrees, and I like this kind of music, and I like

this kind of art, and as you moved through the house, the house around. Yeah, so it's the idea of the smart home. Now, you know, we're getting to the point now where the r F I D is becoming less and less necessary to achieve that. But back when the sus is first being built, that's that was state of the art. So yeah, I mean, pretty interesting guy. Um, he's the father of three kids. Uh. Thought i'd go

ahead and drop that on there. So yeah, it's he's he's definitely done a lot uh in technology and and again the world be a very different place without his contributions. So about the contributions of all of these people, yep, And so I just thought one of their little interesting tidbits. Since we talked about fifteen people, one third of the billionaires we talked about dropped out of college. Yeah, we

found this fascinating. Yeah, five five out of the top fifteen billionaires in technology billionaires dropped out of college, and and we're not saying that you shouldn't necessarily drop out of school. And it's it's a great the first Star is listening to tech stuff. Obviously you are congratulations. We don't we don't know. We only teach, No, don't. We're

not saying you drop out of school. But what what I was talking I was telling to Lauren before we came into the studio, and I said, you know, I think part of it is that when you are really smart, like like these people are smart, Yes, this level of smart,

which is way over my head. When you're this smart and you're this ambitious and you have this kind of vision, So it's not just that you're smart, but that you can you can apply that intelligence in a way that's going to resonate with people and be valuable to people. And when you are of this age so we're talking, you know, of the college age, you know, in eighteen,

funny fast somewhere around there. Uh, then you you also are at an age where you can afford to take some pretty big risks because you haven't necessarily got these other things that you have to worry about, like a family, your home or something like that you don't already have large investments that you're going to you know, yeah, that you're going to throw away if you if you risk everything and lose. So you have you have it lots

of benefits. You've got a lot of energy, you've got this great idea, you've got the intelligence, you've got the opportunity, and you don't have a lot of stuff that would prevent you from taking a big risk aside from this pesky degree that you're pursuing. Right, yeah, that might be a problem. But uh and and so we've talked about other people who realized that, you know, this is going to be a risk, like Elon Musk, where he's like, you know, this is this is something that might not work.

So I want to be able to go back to my studies if I need to. Um. But when you get older, that that window becomes harder and harder to justify jumping through. Right at my age, I'm a married man, I own a home, I've got a lot of ties here in Atlanta. It would be it would take a lot for me to have to make a so um.

So there's some benefit to to doing it the way these guys have done it because they were in the right time, the right position, with the right idea, but most of us probably could benefit from finishing out the rest of that college education. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for future topics, you know, brand new ones, not future classics, let me know. Send me a message on Twitter or

on Facebook. The handle we use it both is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Eight