The Richest People in Tech

Who are the wealthiest tech billionaires? How did they get so wealthy? Which ones have been on the list a long time? Join Jonathan and Lauren as they explore the life and times of the wealthiest people in the world of tech.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how
stuff works dot com. Either everyone, I'm Jonathan Strickland and
I'm Lauren foc Obama, and I'm here to talk about
pennies nil times cool and it's dollar hundred dollar bills.

(00:24):
I am here to really hope that that never happens again.
That's hey, if any of you know what songs that
comes from, let me know, because it's fairly obscure and
I'd be really impressed. But today we wanted to talk
about some some folks who have made a pretty penny
or a billion or so uh in in the fields
of technology or yeah, yeah, more than a billion pennies,

(00:48):
that's true, a bunch at least at least several billion dollars.
We took. Yes, this, 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 probably
tween list of tech billionaires. We kind of wanted to
talk about who these people are and what they've done

(01:08):
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 Schmoogle spoiler alert. Um.

(01:31):
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

(01:53):
gold coins. It's mostly wrapped up in stock options, so
you know, right, but nonetheless, right, they may not have
a lot of liquid at 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 not making
They could probably afford a nice ice cream cone on
a warm summer's day. So let's let's talk about some

(02:15):
of them. So, coming in at number fifteen is James Goodnight,
who has probably the most awesome name. He's I think
I think he's a PhD. So it's doctor good Night,
Doctor Goodnight. That is amazing. I did not think about
that until you said it. Dr Goodnight is awesome. Well, uh,
doctor Goodnight is worth, according to Forbes, about seven point

(02:38):
seven billion dollars. And and and this this is the I mean,
this is the bottom of our list. 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 already said that three
of them are from the same company. So as as

(03:00):
we get down, you're gonna be thinking, huh, alright, which
I 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
with 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

(03:20):
good Night 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

(03:42):
idea of what kind of era he was working in computers.
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 He and John Stiles
founded the company in nineteen seventy six, that's us when
personal computers were barely getting their start. So he uh,

(04:05):
he had helped design some equipment for ground stations to
communicate with the Apollo missions, 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

(04:26):
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

(04:48):
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 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.

(05:11):
Uh in like employee satisfaction. 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 a

(05:34):
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. It's just because you have to.

(05:55):
You have to ramp people up as they come into
replace people. You're set back when someone leaves share. So
I spend a lot of time just revving and spinning wheels. Yeah,
but yeah, it's you know, it's one of those companies
that Adam 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

(06:16):
personal standpoint, he met his wife and 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,

(06:39):
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.

(07:02):
All 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

(07:27):
to number fourteen. This is our first Schmoogle person, as
I recall, that's uh Eric Schmidt. Yes, yes, he was
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 uh international ambassador. I think

(07:49):
that's a honorary title. He actually, well not just honorary,
because he went to North Korea. Yeah, he just went
with that with his daughter and um Bill Richardson to
to the leaders of North Korea about opening up internet channels. Yeah,
and apparently, uh, some of those talks actually started to
see some some results. Apparently, Uh, North Korea began to

(08:12):
allow foreign visitors more access to things like WiFi, and
some folks are saying it's a direct result of Eric
Schmidt's visible Uh 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

(08:33):
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,

(08:57):
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 Novelle before that, and but he he
had actually co authored the lex analysis software program for

(09:17):
Unix and uh, and so yeah, he's he's also he's
our second PhD. Um and uh he got that 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. Uh.

(09:39):
He was also at one point on the board of
directors for Apple. 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 up. But in two thousand six, um,
and and then when when everything is kind of golden

(10:00):
and people were going like our Google and Apple going
to make beautiful babies together, and then they were like, no,
they're not that they both had they both had babies,
and they both thought their baby was the most beauty baby.
And then they tried to fight them. 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, hey,

(10:22):
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

(10:43):
the CEO of, is seen as an increasingly as a competitor.
So it was 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

(11:04):
bunch of these big, big names is that technically their
salaries are are practically 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

(11:26):
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 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.

(11:48):
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

(12:09):
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 it 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

(12:32):
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 over afternoon, over
afternoon afternoon in fact, yeah, in the middle of the day.
He became a billionaire when they held the initial public

(12:54):
offering for eBay. Yeah, so three years after he launches,
he becomes a billionaire because is of the you know,
the interest in this company. So again that's before the
dot com bubble bursts. So I eBay had a lot
of the right parts in place to survive the dot
com bubble. But it also I think helped create the

(13:16):
dot com bubble in a way because all these other
people said that was possible. Why can't my idea. 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,

(13:39):
still are I megin 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

(13:59):
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 Mefett is not the number one in tech and no,
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

(14:20):
called the Amadyar Network. And this is also not unusual.
There's 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.

(14:43):
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 Clariss and that's when he
then went on to co found a company called Ink Development,
which was originally pin based computers, So any sort of

(15:06):
computer that would have a pen based operating the stuff
that you would use, that's what he originally went into.
Eventually became a shop which was an e commerce site,
and then from that he got the idea for eBay.
H 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

(15:26):
about I bought it on eBay. Uh and Uh and
Almady are married Pamela care Almadyar who supposedly had a
huge Pezz Dispenser collection, and that that is this is
part of why he decided to found eBay because of
his wife's Peest Dispenser Wow collection. I did not know that.
It's always amazing to me to hear the the what

(15:46):
was the gene? All right? Number twelve? Oh, here we
go with a German uh Entry Hasso Plotner, who was
worth eight point nine billion dollars a going to 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 system analysis and program development

(16:09):
or if I'm going to butcher my German system and
system analyze on programmed vic lunk, that's I thought, Thrish.
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

(16:31):
along with four other former IBM colleagues. So he used
to work for IBM along with these other four gentlemen
and um 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.

(16:53):
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. That was meant for big, big, big,
big big here. 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

(17:16):
one of those things that a lot of other companies
have looked into. You know, some of the names we're
gonna 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,

(17:38):
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,

(17:59):
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 this. Fellow Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, So Larry
Elson very well known for his yachting uh interests and

(18:22):
UH and how so Platinum 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

(18:43):
too far. That's that'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,

(19:06):
he has spent a lot of money UM to support
efforts 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. Not because because

(19:27):
she's the woman. What do 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 I believe. So, 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, yes,

(19:51):
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 shares. Yeah, and this is through the trust

(20:13):
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 um. Unlike Jobs,
she stuck with her her studies. But he met her

(20:36):
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 uh 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,

(20:58):
this makes sense too because Steve Jobs very much interested
in education when he was the head of the Next
Computer back back when Steve Jobs uh initially left Apple
or was fired from Apple, it 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.

(21:22):
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

(21:42):
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 to be part of the White
House Council for Community Solutions. She was appointed by President

(22:05):
Barack Obama himself. Um, and yeah, she received an NBA
from Stanford in n and married Steve Jobs that same
year and they had three kids together. Right, lately, she's
been really into promoting the Dream Act, which is the Development,
Relief and Education for Alien Miners Act. It's failed to
pass through Congress a couple of times now, but it

(22:26):
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
being that these are people who are going to UH
to contribute positively to society, and therefore society should extend

(22:47):
to them the opportunity opportunity, 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.

(23:10):
Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsored 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 Premg who is worth about eleven
point two billion dollars and he's an Indian businessman who's

(23:32):
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 that is a jump. Yeah, I
started making vegetable oil for for Indian food and then, um,

(23:55):
it eventually began to diversify. It started making hydrogen atdive, fats,
toy the trees, soaps, lighting products, hydraulics. It is, it
is still diversifying right now. I'm 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
into why Pro Enterprises and bought a skincare firm in December. Yeah,

(24:20):
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

(24:43):
Asia's most generous person. He has donated a two point
three billion and shares a why 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 million dollars that he had
already donated. So again a very generous philanthropist. Uh. And

(25:06):
he 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. Alright, 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 has a seeing his his ranking changed
pretty dramatically year over year. Uh. We expect to see

(25:30):
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

(25:51):
twenty eight years old, which somehow had escaped me up
until I was researching this article, and that was that
was what hurts it. Really, it really does. Uh. 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,

(26:14):
so I can't really complain, I guess. Yeah, yeah, you
haven't been working quite as hard. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook went
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. Yeah, this
is this was one of those you may remember, Chris
and I did a podcast all about Facebook going public

(26:34):
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

(26:56):
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

(27:17):
more like three dollars fifty cents, but they don't tell
you that. 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

(27:37):
of a scandal. Technically, nothing was illegal, but some people
say that it may have been kind 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

(27:58):
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 all right, yeah,
I remember that from from the social network more than

(28:19):
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

(28:41):
upon Facebook, and it got kind of a little popular hit.
You know again, one billion users, so that was pretty exciting. Uh.
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.

(29:02):
By the way, states that the people who signed it
are promising essentially to give away at least half of
their wealth before. So yeah, he's he's also um glass
Doors top employee rated CEO. Oh okay, yeah he uh
he also I remember back when he was known as

(29:22):
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 source. So 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

(29:44):
a really bad hunter and he can only catch cucumbers.
I think only cares would be about my speed personally,
Mr Zuckerberg. I'm just joshing, Please don't hunt me. Um
he got married in to Priscilla Chan and and uh
so yeah he's. Um, he's he's doing pretty well for himself,

(30:05):
not too bad that despite that one point year old
and ranked number nine in tech billion. 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 in that fifteen billion. He's one of the co
founders of Microsoft, the other one being well, you know, anyway,

(30:28):
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

(30:49):
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 and our football game football team,
and the basketball team. I'm not big on the sports,
as it turns out. Yeah, yeah, we neither of us,

(31:11):
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, that's not sport, that
sports entertainment alright, Um, but anyway, Paul Ellen lately has
been selling off a lot of his shares of Microsoft
and starting to UM invest and diversify in a bunch

(31:33):
of other stuff. UM. 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

(31:54):
of different nonprofit organizations. UM. He also just another here's
a little trip you for you. When he took the
S A T S he got a perfect score. Perfect.
That was back in both sides. I haven't heard about
the math, but I hadn't heard about Yeah, back when
the S S went up to six. Yeah, that was
by the way back back in the That's how it

(32:15):
was when I took to so back in the day, kids,
was the top score you can 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,

(32:35):
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. 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

(32:59):
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 bottom. 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 went and chairman. Yes,

(33:24):
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

(33:46):
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 uh Microsoft
in the seventies. They invite Steve Bomber to come and

(34:06):
work for Microsoft. He drops out of grad school at
Stanford and he becomes the thirtieth employee of Microsoft and
was a business manager. His salary was about fifty thousand
dollars a year when he first started, and he had
also received a percentage of ownership and Microsoft uh and
so when it went public, he held about eight percent
of the company and since since that time, he sold

(34:29):
some of that stock off about a little bit about
around half of it, a little less than half um
and in 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. Yeah, so he's he's been he's been working
there for a total of thirty three years and it's

(34:51):
been CEO for thirteen. Um. He's he's actually a little
bit of a 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,
that 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

(35:11):
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

(35:34):
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. Uh. 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 Console. Um. But you know, there's definitely been a

(35:57):
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 and moving around like like well,
like a crazy person. There's no easy way of saying this.

(36:19):
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

(36:39):
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,

(37:00):
leading a group of investors that's trying to buy the
Sacramento Kings, which is a which is a basketball team, um,
and move 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

(37:22):
the next over the next five years, what happens over
at 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, Palmer's had decades of experience at that company.
So and you know, I'm not a business person, so

(37:45):
for me, for me, it's all like you know, oh, well,
I could easily see that someone else needs to be right.
It's easy for us to sit back here and go like, wow,
why are they 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 liquified all of our shares too,
kit Cats and pulled himself off in the back off

(38:05):
butterfinger actually, but yes, yeah, that's that's not a bad guest.
I'm sure would be at least a few kit Cats.
Oh good times. It's 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 dells there he's the founder and

(38:26):
CEO of Dell Incorporated, Dell Computers. So that's one of
those companies that made personal computers a viable business, right right,
This was back they founded it. Yeah, yeah, it was
while he was attending the University of Texas at Austin,
which he dropped out of. He's another dropout on our list,

(38:47):
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,

(39:09):
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
don't know if this is true or not, and I'm
I'm paraphrasing because I didn't write this down on my notes,

(39:30):
but I read 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 subscriptions, 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

(39:52):
within a system or to manipulate that system, not in
a bad way, but just the most advantageous way. He
started to just 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

(40:13):
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, uh

(40:35):
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

(40:57):
in nineteen nine and they have four children together. And
they also established the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, which
is 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

(41:21):
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 for twenty four point four billion, which the shareholders

(41:41):
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,

(42:02):
because again, you have to answer 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 shareholders is never
really a nimble It's pretty hard to reverse that decision

(42:25):
once it happens, too. But we'll see if that 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.

(42:46):
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 sarag 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 Astural Projects at Google, which means that he gets
to oversee the super awesome, cool ridiculous stuff like the
autonomous cars, Google Glass, Yeah, things, things like that kind

(43:10):
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
would imagine that falls under his jurisdiction as a special project.
So it's pretty clear that sarage Brand wants to become
a cyborg and rule us all. Uh. He he's a smart,

(43:32):
smart guy. His his parents were both from Moscow and
right 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 ye NASA. Sorry, sorry I cut off here.
It's gonna be it's gonna be smart to you, but

(43:52):
you d snartified me, that's fine. The listeners wish they
could do it all the time. Yeah. 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.

(44:16):
The parents were not necessarily like normal people more or less. 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 NASA,
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. Uh. He received
degrees in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland,

(44:37):
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 toward that.
His 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 on the boot. I

(44:58):
don't think, but I mean, you know, all depends. Like
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,

(45:21):
met the other co founder of Google, Larry Page, and
not that first meeting. Supposedly, Paige and brend 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 but it wasn't necessarily a friendly

(45:43):
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 web. They were talking about how
a link on a web pages kind of like a site,
like a c I T E site, not sit citation

(46:05):
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 has been pages Idea at first, I believe,
and he kind of needed somebody with with a stronger
computer background and and mathematical skills. Yes, so Brent came on.
Brent had already been at Stanford for a while, and

(46:27):
in fact, originally Brent had shown Page around for the
graduate program. That's 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 G. A.
Brenn married Ann wagis Ki. Together they have two kids

(46:51):
and um and he's also done a lot of philanthropthropic
work himself directly actually for Google dot org, which is
the philanthropic r of Google. Uh. 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.

(47:13):
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 Page. So the other half of the Google co
founder duo. He's he's worth a net twin. Yeah, so

(47:36):
point two billion more than uh than Sergey. 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 I play Monopoly with real cities. Uh.
I was gonna make a joke, but I'm gonna stop
on that one. So anyway, Yeah, he's actually been the

(47:59):
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

(48:22):
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

(48:42):
we just mentioned where he met Sarah gay Brenn 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 Tesla Motors. Yep,
Tesla Motors. Um. I found both him and as I think,
are they Okay? I knew that Page was um and

(49:03):
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'll
that'll 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

(49:27):
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

(49:52):
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 Amazon two parter
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.

(50:15):
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

(50:35):
took his last name from his adoptive father. UM. And
he's very very close with him, and he considers them
his real dad. That's his real dad because he was
there to raise him, and so he his maternal grandfather
worked for Darba on space technology and missile defense technology,
and he uh was a very instrumental figure in Jeff's

(50:57):
early life. On a column, Jeff, you guys are so
so tight. Yeah, he I've ordered every day. It's Jeff
this and Jeff that. I've 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. Uh.
So he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and
computer science from Princeton. He met his wife, mckensey Bezos

(51:19):
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 only. Yeah,

(51:41):
they shipped their first one um, but had expanded so
much that they went public in Yeah. It 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 they 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

(52:03):
a bit. And and the reason that they weren't profitable
was was not because they were not doing well, but
because they kept Yeah, 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.

(52:23):
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 billion yea, and he was He was named Time
Magazines Person of the Year because that the Amazon had

(52:44):
become so influential even back then in 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 worth worth the

(53:04):
net 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.

(53:25):
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 the fellow we mentioned earlier in the podcast,
right right, He's. He's also rumored 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

(53:47):
two of the people on our list. Uh he also,
uh he's he's bought some pretty famous places, like an
island of Hawaii, Lani, one of the Hawaii in 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, well, he just

(54:10):
dropped five 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

(54:32):
the best thing I've ever heard. So if if you're
in Malibu and you think there's an earthquake, make sure
that Ellison's not having a house park. Yeah, if he's
dropping some mad beats, that might be what you're feeling
it instead. He's another college dropout. He both in the
University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. Yeah, yeah,

(54:53):
he um. He believes in doing it wholeheartedly in multiple 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

(55:15):
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.

(55:38):
This is again enterprise software. So the Oracle is 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 them. But anyway, UM believe

(56:00):
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 right, our
number one number one is yet that's it's amazing. Yes,

(56:26):
And he's thus far donated UM million, mostly via 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

(56:47):
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 that.
You can at least be a frustrated scientist, not outright mad,
but you can still you can, you can still participate
in have your charity. If you watch, if you watch
the forward Thinking episode about our cities growing, you'll see

(57:11):
me deliver one of my megalomaniacal monologues. And I guess
mad 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
um Worth net sixties seven billion, yes, six seven billion dollars.

(57:37):
That 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 Microsoft for many years. He stepped

(57:58):
down in two thousand. Of course, Umber 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 and six, and retired in two thousand
and eight. And I actually remember when he retired because
I went to c E S when they were talking
about the fact that Gates was going to retire. It

(58:19):
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

(58:43):
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 screaming about developers for a
good thirty seconds. Uh. Go and type in Jerry Seinfeld
Bill Gates. Uh. There was a commercial that ran several

(59:06):
years ago that was really just to promote Microsoft. It
wasn't any particular Microsoft product, Microsoft The 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

(59:27):
aired a few times, but one of the things they
talked about the type of shoes. They talked about our
conkistadors 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 seventies

(59:48):
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 yeah uh yeah.
And like, 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,

(01:00:12):
you know, other stocks and bonds, 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.

(01:00:33):
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 Uh. So he and Allen co founded
this company. Of course, it went on to amazing success,

(01:00:54):
and he went on to great success both at the
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 Forbes.

(01:01:19):
Forbes lists him 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 that works on is through investments, just like
we've spoken about earlier, and sometimes some people have said

(01:01:40):
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

(01:02:01):
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 this is leading us

(01:02:23):
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've Bill and Milinda have personally given
over billion. That's incredible and like we said, you know,

(01:02:45):
Bill Gates was one of the ones who 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
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

(01:03:06):
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

(01:03:29):
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 hill. It's part of a pretty hill. Uh.
They also incorporated a lot of technology, including and I'm

(01:03:53):
I'm assuming that he's upgraded this since then, but I
remember one of the first systems 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

(01:04:14):
house changed around here. 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
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. I thought i'd go ahead

(01:04:35):
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 at 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

(01:04:55):
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 Now the
first star is listening to tech stuff. Obviously you are congratulations.

(01:05:19):
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 talking 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 that which is way over my head.
And then when you're this smart and you're this ambitious

(01:05:41):
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 somewhere around there, then you also are
at an age where you can afford to take some

(01:06:02):
pretty big risks because you haven't necessarily got these other
things that you have to worry about, like a family
or a 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 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,

(01:06:24):
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

(01:06:46):
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 It would take a lot
for me to have to make a change. So um
so there's some benefit to to doing it the way

(01:07:09):
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 school kids. Yeah, actually got
a great ideas, have a really incredible idea, and then
we go for it. We were right there with you
at the very beginning, and we deserve a cut, is

(01:07:30):
what I'm saying. But anyway, that wraps up this discussion
of some of the incredibly wealthy folks and technology. Hope
you guys learn something and uh and some of these
folks we will likely cover in a full podcast. Will
dedicate a full podcast to someone Larry Ellison we've talked
about as being someone will cover in a full episode.
Now we'll do that further down the road, so not tomorrow.

(01:07:53):
But yeah, but but you know, these are fascinating folks
and I'd love to have the opportunity to research them more. Sure, so,
if you guys have any subjects we should cover in
future episodes of tech Stuff, whether that's a person or
a company or just a type of technology, or you know,
what kind of video game do I play when I
go home? It's BioShock Infinite. Uh. You can just write
in and let us know and we'll we'll definitely add

(01:08:15):
that to the list. Our addresses tex stuff at Discovery
dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.
You can find our handle at both those locations. It
is text stuff, H. S W and Lauren and I
will talk to you again really soon for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Does it has to

(01:08:36):
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