Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Either everyone, I'm Jonathan Strickland and
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren foc Obama, and I'm here to talk about
Speaker 1: pennies nil times cool and it's dollar hundred dollar bills.
Speaker 1: I am here to really hope that that never happens again.
Speaker 1: That's hey, if any of you know what songs that
Speaker 1: comes from, let me know, because it's fairly obscure and
Speaker 1: I'd be really impressed. But today we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about some some folks who have made a pretty penny
Speaker 1: or a billion or so uh in in the fields
Speaker 1: of technology or yeah, yeah, more than a billion pennies,
Speaker 1: that's true, a bunch at least at least several billion dollars.
Speaker 1: We took. Yes, this, we're taking a list from the
Speaker 1: top tech Billionaires off of Forbes list, which they published
Speaker 1: pretty much on a yearly basis, so this is probably
Speaker 1: tween list of tech billionaires. We kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about who these people are and what they've done
Speaker 1: to kind of get to where they're going, and maybe
Speaker 1: some little trivia facts about yeah, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a profile, just to see, you know, because these these
Speaker 1: are the people that are running all of the businesses
Speaker 1: that are creating all of the cool stuff that we
Speaker 1: talk about basically, And so there's some of them are
Speaker 1: who are working for the same company. There's three from
Speaker 1: one company in fact that rhymes with Schmoogle spoiler alert. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, we're going to talk about the folks that
Speaker 1: are on this list, and uh, and keep in mind,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is like the people who
Speaker 1: have the most money. It does not necessarily mean they're
Speaker 1: the most influential because at least a couple of them
Speaker 1: are for the most part retired, right, right. And and
Speaker 1: also it doesn't necessarily mean that they have you know,
Speaker 1: like that kind of Scrooge McDuck giant swimming pool of
Speaker 1: gold coins. It's mostly wrapped up in stock options, so
Speaker 1: you know, right, but nonetheless, right, they may not have
Speaker 1: a lot of liquid at assets compared to what they
Speaker 1: have in investments, but hey, you know, I'm sure that
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're not They're not hurting, probably not making
Speaker 1: They could probably afford a nice ice cream cone on
Speaker 1: a warm summer's day. So let's let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of them. So, coming in at number fifteen is James Goodnight,
Speaker 1: who has probably the most awesome name. He's I think
Speaker 1: I think he's a PhD. So it's doctor good Night,
Speaker 1: Doctor Goodnight. That is amazing. I did not think about
Speaker 1: that until you said it. Dr Goodnight is awesome. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: doctor Goodnight is worth, according to Forbes, about seven point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars. And and and this this is the I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the bottom of our list. So yeah, we're going.
Speaker 1: We're going from number fifteen down to number one. It's
Speaker 1: a countdown. You can actually all play along at home
Speaker 1: if you like and place bets on who you think
Speaker 1: is in the top five. Well, we'll try not to
Speaker 1: give any spoilers. No, but we already said that three
Speaker 1: of them are from the same company. So as as
Speaker 1: we get down, you're gonna be thinking, huh, alright, which
Speaker 1: I can think of a couple of names that haven't
Speaker 1: been mentioned yet. All right, Well, what good Night did
Speaker 1: was he co founded a company called S a S
Speaker 1: with John Saul's back in nineteen seventy six. And this
Speaker 1: is a business analytics software company. Yeah, and originally it
Speaker 1: was part of a research project. You see. Uh, James
Speaker 1: good Night grew up in North Carolina, so he's a
Speaker 1: neighbor of mine as far as I'm concerned. I'm born
Speaker 1: in Georgia, so I consider folks from North Carolina my neighbors.
Speaker 1: And he began to work with computers back when he
Speaker 1: was a sophomore at North Carolina State University. So he
Speaker 1: graduated with eventually with a pH d in statistics. All right,
Speaker 1: he's he's seventy right now. If that gives you an
Speaker 1: idea of what kind of era he was working in computers.
Speaker 1: When he was working in computers, it was before computers
Speaker 1: were really I think people worked on. Yeah, there certainly
Speaker 1: were no personal computers at the time where he was
Speaker 1: getting into them, he didn't find He and John Stiles
Speaker 1: founded the company in nineteen seventy six, that's us when
Speaker 1: personal computers were barely getting their start. So he uh,
Speaker 1: he had helped design some equipment for ground stations to
Speaker 1: communicate with the Apollo missions, which is awesome, pretty amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he then joined the faculty of North Carolina State
Speaker 1: and while he was a faculty member there, he began
Speaker 1: to work on this project, which was called a Statistical
Speaker 1: analysis system or s A S. I was for agricultural
Speaker 1: research actually to crunch some of that data exactly statistically
Speaker 1: analyzing the information coming back from an agricultural project. And
Speaker 1: he realized that there was a broader application for this
Speaker 1: kind of statistical model for lots of different industries. And
Speaker 1: so that's when he and Saul's got together and UH
Speaker 1: and founded s A S and UH. He led the
Speaker 1: company to grow every single year. And he's been the
Speaker 1: CEO for essentially thirty five years now, and every year
Speaker 1: he's been CEO, the company has grown. And perhaps the
Speaker 1: most remarkable thing, I think, according to to what I read,
Speaker 1: the company has never laid off a single employee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're supposedly completely excellent to work for. I think
Speaker 1: there are number two behind all companies aside from Google.
Speaker 1: Uh in like employee satisfaction. It's it's pretty amazing. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that someone hasn't been fired from that company,
Speaker 1: but no one has been No one's job has been
Speaker 1: eliminated due to like cutbacks or something, which you know,
Speaker 1: when you're when you're talking thirty five years, that's amazing
Speaker 1: and UH And there have been books written about his
Speaker 1: management style. He's he's often shown as sort of a
Speaker 1: an example to folks about how to manage a company.
Speaker 1: I had heard that he kind of developed his philosophy
Speaker 1: while he was working on these ground systems for NASA
Speaker 1: because those projects had a lot of turnover, and as
Speaker 1: a result, he was like, this is not the best
Speaker 1: way to get anything done. It's just because you have to.
Speaker 1: You have to ramp people up as they come into
Speaker 1: replace people. You're set back when someone leaves share. So
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time just revving and spinning wheels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's you know, it's one of those companies
Speaker 1: that Adam has all kinds of services on its campuses
Speaker 1: and and lots of educational support and snacks in the
Speaker 1: break room, you know. And uh, from a from a
Speaker 1: personal standpoint, he met his wife and while he was
Speaker 1: a senior at at North Carolina State and she was
Speaker 1: attending Meredith College. And they have three kids. So you
Speaker 1: gotta think, you know, a kid of a billionaire. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of these billionaires were gonna be talking about.
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing I found out about a lot of
Speaker 1: them is that many of them are philanthropists. Some of
Speaker 1: them are philanthropists to such an extreme as to it,
Speaker 1: you know, they plan on giving away a large amount
Speaker 1: of their wealth before they pass on, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I know that there. There's actually a fairly common thing
Speaker 1: I've heard among a lot of these people who have
Speaker 1: said they want to make sure that their their kids
Speaker 1: understand the value of hard work and the responsibility and
Speaker 1: not just coast along on the accomplishments of the parents.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, Since so many of these people, you know,
Speaker 1: worked themselves with the ground up, they kind of go
Speaker 1: that that was a good life lesson. Yeah. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: few of them had somewhat privileged upbringings, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them actually came from from pretty humble beginnings and
Speaker 1: had worked their way up to uh, you know, not
Speaker 1: just not just the top of their their company, but
Speaker 1: the top of the financial industry. So let's move on
Speaker 1: to number fourteen. This is our first Schmoogle person, as
Speaker 1: I recall, that's uh Eric Schmidt. Yes, yes, he was
Speaker 1: worth a reported eight point two billion in net yep
Speaker 1: and he was he used to be the CEO for Google.
Speaker 1: He was the CEO for Google for several years. He's
Speaker 1: currently the executive chairman and uh international ambassador. I think
Speaker 1: that's a honorary title. He actually, well not just honorary,
Speaker 1: because he went to North Korea. Yeah, he just went
Speaker 1: with that with his daughter and um Bill Richardson to
Speaker 1: to the leaders of North Korea about opening up internet channels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and apparently, uh, some of those talks actually started to
Speaker 1: see some some results. Apparently, Uh, North Korea began to
Speaker 1: allow foreign visitors more access to things like WiFi, and
Speaker 1: some folks are saying it's a direct result of Eric
Speaker 1: Schmidt's visible Uh that being said, as we're recording this podcast,
Speaker 1: there is a kerfuffle in the North Korea area, and
Speaker 1: so I would imagine some of those issues are becoming
Speaker 1: a bit more complicated at the moment, as as they
Speaker 1: tend to do when nuclear warheads are involved. But he's
Speaker 1: you know, I always heard of Eric Schmidt as the
Speaker 1: CEO of Google and being like a kind of this
Speaker 1: shrewd businessman. I did not realize because I mean I
Speaker 1: just never had looked into his background very much. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that he has a background not just in business,
Speaker 1: but in actual programming. Yeah, he got his engineering degree
Speaker 1: than a PhD in computer science. I think he didn't.
Speaker 1: He was brought on to Google back in two thousand
Speaker 1: one as the chief executive to bring a little bit
Speaker 1: more business experience into the next right. He had been
Speaker 1: the CEO of Novelle before that, and but he he
Speaker 1: had actually co authored the lex analysis software program for
Speaker 1: Unix and uh, and so yeah, he's he's also he's
Speaker 1: our second PhD. Um and uh he got that University
Speaker 1: of California while he was actually working on another project there.
Speaker 1: So he's working on a project at the University of
Speaker 1: California and pursues a PhD at the same time. Of course,
Speaker 1: he was at one point the technology advisor to President Obama. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was also at one point on the board of
Speaker 1: directors for Apple. He did resign from that position after
Speaker 1: it was sort of like there was some tensions between
Speaker 1: Google and Apple, mainly stemming from iOS versus Android. In fact,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was called iOS at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because because he joined up. But in two thousand six, um,
Speaker 1: and and then when when everything is kind of golden
Speaker 1: and people were going like our Google and Apple going
Speaker 1: to make beautiful babies together, and then they were like, no,
Speaker 1: they're not that they both had they both had babies,
Speaker 1: and they both thought their baby was the most beauty baby.
Speaker 1: And then they tried to fight them. Pokemon right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just gave me a great business idea that I'm
Speaker 1: going to pursue after this podcast. Bat Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: don't get away Vocabama. Uh yeah. So he he was
Speaker 1: on the board of directors for Apple for a while.
Speaker 1: He stepped down. There were there was some mounting tensions
Speaker 1: between the two companies, and it was pretty clear that
Speaker 1: it was going to be difficult to maintain a advisory
Speaker 1: position at one company when York, the company you are
Speaker 1: the CEO of, is seen as an increasingly as a competitor.
Speaker 1: So it was considered a conflict of interest, and he
Speaker 1: stepped down. He married a woman by the name of
Speaker 1: Windy Boyle and had two children with her, but they
Speaker 1: separated in two thousand eleven, and now he's dating a
Speaker 1: concert pianist. I think one really interesting thing about a
Speaker 1: bunch of these big, big names is that technically their
Speaker 1: salaries are are practically nothing. In in Eric Schmidt's case,
Speaker 1: as of two thousand eight, anyway, his salary was technically
Speaker 1: one dollar per year. And you know, all of his
Speaker 1: fortune is is wrapped up in all of these stock options. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you usually end up getting the majority of your compensation
Speaker 1: ends up coming in the form of of stocks and
Speaker 1: other investments. Uh, which which which is fair? When you
Speaker 1: know it's you go from a stock value of eighty
Speaker 1: five dollars to over six hundred and three years, it
Speaker 1: does suggest that that that you might have made one
Speaker 1: or two good calls right in your time, especially when
Speaker 1: when you're the one who who created the launch of
Speaker 1: those stock options. That, yeah, that speaks well for you.
Speaker 1: I'm almost certain that taxes have something to do with
Speaker 1: that one dollar salary, but since I'm nowhere near a billionaire,
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. Uh. Let's move down to
Speaker 1: the next person, number thirteen. Now here's the first person
Speaker 1: whose name I'm going to butcher. It's Pierre Amadyar, who
Speaker 1: is worth eight point seven billion dollars. He's better known
Speaker 1: as the founder of eBay. And of course, eBay is
Speaker 1: that auction site that did really really well. I mean
Speaker 1: it was it exploded on the internet when it shortly
Speaker 1: after debut. I think it debuted in in like ninety five,
Speaker 1: it was pretty early. Yeah, eBay launched in and it
Speaker 1: did it. Of course, was one of those companies that
Speaker 1: gave a lot of other people the idea that the
Speaker 1: Internet was a place to make your fortune. And uh,
Speaker 1: and I mean, how could you deny it? I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: this this one idea was doing incredibly well, and it
Speaker 1: made Pierre Almadyar a billionaire overnight when over afternoon, over
Speaker 1: afternoon afternoon in fact, yeah, in the middle of the day.
Speaker 1: He became a billionaire when they held the initial public
Speaker 1: offering for eBay. Yeah, so three years after he launches,
Speaker 1: he becomes a billionaire because is of the you know,
Speaker 1: the interest in this company. So again that's before the
Speaker 1: dot com bubble bursts. So I eBay had a lot
Speaker 1: of the right parts in place to survive the dot
Speaker 1: com bubble. But it also I think helped create the
Speaker 1: dot com bubble in a way because all these other
Speaker 1: people said that was possible. Why can't my idea. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of bandwagoning that happened, and and at a
Speaker 1: certain point, you know, yeah, you can't support hence bubble. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now he was born in France, uh, and he now
Speaker 1: makes his home in America. He is his parents were Iranian,
Speaker 1: still are I megin He's only forty five years old.
Speaker 1: Forty five years old, and he's given away a lot
Speaker 1: of his wealth already. He is known as a philanthropist,
Speaker 1: and he's one of the people who signed something called
Speaker 1: the Giving Pledge. The Giving Pledge was something proposed by
Speaker 1: the number one entry on our lists. That's something for
Speaker 1: you to listen for when we get there. It was
Speaker 1: co pledged by um CO, co created by Warren Buffett. Right,
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett was one of the creators of the Giving Pledge.
Speaker 1: The other one is the number one on our list.
Speaker 1: Warren Mefett is not the number one in tech and no,
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett does not does not. He does not appear
Speaker 1: on this list as he is not one of the
Speaker 1: tech guys. But he also created a philanthropic investment firm
Speaker 1: called the Amadyar Network. And this is also not unusual.
Speaker 1: There's several people on this list who have created uh
Speaker 1: foundations that are actually investment firms because what they do
Speaker 1: is they were given a certain amount of grant money
Speaker 1: to start and then they invest that money and then
Speaker 1: from the returns on those investments, they fund various charitable efforts.
Speaker 1: Uh So. He graduated with a degree in computer science
Speaker 1: from Tufts University and for a while before he founded eBay,
Speaker 1: he worked for a subsidiary of a little company called
Speaker 1: Apple Computer the subsidiaries called Clariss and that's when he
Speaker 1: then went on to co found a company called Ink Development,
Speaker 1: which was originally pin based computers, So any sort of
Speaker 1: computer that would have a pen based operating the stuff
Speaker 1: that you would use, that's what he originally went into.
Speaker 1: Eventually became a shop which was an e commerce site,
Speaker 1: and then from that he got the idea for eBay.
Speaker 1: H I think was auction web. The first thing that
Speaker 1: he technically sold was a broken laser pointer. Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1: That just makes me think of the weird al song
Speaker 1: about I bought it on eBay. Uh and Uh and
Speaker 1: Almady are married Pamela care Almadyar who supposedly had a
Speaker 1: huge Pezz Dispenser collection, and that that is this is
Speaker 1: part of why he decided to found eBay because of
Speaker 1: his wife's Peest Dispenser Wow collection. I did not know that.
Speaker 1: It's always amazing to me to hear the the what
Speaker 1: was the gene? All right? Number twelve? Oh, here we
Speaker 1: go with a German uh Entry Hasso Plotner, who was
Speaker 1: worth eight point nine billion dollars a going to Forbes,
Speaker 1: and he is the co founder of German software company
Speaker 1: s A. P, s A P, A G and U.
Speaker 1: S A P stands for system analysis and program development
Speaker 1: or if I'm going to butcher my German system and
Speaker 1: system analyze on programmed vic lunk, that's I thought, Thrish.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I can pronounce in German is
Speaker 1: my own last name, So that's that's fair. I got
Speaker 1: my German is terrible. Uh. He he founded this company
Speaker 1: along with four other former IBM colleagues. So he used
Speaker 1: to work for IBM along with these other four gentlemen
Speaker 1: and um and they they founded this and it was
Speaker 1: a company that made enterprise software. Now that means that
Speaker 1: they made software for other companies. It wasn't software for
Speaker 1: you know, you to bring home and install in your
Speaker 1: personal computer. This is something that large companies would use.
Speaker 1: And in the case of of S A P, it
Speaker 1: was software that's designed to manage business operations and customer relations.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is not something that would appeal
Speaker 1: to small businesses. That was meant for big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big big here. Yeah, there's a lot of database kind
Speaker 1: of crunching going on in the process, but that means,
Speaker 1: you know, big companies mean big customers. So it's it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that a lot of other companies
Speaker 1: have looked into. You know, some of the names we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about will be familiar to you, but
Speaker 1: maybe not as a customer, like a direct customer, but
Speaker 1: rather that you know of, you know the name, and
Speaker 1: maybe if you work for a big company and work
Speaker 1: with those those products, you know the name of, you
Speaker 1: know some of the software. But you know, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: against on your computer at home, you're not going to
Speaker 1: have this kind of stuff installed. But um yeah yeah
Speaker 1: he he um co founded this back in two He's
Speaker 1: he's sixty nine as of right now. Yep, and uh
Speaker 1: he uh he. He has an interest in lots of
Speaker 1: different things, including yachting and UH. And his interest in yachting,
Speaker 1: he has seen himself compete head to head against another
Speaker 1: person who will appear on our list further down. I'll
Speaker 1: go ahead and spoil it because it's too funny and
Speaker 1: I will never remember by the time we get down
Speaker 1: to this. Fellow Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, So Larry
Speaker 1: Elson very well known for his yachting uh interests and
Speaker 1: UH and how so Platinum have had so they've both
Speaker 1: participated in yachting events where their individual yachts went directly
Speaker 1: head to head against each other, and apparently there have
Speaker 1: been words exchanged battle yachts, some in German battle battle
Speaker 1: yachts driven by babies. All right, we're getting a little
Speaker 1: too far. That's that's maybe like after season four or
Speaker 1: five and things are starting to peter off, we have
Speaker 1: to introduce a new twist. But yeah, I thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting that these guys and I got
Speaker 1: really snarky in my notes, didn't. I said, it shows
Speaker 1: that the CEO still know how to have fun, just
Speaker 1: like the rest of us common folk. Uh. He has
Speaker 1: also Plattner has also supported philanthropic efforts. In his case,
Speaker 1: he has spent a lot of money UM to support
Speaker 1: efforts in South Africa to combat AIDS and the AIDS
Speaker 1: crisis there, along with other charitable efforts. Not just not
Speaker 1: just that one UM and he is married and has
Speaker 1: two kids. Alright, moving up to number eleven. Now, Lauren,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you take this one. Not because because
Speaker 1: she's the woman. What do I get that? I don't
Speaker 1: I don't understand what you're getting at, Lauren, because we
Speaker 1: share the same name. That's why do you know? Is
Speaker 1: it pronounced Lauren and I believe. So, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: Lauren Powell Jobs worth a net ten point seven billion um.
Speaker 1: She is she is the wealthiest woman in tech in fact,
Speaker 1: and this is this is um Steve Jobs widow, yes,
Speaker 1: who we are talking about. So um she she most
Speaker 1: of her wealth comes from the fact that she owns
Speaker 1: seven point three percent of a little entertainment company you
Speaker 1: may have heard about, Disney, yep, seven point of Disney.
Speaker 1: That that translates to about six point nine billion dollars
Speaker 1: worth of shares. Yeah, and this is through the trust
Speaker 1: that Steve Jobs left to her when he passed away. Yes,
Speaker 1: but she's also I mean, you know, it's not she
Speaker 1: has inherited quite a bit from Steve Jobs, but she
Speaker 1: herself has been very instrumental in several different companies. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: she's she's only forty nine years old. She's um. She's
Speaker 1: got a few degrees in business and um. Unlike Jobs,
Speaker 1: she stuck with her her studies. But he met her
Speaker 1: when she was in college, I believe, and so at
Speaker 1: the at Stanford University. And she is the co founder
Speaker 1: and president of the board of for College Track and
Speaker 1: College Track as an after school program that's designed to
Speaker 1: help high school students uh study and and excel and
Speaker 1: also to succeed in college and uh and her interest
Speaker 1: in education goes well beyond that, which is you know,
Speaker 1: this makes sense too because Steve Jobs very much interested
Speaker 1: in education when he was the head of the Next
Speaker 1: Computer back back when Steve Jobs uh initially left Apple
Speaker 1: or was fired from Apple, it depends on your point
Speaker 1: of view. When he left, he founded a new company
Speaker 1: called Next Computers, and it was really for to make
Speaker 1: an educational computer, like a computer for education systems for students. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then he was called back to save Apple when
Speaker 1: it was on the brink of bankruptcy and he uh
Speaker 1: he never really lost his his passion for education, but
Speaker 1: he definitely had a lot more on his play at
Speaker 1: that point. Well. She has dedicated much of her life
Speaker 1: to working on ways to improve education and to give
Speaker 1: students tools that they could use to improve themselves. And
Speaker 1: she also co founded tera Vera, which is a natural
Speaker 1: foods company. She served on the board of directors for
Speaker 1: a couple of other companies like Achieva, which is a
Speaker 1: company that makes study tools for students. Again and um.
Speaker 1: She was appointed in to be part of the White
Speaker 1: House Council for Community Solutions. She was appointed by President
Speaker 1: Barack Obama himself. Um, and yeah, she received an NBA
Speaker 1: from Stanford in n and married Steve Jobs that same
Speaker 1: year and they had three kids together. Right, lately, she's
Speaker 1: been really into promoting the Dream Act, which is the Development,
Speaker 1: Relief and Education for Alien Miners Act. It's failed to
Speaker 1: pass through Congress a couple of times now, but it
Speaker 1: would give undocumented US citizens, undocumented US citizens, undocumented US
Speaker 1: youth a chance to gain citizenship by um, either joining
Speaker 1: the Armed services or going to college. Yeah. The idea
Speaker 1: being that these are people who are going to UH
Speaker 1: to contribute positively to society, and therefore society should extend
Speaker 1: to them the opportunity opportunity, especially if they came here
Speaker 1: before they were fifteen. And you know that's because that's
Speaker 1: not at that point, that's not their fault, so right,
Speaker 1: and beyond that, just the idea of for the United
Speaker 1: States to succeed, we have to encourage uh, you know, excellence,
Speaker 1: and so you know, this is one way of doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. Well, that's that's our first batch of five.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break to thank our sponsored all right,
Speaker 1: let's get back to talking about some of these, uh
Speaker 1: these really influential billionaires in technology. So at number ten
Speaker 1: we have a Zeem Premg who is worth about eleven
Speaker 1: point two billion dollars and he's an Indian businessman who's
Speaker 1: the chairman of white Pro Limited, which is one of
Speaker 1: those companies that started doing one thing and then dramatically
Speaker 1: changed its focus. I know, I know currently they do
Speaker 1: they work with outsourcing. Yes, it started out making vegetable oil.
Speaker 1: Vegetable oil, that is that is a jump. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: started making vegetable oil for for Indian food and then, um,
Speaker 1: it eventually began to diversify. It started making hydrogen atdive, fats,
Speaker 1: toy the trees, soaps, lighting products, hydraulics. It is, it
Speaker 1: is still diversifying right now. I'm it's well, the the
Speaker 1: entire outsourcing industry is getting pretty tough right now, and
Speaker 1: so they're they just spun off its consumer products arm
Speaker 1: into why Pro Enterprises and bought a skincare firm in December. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is, um, this is one of those things
Speaker 1: where if you were to have the you've heard of
Speaker 1: the elevator's speech right when you you are in an
Speaker 1: elevator with someone else and they asked you what you do?
Speaker 1: You have to have like a way of summing up
Speaker 1: what you do in just about fifteen seconds, that that
Speaker 1: explains accurately what you do. I bet this guy has
Speaker 1: a hard time doing that. Um, especially since he's considered
Speaker 1: Asia's most generous person. He has donated a two point
Speaker 1: three billion and shares a why pro to his educational
Speaker 1: foundation in February after signing that that Buffett giving pledge
Speaker 1: Buffet slash somebody someone who could it be? And that
Speaker 1: was on top of two million dollars that he had
Speaker 1: already donated. So again a very generous philanthropist. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he he actually holds a degree in electrical engineering from
Speaker 1: Stanford University. UM. And he's married to Yasmine prim g
Speaker 1: and they have two children. Alright, so let's move on
Speaker 1: to number nine. Now, this is kind of interesting number nine.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who has been on this list
Speaker 1: several times and has a seeing his his ranking changed
Speaker 1: pretty dramatically year over year. Uh. We expect to see
Speaker 1: that happen a lot now because the company he founded
Speaker 1: had an initial public offering last year back in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve and his personal value hinges directly upon the
Speaker 1: stock price of his company. We are, of course talking
Speaker 1: about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Yes, he is worth
Speaker 1: a net thirteen point three billion. He is also only
Speaker 1: twenty eight years old, which somehow had escaped me up
Speaker 1: until I was researching this article, and that was that
Speaker 1: was what hurts it. Really, it really does. Uh. I
Speaker 1: am nearly a decade older than Zuckerberg, and I haven't
Speaker 1: seen my first billion yet. But then I haven't founded
Speaker 1: a company that has over one billion active users either,
Speaker 1: so I can't really complain, I guess. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: haven't been working quite as hard. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook went
Speaker 1: public last May at a thirty eight dollars per share
Speaker 1: and had fallen to under twenty by August. It's it's
Speaker 1: rebounded about thirty according to Forbes since then. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this was one of those you may remember, Chris
Speaker 1: and I did a podcast all about Facebook going public
Speaker 1: and the issues that surrounded it, and part of that
Speaker 1: was that, um, there was there was a scandal something
Speaker 1: of a scandal anyway, that when the the company, you know,
Speaker 1: when the actual public offering happened, that Facebook had told
Speaker 1: some of its larger shareholders who would have started off
Speaker 1: right at the very beginning that the company was going
Speaker 1: to be worth less than what they had projected earlier
Speaker 1: in the year, and that that would in turn affect
Speaker 1: the stock price, but the actual stock price itself, the
Speaker 1: starting stock price didn't change, Okay, so uh so it's
Speaker 1: like saying that you know, this five dollar uh, this
Speaker 1: five dollar thing you bought, turns out it's really worth
Speaker 1: more like three dollars fifty cents, but they don't tell
Speaker 1: you that. You go and spend the five dollars and
Speaker 1: then you go around to you turn around, you decide
Speaker 1: you don't want you turn around to sell it to
Speaker 1: someone else, but you can only get three dollars and
Speaker 1: fifty cents for it. Um. It's an oversimplified way of
Speaker 1: saying what happened, but that's it's that's essentially what happened.
Speaker 1: And some people or some really some financial institutions knew
Speaker 1: about this and some didn't, and that caused a bit
Speaker 1: of a scandal. Technically, nothing was illegal, but some people
Speaker 1: say that it may have been kind so, uh, you
Speaker 1: know that that was a bit of a black eye.
Speaker 1: And also again because the stock price took a hit,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's personal net wealth took a hit. Yeah, but like
Speaker 1: eight point one billion dollars. Yeah, that's that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money. He attended Harvard College, but he did not
Speaker 1: finish matriculating. He dropped out. Um, he created Uh you
Speaker 1: may remember we've talked about this in the past. He
Speaker 1: created an application called facemash, which allowed people to vote
Speaker 1: on the attractiveness of their fellow students and all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that from from the social network more than
Speaker 1: anything else. Um, yeah, you know, I mean it was
Speaker 1: just if you could, you could call it tacky, but
Speaker 1: we've seen plenty more of those sort of things pop up,
Speaker 1: mostly from people who voluntarily share their image. Face mash
Speaker 1: was kind of similar to that. But then he launched
Speaker 1: Facebook in two thousand and four while he was a
Speaker 1: student at Harvard, and it dropped out to focus primarily
Speaker 1: upon Facebook, and it got kind of a little popular hit.
Speaker 1: You know again, one billion users, so that was pretty exciting. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also is one of the people who has signed
Speaker 1: this giving pledge that we talked about that Buffett and
Speaker 1: uh came up with, and so he's probably that pledge.
Speaker 1: By the way, states that the people who signed it
Speaker 1: are promising essentially to give away at least half of
Speaker 1: their wealth before. So yeah, he's he's also um glass
Speaker 1: Doors top employee rated CEO. Oh okay, yeah he uh
Speaker 1: he also I remember back when he was known as
Speaker 1: the guy who would only eat what he could kill.
Speaker 1: I don't know, did you ever read that or hear
Speaker 1: about that? I heard, I heard a crazy internet rumor
Speaker 1: about it, but I don't think that I saw it
Speaker 1: on a reputable source. So I heard about on so
Speaker 1: many tech podcasts back when that that kind of news
Speaker 1: story broke. But then in he posted on his Facebook
Speaker 1: profile that he is now a vegetarian. So maybe he's
Speaker 1: a really bad hunter and he can only catch cucumbers.
Speaker 1: I think only cares would be about my speed personally,
Speaker 1: Mr Zuckerberg. I'm just joshing, Please don't hunt me. Um
Speaker 1: he got married in to Priscilla Chan and and uh
Speaker 1: so yeah he's. Um, he's he's doing pretty well for himself,
Speaker 1: not too bad that despite that one point year old
Speaker 1: and ranked number nine in tech billion. Well last year
Speaker 1: he was six, So really he should he should feel bad.
Speaker 1: He's bad, and he should feel bad, right exactly just
Speaker 1: like I do every day. Number eight Paul Allen Allen
Speaker 1: worth in that fifteen billion. He's one of the co
Speaker 1: founders of Microsoft, the other one being well, you know, anyway,
Speaker 1: so he co founded Microsoft. He made a lot of
Speaker 1: his current wealth in real estate. Yeah, Vulcan real Estate.
Speaker 1: It's the name of his company, Vulcan Incorporate. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: also manages his philanthropic efforts, because, like several the other
Speaker 1: billionaires on this list, he is a philanthropist. He is
Speaker 1: also another dropout. He went to Washington State University but
Speaker 1: dropped out after two years to start working in Honeywell
Speaker 1: in Boston. Um. And he owns a couple of sports teams, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland's Trailblazers. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a football game and our football game football team,
Speaker 1: and the basketball team. I'm not big on the sports,
Speaker 1: as it turns out. Yeah, yeah, we neither of us,
Speaker 1: I think, are really really only to two sports I
Speaker 1: follow in either of them are football or basketball. Just
Speaker 1: baseball and hockey. And I don't follow hockey anymore because
Speaker 1: I was gonna say pro wrestling, that's not sport, that
Speaker 1: sports entertainment alright, Um, but anyway, Paul Ellen lately has
Speaker 1: been selling off a lot of his shares of Microsoft
Speaker 1: and starting to UM invest and diversify in a bunch
Speaker 1: of other stuff. UM. And he's he's also he lost
Speaker 1: his mother recently to Alzheimer's and related complications and has
Speaker 1: been UM really active in brain research. UM donated five
Speaker 1: hundred million to the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's made some substantial contributions financial contributions to lots
Speaker 1: of different nonprofit organizations. UM. He also just another here's
Speaker 1: a little trip you for you. When he took the
Speaker 1: S A T S he got a perfect score. Perfect.
Speaker 1: That was back in both sides. I haven't heard about
Speaker 1: the math, but I hadn't heard about Yeah, back when
Speaker 1: the S S went up to six. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: by the way back back in the That's how it
Speaker 1: was when I took to so back in the day, kids,
Speaker 1: was the top score you can make and you could
Speaker 1: not You couldn't fudge that, like that was a perfect score.
Speaker 1: You know, because there are versions of the S A
Speaker 1: T since then where you could quote unquote hit a
Speaker 1: perfect score even if you didn't answer all the questions. UM. Also,
Speaker 1: there was no essay back then. It's just math and
Speaker 1: the math and the words things English. That's it, those
Speaker 1: word things that we do. Yeah, we do. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: made a perfect score on that. So yes, smart guy.
Speaker 1: Um he never never married. He is, he's a bachelor.
Speaker 1: He's had, uh had, just the only bachelor I think
Speaker 1: that we have on this list. Is there a call
Speaker 1: I might be wrong about that. We'll find out when
Speaker 1: we get towards the very bottom. But um, yeah, never married.
Speaker 1: Number seven. Interesting guy. Uh, this is a guy that
Speaker 1: I've seen in action on stage in person, and he
Speaker 1: is a force to be reckoned with. We're talking about
Speaker 1: Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft. So we just went and chairman. Yes,
Speaker 1: we just went from the one of the co founders
Speaker 1: of Microsoft to the current CEO. He's worth a net
Speaker 1: fifteen point two billion. He was born in Detroit and
Speaker 1: uh he also went to Harvard University, but he finished
Speaker 1: Uh he like Zuckerberg, he earned a degree in mathematics
Speaker 1: and one in economics. Um. And he met he met
Speaker 1: one of the the other co founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates.
Speaker 1: He met him back in college, right, yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: he had he had started going to Stanford for a
Speaker 1: graduate degree. Um. And that was about when Bill Gates
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, do you want to come work on
Speaker 1: this crazy project? And he was like, yeah, sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Bill Gates and Paul Allen had founded uh Microsoft
Speaker 1: in the seventies. They invite Steve Bomber to come and
Speaker 1: work for Microsoft. He drops out of grad school at
Speaker 1: Stanford and he becomes the thirtieth employee of Microsoft and
Speaker 1: was a business manager. His salary was about fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year when he first started, and he had
Speaker 1: also received a percentage of ownership and Microsoft uh and
Speaker 1: so when it went public, he held about eight percent
Speaker 1: of the company and since since that time, he sold
Speaker 1: some of that stock off about a little bit about
Speaker 1: around half of it, a little less than half um
Speaker 1: and in became the executive vice president of sales and Support.
Speaker 1: Then shortly thereafter he became the president of Microsoft. And
Speaker 1: then when Bill Gates decided to resign to step down
Speaker 1: as CEO. Yeah, so he's he's been he's been working
Speaker 1: there for a total of thirty three years and it's
Speaker 1: been CEO for thirteen. Um. He's he's actually a little
Speaker 1: bit of a of a contentious CEO right now. He
Speaker 1: only has a forty seven percent approval rating by the
Speaker 1: employees over at Microsoft, according to glass Door. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that the Microsoft stock has been down. It's down like
Speaker 1: like one point three two over last year or over
Speaker 1: the past five years with a seven percent drops it's
Speaker 1: last year. Yeah, there's been there have been several uh,
Speaker 1: critical reports about Steve Bomber's performance as CEO and whether
Speaker 1: or not the company's on the right track. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you know there are people who point out products like
Speaker 1: Windows Vista or Windows eight and saying, you know that
Speaker 1: this is an indication that perhaps there needs to be
Speaker 1: someone else leading the way. Um. And also the mobile
Speaker 1: performance of Windows versus Apple, and that they said that
Speaker 1: the Microsoft didn't move on that fast enough and they
Speaker 1: weren't innovators, they were followers. Uh. There are some areas
Speaker 1: of Microsoft that I think you can say pretty strongly
Speaker 1: are are are doing really well. One of them is
Speaker 1: something that Lauren and I both enjoy, which is the
Speaker 1: Xbox Console. Um. But you know, there's definitely been a
Speaker 1: lot of criticism. Uh. Also there's the famous if if
Speaker 1: Chris were here, he would demand that I do this.
Speaker 1: There was the famous presentation where Steve Bomber got up
Speaker 1: on stage and started chanting developers, developers, developers, developers, developers,
Speaker 1: and clapping his hands and and moving around like like well,
Speaker 1: like a crazy person. There's no easy way of saying this.
Speaker 1: If you've not seen the video, the famous Steve Bomber Developers, developers,
Speaker 1: developers video, go to YouTube and do a search. You
Speaker 1: really just have to search for the word developers, and
Speaker 1: it looks gonna pop up, trust me. So he he's
Speaker 1: an interesting guy. He married Connie Snyder in nineteen and
Speaker 1: they have three kids. Uh. And he's only the second
Speaker 1: person ever in the United States anyway to become a
Speaker 1: billionaire due to stock options he received as an employee
Speaker 1: of a corporation where he was neither the founder nor
Speaker 1: the relative of a founder. So the very first person
Speaker 1: was Roberto Goizetta of Coca Cola. He is he is also,
Speaker 1: and this is going to come back in a minute,
Speaker 1: leading a group of investors that's trying to buy the
Speaker 1: Sacramento Kings, which is a which is a basketball team, um,
Speaker 1: and move them to Seattle, right, So I've heard of basketball.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So yeah, interesting guy. And you know, again,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of debate about his performance about his
Speaker 1: management style. Um, and I'll be curious to see, like
Speaker 1: the next over the next five years, what happens over
Speaker 1: at Microsoft. It's it's one of those things where even
Speaker 1: I have some years said I'm surprised that the shareholders
Speaker 1: haven't made but you know, at the same time, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Palmer's had decades of experience at that company.
Speaker 1: So and you know, I'm not a business person, so
Speaker 1: for me, for me, it's all like you know, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I could easily see that someone else needs to be right.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to sit back here and go like, wow,
Speaker 1: why are they doing? And then but if you were
Speaker 1: to put me in charge of that company, we'd be
Speaker 1: bankrupt in two days, you know, all right? Moving on
Speaker 1: to number six, Jonathan liquified all of our shares too,
Speaker 1: kit Cats and pulled himself off in the back off
Speaker 1: butterfinger actually, but yes, yeah, that's that's not a bad guest.
Speaker 1: I'm sure would be at least a few kit Cats.
Speaker 1: Oh good times. It's number six is uh is the
Speaker 1: co founder of another company or a founder of another company?
Speaker 1: Michael Dell worth a net fifteen point three billion. Dude,
Speaker 1: He needed lots of dells there he's the founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Dell Incorporated, Dell Computers. So that's one of
Speaker 1: those companies that made personal computers a viable business, right right,
Speaker 1: This was back they founded it. Yeah, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: while he was attending the University of Texas at Austin,
Speaker 1: which he dropped out of. He's another dropout on our list,
Speaker 1: and became the youngest CEO to have his company ranked
Speaker 1: in Fortune's Top five corporations. He was only twenty seven
Speaker 1: at the time that that happened. Uh so, you know, again,
Speaker 1: pretty amazing and and uh very determined. He became interested
Speaker 1: in investments when he was still a teenager, Like he
Speaker 1: would take part time jobs, and instead of just you know,
Speaker 1: putting the money away or or spending it on something frivolous,
Speaker 1: he was actually investing in things like precious metals and
Speaker 1: stocks as a team. That's that would probably be why
Speaker 1: he's worth fifteen point three billion and I'm worth a negative.
Speaker 1: And I also I also read an interesting story. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is true or not, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing because I didn't write this down on my notes,
Speaker 1: but I read a story that he had discovered, um
Speaker 1: like he had essentially was what amounted to a paper route,
Speaker 1: where it was really him selling newspapers, selling newspaper subscriptions. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's selling newspaper subscriptions, really more of a salesperson
Speaker 1: for a newspaper. And he noticed a trend, and this
Speaker 1: is something that he got really good at. It is
Speaker 1: is uh, analyzing systems and seeing how best to work
Speaker 1: within a system or to manipulate that system, not in
Speaker 1: a bad way, but just the most advantageous way. He
Speaker 1: started to just that people who were moving into the
Speaker 1: city were more likely to subscribe to a newspaper as
Speaker 1: part of establishing their new home, and so he began
Speaker 1: to target people he had, like he would get records
Speaker 1: showing where houses had just been bought, and he would
Speaker 1: target those as his as his places to sell papers.
Speaker 1: So he was I think in college at this time,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was actually I think it was high
Speaker 1: school at this time, and if I'm not mistaken, he
Speaker 1: made something like eighteen thousand dollars doing this, which was
Speaker 1: more than what his teacher was making. Yeah. So, uh
Speaker 1: so he was putting that kind of brain power to
Speaker 1: use when he was in the university and he began
Speaker 1: to realize that. He started to to offer to build
Speaker 1: and sell PCs to other students and noticed that this
Speaker 1: was a viable way of making money, and so he
Speaker 1: became he started a company called PCs Limited that would
Speaker 1: eventually become del Incorporated. Uh. He married Susan Lynn Lieberman
Speaker 1: in nineteen nine and they have four children together. And
Speaker 1: they also established the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, which
Speaker 1: is a philanthropic organization that focuses primarily on child health
Speaker 1: and family economic stability. They are committed to donating a
Speaker 1: hundred million a year to that. UM. Dell meanwhile, is
Speaker 1: not doing extraordinarily well these days there. Um uh, their
Speaker 1: stock is done I think from as a February from
Speaker 1: last year, and um, Michael Dell has announced that he
Speaker 1: wants to take Dell private and is trying to strike
Speaker 1: an agreement with the shareholders right now, who are not
Speaker 1: really excited about the deal. Yeah. He his plan was
Speaker 1: to buy back all those shares make it a private
Speaker 1: company again, so essentially reversing the I p O. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for for twenty four point four billion, which the shareholders
Speaker 1: are going like that's what. Yeah, they're saying that's way
Speaker 1: too that's that's that's undervaluing the company, is their argument,
Speaker 1: whereas his argument is, if we keep going the way
Speaker 1: we're going, this company is going to be worthless. So, um,
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see how that works out, because
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those there are times when
Speaker 1: a company goes public where you realize further down the
Speaker 1: road that that was that was not a good deal,
Speaker 1: because again, you have to answer to shareholders. Sometimes that's
Speaker 1: a great thing. Sometimes it's exactly what a company needs
Speaker 1: to succeed. Other times, like in this case, you can
Speaker 1: tell that maybe that was the you know, maybe it
Speaker 1: was the right decision at the time, but it's no longer. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's at this point, you know, it's it's computer
Speaker 1: industry needs to be nimble, and dealing shareholders is never
Speaker 1: really a nimble It's pretty hard to reverse that decision
Speaker 1: once it happens, too. But we'll see if that that
Speaker 1: pans out. Well, we're about to go into our top five.
Speaker 1: Before we do, I'd like to take a quick moment
Speaker 1: to thank our other sponsor. So we're getting into the
Speaker 1: top five here. Number five is another person from Schmoogle.
Speaker 1: We can say the name now, it's not. I kind of,
Speaker 1: I kind of can't can't help myself. At this point,
Speaker 1: we're talking about sarag A. Brenn, who was one of
Speaker 1: the co founders of Google. Yes, he is worth a
Speaker 1: net twenty two point eight billion, and he's the director
Speaker 1: of Astural Projects at Google, which means that he gets
Speaker 1: to oversee the super awesome, cool ridiculous stuff like the
Speaker 1: autonomous cars, Google Glass, Yeah, things, things like that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff where you know, we've heard rumor that Google
Speaker 1: might have a smart watch in the works that could
Speaker 1: have an augmented reality application included in this UM I
Speaker 1: would imagine that falls under his jurisdiction as a special project.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty clear that sarage Brand wants to become
Speaker 1: a cyborg and rule us all. Uh. He he's a smart,
Speaker 1: smart guy. His his parents were both from Moscow and
Speaker 1: right they moved the family to America when he was six, yes,
Speaker 1: six years old. His father was a mathematics professor at
Speaker 1: the University of Moscow and his mother ended up being
Speaker 1: a researcher for ye NASA. Sorry, sorry I cut off here.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be it's gonna be smart to you, but
Speaker 1: you d snartified me, that's fine. The listeners wish they
Speaker 1: could do it all the time. Yeah. So the point
Speaker 1: being that his parents wicked smart, like you know, already mathematicians, researchers,
Speaker 1: really smart people. Um, some of the people on this
Speaker 1: list we've talked about our folks who you know, they
Speaker 1: came from maybe not you know, humble beginnings, but not there.
Speaker 1: The parents were not necessarily like normal people more or less. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I personally don't have any parents who have worked for NASA,
Speaker 1: so I'm a little bit impressed when I hear about
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Neither of my parents have worked
Speaker 1: for NASA either. Um. But yeah, when he was six,
Speaker 1: the family immigrated to the United States. Uh. He received
Speaker 1: degrees in mathematics and computer science at the University of Maryland,
Speaker 1: and then he went to go do some graduate study
Speaker 1: research over at the at Stanford University. He wanted to
Speaker 1: eventually get a PhD. Uh. He's still working toward that.
Speaker 1: His his studies are on indefinite hold right now, so
Speaker 1: technically he hasn't dropped out of grad school right in Stanford.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really want to go get on the boot. I
Speaker 1: don't think, but I mean, you know, all depends. Like
Speaker 1: Stanford's already got that that record of other people who said,
Speaker 1: can I get a deferment? And they said no, And
Speaker 1: that's fine. I'm going to become a billionaire. That's happened
Speaker 1: a few times. But uh, but so he and when
Speaker 1: I had became a billionaire. But maybe maybe one day
Speaker 1: he'll end up finishing that work and earning his PhD.
Speaker 1: He he's only thirty nine, so he's got a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got a little while. He also, while at Stanford,
Speaker 1: met the other co founder of Google, Larry Page, and
Speaker 1: not that first meeting. Supposedly, Paige and brend were both, um,
Speaker 1: let's call them smart Alex. Okay, so they're both smart Alex.
Speaker 1: They're both a little snarky and apparently that snarky and
Speaker 1: snarky when they first met, kind of sparks flew like
Speaker 1: things were not but but it wasn't necessarily a friendly
Speaker 1: kind of snark. Yes, supposedly they did not totally get
Speaker 1: along upon first meeting, but they ended up spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time together because they were working on the
Speaker 1: same research project called back rub, which was this project
Speaker 1: to help index the web. They were talking about how
Speaker 1: a link on a web pages kind of like a site,
Speaker 1: like a c I T E site, not sit citation
Speaker 1: excitation exactly, and that if you were to index all
Speaker 1: of these you could easily navigate around the web. So
Speaker 1: that was the basis of BackRub, which eventually became Google
Speaker 1: And and this has been pages Idea at first, I believe,
Speaker 1: and he kind of needed somebody with with a stronger
Speaker 1: computer background and and mathematical skills. Yes, so Brent came on.
Speaker 1: Brent had already been at Stanford for a while, and
Speaker 1: in fact, originally Brent had shown Page around for the
Speaker 1: graduate program. That's when they first met, and then he
Speaker 1: ended up working on pages project. And as they worked
Speaker 1: together they became they became buddy buddy. They got past
Speaker 1: that initial he's kind of a jerk. That guy's kind
Speaker 1: of a jerk. Uh. And in two thousand seven, Sarah G. A.
Speaker 1: Brenn married Ann wagis Ki. Together they have two kids
Speaker 1: and um and he's also done a lot of philanthropthropic
Speaker 1: work himself directly actually for Google dot org, which is
Speaker 1: the philanthropic r of Google. Uh. And it's a division
Speaker 1: that looks at lots of different problems, including ways of
Speaker 1: creating clean energy, reducing environmental impact in general, battling climate change.
Speaker 1: So he's dedicated a lot of his his time and
Speaker 1: efforts towards these sort of projects too. It's pretty heavy stuff, right,
Speaker 1: which then leads us nicely into number four, which is
Speaker 1: Larry Page. So the other half of the Google co
Speaker 1: founder duo. He's he's worth a net twin. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: point two billion more than uh than Sergey. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure they lord it over each other whenever they're fortunate.
Speaker 1: They go to when they go to the Billionaire Club
Speaker 1: and they play I play Monopoly with real cities. Uh.
Speaker 1: I was gonna make a joke, but I'm gonna stop
Speaker 1: on that one. So anyway, Yeah, he's actually been the
Speaker 1: acting He's been the CEO for Google since April eleven,
Speaker 1: so Eric Schmidt of course was the former CEO. When
Speaker 1: Schmidt stepped down, they were talking about who was going
Speaker 1: to be the next CEO. Was there going to be
Speaker 1: an interim CEO? Would they pick someone from outside the company,
Speaker 1: But Larry Page ended up taking that role. And uh,
Speaker 1: he's originally from Michigan. His parents were both computer science
Speaker 1: professors at Michigan State University. So again, Larry Page grew
Speaker 1: up in a household that was already familiar with and
Speaker 1: interested in the computers, so he picked right up on that. Uh.
Speaker 1: He attended the University of Michigan and earned a degree
Speaker 1: in computer engineering, and then he went to Stanford and
Speaker 1: earned a master's degree in computer science. That's, of course
Speaker 1: we just mentioned where he met Sarah gay Brenn and
Speaker 1: they started working on the BackRub project. Um. He's also
Speaker 1: an investor in a company that we talked about in
Speaker 1: a recent episode of Tech Stuff, Tesla Tesla Motors. Yep,
Speaker 1: Tesla Motors. Um. I found both him and as I think,
Speaker 1: are they Okay? I knew that Page was um and
Speaker 1: he married Lucinda Southworth in two thousand seven and they
Speaker 1: have one child together. And um, Google is doing incredibly well.
Speaker 1: There's Stacros, which earned Page four billion personally, So don'll
Speaker 1: that'll knock you right up the list pretty quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's also in the in the top twenty of
Speaker 1: Forbes businesses overall. UM billionaire, right, because this is this
Speaker 1: is specifically the list we're doing is just the tech folks,
Speaker 1: but obviously there are people who work in their businesses
Speaker 1: other than technology. I've found one or two. I guess
Speaker 1: I was unaware of this until I just happened to
Speaker 1: read the wrong link on a while I was researching,
Speaker 1: and uh, and my heart shrunk three sizes that day.
Speaker 1: Sad story number three. Moving on, Jeff Bezos worth a
Speaker 1: net five point two billion, and he, of course is
Speaker 1: the founder of Amazon. Yeah, and we've talked about Bezos
Speaker 1: quite a bit when we did our Amazon two parter
Speaker 1: two part. Keep talking about doing the third part, but
Speaker 1: we keep putting it off because we're we think after
Speaker 1: covering Amazon so thoroughly that we didn't want to you
Speaker 1: don't want to turn tech stuff into the Amazon podcast.
Speaker 1: But we have to do it for a little while
Speaker 1: because he's number three on the list. Um. So he
Speaker 1: you know, he his mom ended up, uh. You know,
Speaker 1: he remarried, divorcing his father and then remarrying. Uh, and
Speaker 1: she married Mike Bezos, and uh, Jeff decided he essentially
Speaker 1: took his last name from his adoptive father. UM. And
Speaker 1: he's very very close with him, and he considers them
Speaker 1: his real dad. That's his real dad because he was
Speaker 1: there to raise him, and so he his maternal grandfather
Speaker 1: worked for Darba on space technology and missile defense technology,
Speaker 1: and he uh was a very instrumental figure in Jeff's
Speaker 1: early life. On a column, Jeff, you guys are so
Speaker 1: so tight. Yeah, he I've ordered every day. It's Jeff
Speaker 1: this and Jeff that. I've ordered so many things from
Speaker 1: his site. You would think he would know me by
Speaker 1: name at this point. He at least knows my address. Uh.
Speaker 1: So he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and
Speaker 1: computer science from Princeton. He met his wife, mckensey Bezos
Speaker 1: while they were both working at a hedge fund company
Speaker 1: called D. E. Shaw. And while he was working there,
Speaker 1: he was working on some database projects and that's when
Speaker 1: he got the idea of you could create a website
Speaker 1: that could become an online retail space for books, which
Speaker 1: is exactly what Amazon dot com was originally. When it
Speaker 1: first started, it was just about the books only. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they shipped their first one um, but had expanded so
Speaker 1: much that they went public in Yeah. It didn't take
Speaker 1: long at all. So again, this is one of those
Speaker 1: companies that existed before the dot com bubble burst, and uh,
Speaker 1: and they really quite well through it. They didn't they
Speaker 1: didn't make a profit for a long time. No, they weren't.
Speaker 1: Their revenues were not profitable, but they were growing quite
Speaker 1: a bit. And and the reason that they weren't profitable
Speaker 1: was was not because they were not doing well, but
Speaker 1: because they kept Yeah, they were growing so quickly and
Speaker 1: expanding so quickly into so many new distribution centers and
Speaker 1: so many new areas. The costs were higher than what
Speaker 1: they were bringing in, but they were Their revenues were
Speaker 1: increasing year over year, so there was lots of growth.
Speaker 1: There just wasn't a lot of of actual profit for
Speaker 1: the first few years. But it did start to turn
Speaker 1: profit and then didn't stop. Yeah, yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: problem anymore. They their stock last year, earning Bezos personally
Speaker 1: six billion yea, and he was He was named Time
Speaker 1: Magazines Person of the Year because that the Amazon had
Speaker 1: become so influential even back then in nine before again
Speaker 1: the dot com bubble went Carr pluey. So yeah, he's
Speaker 1: done quite well for himself. He's number three on the list,
Speaker 1: which leads us to number two. Mr Larry Ellison, one
Speaker 1: of the more controversial figures from technology worth worth the
Speaker 1: net controversy or now he is he is America's third
Speaker 1: richest man. In fact, Yeah, it's kind of interesting. We
Speaker 1: went from twenty five point two billion with Bezos to
Speaker 1: forty three billion with Larry Ellison. He of course, is
Speaker 1: a co founder of the Oracle Corporation. Um and uh he's.
Speaker 1: He's made quite a name for himself for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that again he's the guy who sets his
Speaker 1: yacht against the the fellow we mentioned earlier in the podcast,
Speaker 1: right right, He's. He's also rumored to be exploring a
Speaker 1: deal to purchase the Sacramento Kings to prevent them from
Speaker 1: being moved to Seattle. So he's in direct conflict with
Speaker 1: two of the people on our list. Uh he also,
Speaker 1: uh he's he's bought some pretty famous places, like an
Speaker 1: island of Hawaii, Lani, one of the Hawaii in islands.
Speaker 1: It's a hundred and forty one square mile island. He
Speaker 1: owns pretty much all of it, including two resorts that
Speaker 1: are on the island. Um. You know, well, he just
Speaker 1: dropped five million on It's not not a big deal.
Speaker 1: Half a billion dollars buying Hawaiian island. He also owns
Speaker 1: a one million dollar home in Woodside, California. He owned
Speaker 1: several properties in Malibu. Apparently one of those properties in
Speaker 1: Malibu has a one million dollar entertainment system that uses
Speaker 1: an empty swimming pool as a sub bliffer. That is
Speaker 1: the best thing I've ever heard. So if if you're
Speaker 1: in Malibu and you think there's an earthquake, make sure
Speaker 1: that Ellison's not having a house park. Yeah, if he's
Speaker 1: dropping some mad beats, that might be what you're feeling
Speaker 1: it instead. He's another college dropout. He both in the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he um. He believes in doing it wholeheartedly in multiple universities. UM.
Speaker 1: His adoptive father actually assumed the name Ellison to commemorate
Speaker 1: the fact that he came to America and passed through
Speaker 1: Ellis Island. So Ellison Ellison is from that. Um. He
Speaker 1: worked at a few companies in California when he was
Speaker 1: in his twenties, and he designed a database for a
Speaker 1: little organization called the c I a UH and that
Speaker 1: database was called Oracle, and that's when he got the
Speaker 1: idea to found a software company. It was originally called
Speaker 1: software development Laboratories, not laboratories um, which is how I
Speaker 1: usually say it, and that's what eventually became Oracle. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is again enterprise software. So the Oracle is one
Speaker 1: of those names that I think, like Oracle, Sun Microsystems
Speaker 1: like these are these are big names that people are
Speaker 1: familiar with, even IBM to some extent, they're familiar with,
Speaker 1: but they haven't necessarily used it in a personal person
Speaker 1: unless they work for a company that has these systems
Speaker 1: and they're in charge of them. But anyway, UM believe
Speaker 1: he's been married and divorced four times, so he's had
Speaker 1: some issues in his personal life. Um. He's also known
Speaker 1: as being a very outspoken and blunt person. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've heard that once or twice. He has signed
Speaker 1: on to the to that Warren Beffett and right, our
Speaker 1: number one number one is yet that's it's amazing. Yes,
Speaker 1: And he's thus far donated UM million, mostly via Oracle stock. Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so he's another one of the members of
Speaker 1: this this elite club of billionaires who have signed the
Speaker 1: Giving Pledge to to really try and make the world
Speaker 1: a better place. I can't criticize that at all. That's
Speaker 1: a phenomenal thing. I mean, that's why I would like
Speaker 1: to think that if I were a billionaire, I would
Speaker 1: do the same thing, but of course I'm not in
Speaker 1: that position, so it's really easy for me to say
Speaker 1: it right now. I'm pretty sure that you would be
Speaker 1: a mad scientist and would be really busy doing that.
Speaker 1: You can at least be a frustrated scientist, not outright mad,
Speaker 1: but you can still you can, you can still participate
Speaker 1: in have your charity. If you watch, if you watch
Speaker 1: the forward Thinking episode about our cities growing, you'll see
Speaker 1: me deliver one of my megalomaniacal monologues. And I guess
Speaker 1: mad Scientists is pretty accurate, you know, based on that,
Speaker 1: So that's fair, all right. So that takes us up
Speaker 1: to number one. And number one, of course is the
Speaker 1: the other person along with Warren Buffett, who said let's
Speaker 1: do this pledge, and that is of course Bill Gates
Speaker 1: um Worth net sixties seven billion, yes, six seven billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That has a huge amount of money um and he
Speaker 1: he only retains about five percent ownership of Microsoft, so
Speaker 1: most most of that wealth comes from investments that are
Speaker 1: in other industries and things in bonds and stocks. He's
Speaker 1: invested in other companies he's founded other companies. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was the CEO of Microsoft for many years. He stepped
Speaker 1: down in two thousand. Of course, Umber became the CEO
Speaker 1: at that time. UM. He stayed on as the chairman
Speaker 1: and chief Software Architect for a few more years. Uh.
Speaker 1: A transition from full time to part time at Microsoft
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, and retired in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. And I actually remember when he retired because
Speaker 1: I went to c E S when they were talking
Speaker 1: about the fact that Gates was going to retire. It
Speaker 1: was his final keynote at c E S UM and
Speaker 1: so they presented this very cute video package that showed
Speaker 1: a typical day of Gates. Yeah, and it was absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It was very clear that Bill Gates has a very
Speaker 1: healthy sense of humor about himself. He seems to enjoy
Speaker 1: poking fun at his own reputation. UH and UM. And
Speaker 1: that's also clear. If you guys know where the phrase
Speaker 1: conquistadors they run tight, then you know he's a goofy guy.
Speaker 1: If you don't know about that, go to YouTube again
Speaker 1: after you've watched Steve Bomber screaming about developers for a
Speaker 1: good thirty seconds. Uh. Go and type in Jerry Seinfeld
Speaker 1: Bill Gates. Uh. There was a commercial that ran several
Speaker 1: years ago that was really just to promote Microsoft. It
Speaker 1: wasn't any particular Microsoft product, Microsoft The Men and a
Speaker 1: half long, and it was mostly about Jerry Seinfeld walking
Speaker 1: through the mall and seeing Bill Gates getting fitted for
Speaker 1: new shoes and then having a bizarre, absurd conversation with him.
Speaker 1: I have somehow completely missed this. It was it only
Speaker 1: aired a few times, but one of the things they
Speaker 1: talked about the type of shoes. They talked about our
Speaker 1: conkistadors and they run tight, as you find out in
Speaker 1: the In the commercial, Chris and I would quote that
Speaker 1: all the time because we both really appreciated how goofy
Speaker 1: that commercial was. He was also once arrested in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven d traffic violation. So it is nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: seven mug shot is on the internet and it is
Speaker 1: the goofiest looking thing you've ever seen. By the way,
Speaker 1: that mug shot also appears in that yeah uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And like, like Jonathan said, he's only retained five percent
Speaker 1: of ownership and Microsoft, so most of the money that
Speaker 1: he is making right now and which is he's he
Speaker 1: made six billion in has been from investment in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, other stocks and bonds, etcetera. He uh when
Speaker 1: he went to college at Harvard, and he of course
Speaker 1: dropped out uh and went to work with Paul Allen
Speaker 1: at Honeywell first and then the two of them. Actually
Speaker 1: he was still going to Harvard when he went to
Speaker 1: work for Honeywell. He dropped out of Harvard when Paul
Speaker 1: Allen said, Hey, we should get together and make a company.
Speaker 1: And so Allen essentially, according to what I read, convinced
Speaker 1: Bill Gates to drop out and to co found Microsoft.
Speaker 1: So if he had not dropped out, we might not
Speaker 1: have ever had a Microsoft, and the world would be
Speaker 1: a very different Uh. So he and Allen co founded
Speaker 1: this company. Of course, it went on to amazing success,
Speaker 1: and he went on to great success both at the
Speaker 1: company and a part of from it. So he and
Speaker 1: his wife, Melinda Gates uh founded the the Bill and
Speaker 1: Melinda Gates Foundation, which has done an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: philanthropic work, a lot in developing nations, really all concentrating
Speaker 1: on things like access to clean water, healthcare, education Forbes.
Speaker 1: Forbes lists him is the world's most generous person. It's
Speaker 1: it's pretty phenomenal, and of course he's still making boatloads
Speaker 1: of money. I know that this foundation has received criticism
Speaker 1: because the way that the foundation ends up funding the
Speaker 1: various projects that works on is through investments, just like
Speaker 1: we've spoken about earlier, and sometimes some people have said
Speaker 1: that there are times where the foundation has invested in
Speaker 1: companies that are causing some of the very problems that
Speaker 1: the foundation is trying to So things like companies that
Speaker 1: through their operation contribute to pollution and air quality, things
Speaker 1: like that, and if that's in fact how they are
Speaker 1: funding the projects, then that might be counterproductive. And they
Speaker 1: the Gates Foundation said at one point that they were
Speaker 1: going to uh instill a new policy where everything would
Speaker 1: be reviewed before it would be funded, but then eventually
Speaker 1: apparently went back to look, the this is leading us
Speaker 1: to not actually get money out to people, not quite
Speaker 1: not quite so far as to say the ends justify
Speaker 1: the means. But that's what the critics have said, right
Speaker 1: that that was their position. But ultimately they have funded
Speaker 1: a lot of charitable efforts to make the world a
Speaker 1: better place. Yeah, they've Bill and Milinda have personally given
Speaker 1: over billion. That's incredible and like we said, you know,
Speaker 1: Bill Gates was one of the ones who who founded
Speaker 1: this giving pledge idea. Uh, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have signed onto it, not just the
Speaker 1: tech billionaires we've mentioned. Um. He also owns a one
Speaker 1: five million dollar home on Lake Washington. Not actually on
Speaker 1: the lake. It's actually just on the shore of the lake.
Speaker 1: It's should should be on the lake. That would be
Speaker 1: come on floating home. Technically it's underground, or most of
Speaker 1: it is. We did a Chris and I did a
Speaker 1: great podcast about Bill Gates's house, like a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago and the place from what we could what
Speaker 1: we were able to read, because you know, there's not
Speaker 1: not all the details are available. But he didn't invite
Speaker 1: you over when he found out that you were doing
Speaker 1: the episode. Yeah. Sadly that invitation has been lost in
Speaker 1: the never been written male. Uh. Yeah, but it's an
Speaker 1: incredible house. It's one of those places where they incorporate
Speaker 1: a lot of environmental design in the house itself to
Speaker 1: make it kind of a compliment to the area, not
Speaker 1: just you know, not just a big house that's sitting
Speaker 1: on a pretty hill. It's part of a pretty hill. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also incorporated a lot of technology, including and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that he's upgraded this since then, but I
Speaker 1: remember one of the first systems I read about was
Speaker 1: an r F I D system where you would get
Speaker 1: something that would have an r F I D chip
Speaker 1: in it, and you could program the chip to whatever
Speaker 1: specifications you like, so you could say, you know, I
Speaker 1: like it when a room is seventy degrees, and I
Speaker 1: like this kind of music, and I like this kind
Speaker 1: of art, and as you moved through the house, the
Speaker 1: house changed around here. So it's the idea of the
Speaker 1: smart home. Now, you know, we're getting to the point
Speaker 1: now where the r F I D is becoming less
Speaker 1: and less necessary to achieve that. But back when the
Speaker 1: first being built, that's that was state of the art.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, pretty interesting guy. Um, he's the
Speaker 1: father of three kids. Uh. I thought i'd go ahead
Speaker 1: and drop that on there. So yeah, it's he's he's
Speaker 1: definitely done a lot, uh in technology, and and again,
Speaker 1: the world be a very different place without his contributions.
Speaker 1: So at the contributions of all of these people. Yep.
Speaker 1: And so I just thought one of their little interesting
Speaker 1: tidbits since we talked about fifteen people. One third of
Speaker 1: the billionaires we talked about dropped out of college. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we found this fascinating. Yeah, five five out of the
Speaker 1: top fifteen billionaires in technology billionaires dropped out of college.
Speaker 1: And and we're not saying that you shouldn't necessarily drop
Speaker 1: out of school. And it's it's a great Now the
Speaker 1: first star is listening to tech stuff. Obviously you are congratulations.
Speaker 1: We don't we don't know. We only teach, No, don't.
Speaker 1: We're not saying you drop out of school. But what
Speaker 1: what I was talking I was talking to Lauren before
Speaker 1: we came into the studio and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think part of it is that when you are
Speaker 1: really smart, like like these people are smart, Yes, this
Speaker 1: level of smart that which is way over my head.
Speaker 1: And then when you're this smart and you're this ambitious
Speaker 1: and you have this kind of vision, so it's not
Speaker 1: just that you're smart, but that you can you can
Speaker 1: apply that intelligence in a way that's going to resonate
Speaker 1: with people and be valuable to people. And when you
Speaker 1: are of this age so we're talking, you know, of
Speaker 1: the college age somewhere around there, then you also are
Speaker 1: at an age where you can afford to take some
Speaker 1: pretty big risks because you haven't necessarily got these other
Speaker 1: things that you have to worry about, like a family
Speaker 1: or a home or something like that. You don't already
Speaker 1: have large investments that you're going to you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: that you're going to throw away if you if you
Speaker 1: risk everything and lose. So you have you have lots
Speaker 1: of benefits. You've got a lot of energy, you've got
Speaker 1: this great idea, you've got the intelligence, you've got the opportunity,
Speaker 1: and you don't have a lot of stuff that would
Speaker 1: prevent you from taking a big risk, aside from this
Speaker 1: pesky degree that you're pursuing. Right, yeah, that might be
Speaker 1: a problem. But uh and and so we've talked about
Speaker 1: other people who realized that, you know, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a risk, like Elon Musk, where he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is something that might not work.
Speaker 1: So I want to be able to go back to
Speaker 1: my studies if I need to um. But when you
Speaker 1: get older, that that window becomes harder and harder to
Speaker 1: justify jumping through. Right at my age, I'm a married man,
Speaker 1: I own a home, I've got a lot of ties
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, it would It would take a lot
Speaker 1: for me to have to make a change. So um
Speaker 1: so there's some benefit to to doing it the way
Speaker 1: these guys have done it because they were in the
Speaker 1: right time, the right position, with the right idea. But
Speaker 1: most of us probably could benefit from finishing out the
Speaker 1: rest of that college education school kids. Yeah, actually got
Speaker 1: a great ideas, have a really incredible idea, and then
Speaker 1: we go for it. We were right there with you
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, and we deserve a cut, is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But anyway, that wraps up this discussion
Speaker 1: of some of the incredibly wealthy folks and technology. Hope
Speaker 1: you guys learn something and uh and some of these
Speaker 1: folks we will likely cover in a full podcast. Will
Speaker 1: dedicate a full podcast to someone Larry Ellison we've talked
Speaker 1: about as being someone will cover in a full episode.
Speaker 1: Now we'll do that further down the road, so not tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but but you know, these are fascinating folks
Speaker 1: and I'd love to have the opportunity to research them more. Sure, so,
Speaker 1: if you guys have any subjects we should cover in
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, whether that's a person or
Speaker 1: a company or just a type of technology, or you know,
Speaker 1: what kind of video game do I play when I
Speaker 1: go home? It's BioShock Infinite. Uh. You can just write
Speaker 1: in and let us know and we'll we'll definitely add
Speaker 1: that to the list. Our addresses tex stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can find our handle at both those locations. It
Speaker 1: is text stuff, H. S W and Lauren and I
Speaker 1: will talk to you again really soon for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it has to
Speaker 1: Works dot Com