Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and I have a
Speaker 1: dated episode here. It's time for a classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff because it is Friday, and this episode originally
Speaker 1: published on April seventeen, two thousand thirteen. This is one
Speaker 1: that I think desperately needs an update, but I thought
Speaker 1: it'd be fun to go back and visit. It's called
Speaker 1: the Richest People in Tech Enjoy. We're taking a list
Speaker 1: from the top tech billionaires off of Forbes list, which
Speaker 1: they published pretty much on a yearly basis. So this
Speaker 1: is from the list of tech billionaires. We kind of
Speaker 1: want to talk about who these people are and what
Speaker 1: they've done to kind of get to where they're going,
Speaker 1: and maybe some little trivia facts about yeah, a little
Speaker 1: bit of a profile, just to see, you know, because
Speaker 1: these these are the people that are running all of
Speaker 1: the businesses that are creating all of the cool stuff
Speaker 1: that we talk about basically, and so there's some of
Speaker 1: them are who are working for the same company. There's
Speaker 1: three from one company in fact, that rhymes with shmoogle.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. Um, but uh, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the folks that are on this list, and uh, and
Speaker 1: keep in mind, you know, this is this is like
Speaker 1: the people who have the most money. It does not
Speaker 1: necessarily mean they're the most influential, because at least a
Speaker 1: couple of them are for the most part retired, right, right.
Speaker 1: And and also it doesn't necessarily mean that they have
Speaker 1: you know, like that kind of Scrooge McDuck giant swimming
Speaker 1: pool of goal of coins. It's mostly wrapped up in
Speaker 1: stock options, so you know, right, but nonetheless, right, they
Speaker 1: may not have a lot of liquid assets compared to
Speaker 1: what they have in investments. But hey, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that I'm sure they're not they're not hurting, probably
Speaker 1: none of them are. Now. They can probably afford a
Speaker 1: nice ice cream cone on a warm summer's day. So
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about some of them. So yeah, coming
Speaker 1: in at number fifteen is James Goodnight, who has probably
Speaker 1: the most awesome name. I know he's I think I
Speaker 1: think he's a PhD. So it's doctor good Night, Doctor
Speaker 1: good Night. That is amazing. I did not think about
Speaker 1: that until you said it. Dr Goodnight is awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: Doctor Goodnight is worth, according to Forbes, about seven point
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars. And and this this is the I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the bottom of our list. Yes, so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going. We're going from number fifteen down to number one.
Speaker 1: It's a countdown. You can actually all play along at
Speaker 1: home if you like, and place bets on who you
Speaker 1: think is in the top five. Well, we'll try not
Speaker 1: to give any spoilers. No, but we've already said that
Speaker 1: three of them are from the same company. So as
Speaker 1: as we get down, you're gonna be thinking, huh, all right,
Speaker 1: which you can think of a couple of names that
Speaker 1: haven't been mentioned yet. All right. Well, what good Night
Speaker 1: did was he co founded a company called s A s.
Speaker 1: John Saul's back in nineteen seventy six. And this is
Speaker 1: a business analytics software company. Yeah, and originally it was
Speaker 1: part of a research project. You see. Uh, James good
Speaker 1: and I 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: Right when he was working in computers, it was before
Speaker 1: computers were really I think people worked on. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: certainly were no personal computers at the time where he
Speaker 1: was getting into them. He didn't find you know, he
Speaker 1: and John Stiles founded the company in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: that's just when personal computers were barely getting their start.
Speaker 1: So he uh, he had helped design some equipment for
Speaker 1: ground stations to communicate with the Apollo mission, which is awesome,
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Yeah. So he then joined the faculty of
Speaker 1: North Carolina State and while he was a faculty member there,
Speaker 1: he began to work on this project which was called
Speaker 1: a statistical analysis system or s A S I was
Speaker 1: for agricultural research actually to crunch some of that data
Speaker 1: exactly statistically analyzing the information coming back from an agricultural project.
Speaker 1: And he realized that there was a broader application for
Speaker 1: this kind of statistical model for lots of different industries.
Speaker 1: And so that's when he and Saul's got together and
Speaker 1: UH and founded s A S and UH. He led
Speaker 1: the company to grow every single year. And he's been
Speaker 1: the CEO for essentially thirty five years now, and every
Speaker 1: year he's been CEO, the company has grown. And perhaps
Speaker 1: the most remarkable thing, I think, according 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 ALVE. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Now, that doesn't mean that someone hasn't been
Speaker 1: fired from that company, but no one has been No
Speaker 1: one's job has been eliminated due to like cutbacks or something,
Speaker 1: which you know, when you're when you're talking thirty five years,
Speaker 1: that's amazing and UH And there have been books written
Speaker 1: about his management style. He's he's often shown as sort
Speaker 1: of 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 because you have to you
Speaker 1: have to ramp people up as they come into replace people.
Speaker 1: You're set back when someone leaves, so and a lot
Speaker 1: of time to reading and spinning whales. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's one of those companies that add
Speaker 1: has all kinds of services on its campuses and and
Speaker 1: lots of educational support and snacks in the break room,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, from a from a personal standpoint,
Speaker 1: he met his wife Anne while he was a senior
Speaker 1: at at North Carolina State and she was attending Meredith College.
Speaker 1: And they have three kids. So you gotta think, you know,
Speaker 1: a kid of a billionaire. Now, a lot of these
Speaker 1: billionaires were gonna be talking about. Another interesting thing I
Speaker 1: found out about a lot of them is that many
Speaker 1: of them are philanthropists. Some of them are philanthropists to
Speaker 1: such an extreme as to it, you know, they plan
Speaker 1: on giving away a large amount of their wealth before
Speaker 1: they pass on. And uh, and I know that there
Speaker 1: there's actually a fairly common thing I've heard among a
Speaker 1: lot of these people who have said they want to
Speaker 1: make sure that their their kids understand the value of
Speaker 1: hard work and the responsibility and not just coast along
Speaker 1: on the accomplishments of the parents. Right. Yeah, Since so
Speaker 1: many of these people, you know, worked themselves with the
Speaker 1: ground up, they kind of go that that was a
Speaker 1: good life lesson. Yeah. Yeah, a few of them had
Speaker 1: somewhat privileged upbringings, but a lot of them actually came
Speaker 1: from from pretty humble beginnings and had worked their way
Speaker 1: up to uh, you know, not just not just the
Speaker 1: top of their their company, but the top of the
Speaker 1: financial industry. So let's move on to number fourteen. This
Speaker 1: is our first Schmoogle person, as I recall, that's uh
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt. Yes, yes, he's worth a reported eight point
Speaker 1: two billion in net yep, and he was he used
Speaker 1: to be the CEO for Google. He was the CEO
Speaker 1: for Google for several years. He's currently the executive chairman
Speaker 1: and international Ambassador. I think that's a honorary title. He actually,
Speaker 1: well not just honorary, because he went to North Korea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she just went with that with his daughter and um
Speaker 1: Bill Richardson to talk to the leaders of North Korea
Speaker 1: about opening up internet channels. And apparently some of those
Speaker 1: talks actually started to see some some results. Apparently, UH,
Speaker 1: North Korea began to allow foreign visitors more access to
Speaker 1: things like WiFi, and some folks are saying it's a
Speaker 1: direct result of Eric Schmidt's visit. That being said, as
Speaker 1: we're recording this podcast, there is a kerfuffle in the
Speaker 1: North Korea area, and so I would imagine some of
Speaker 1: those issues are becoming a bit more complicated at the moment,
Speaker 1: as as they tend to do when nuclear warheads are involved.
Speaker 1: But he's you know, I always heard of Eric Schmidt
Speaker 1: as the CEO of Google and being like a kind
Speaker 1: of this shrewd businessman. I did not realize because I
Speaker 1: mean I just never had looked into his background very much.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that he has a background not just
Speaker 1: in business, but in actual programming. Yeah, he got his
Speaker 1: engineering degree than a PhD in computer science. I think
Speaker 1: he didn't. He was brought on to Google back in
Speaker 1: two thousand one as the chief executive to bring a
Speaker 1: little bit more business experience into the next Right, he
Speaker 1: had been the CEO of Novel before that, and but
Speaker 1: he he had actually co authored the lex analysis software
Speaker 1: program for Unix and UH, and so yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: also he's our second PhD. Um and uh. He got
Speaker 1: that the University of California while he was actually working
Speaker 1: on another project there. So he's working on a project
Speaker 1: at the University of California and pursues a PhD at
Speaker 1: the same time. Of course, he was at one point
Speaker 1: the technology advisor to President Obama. He was also at
Speaker 1: one point on the board of directors for Apple, right.
Speaker 1: He did resign from that position after it was sort
Speaker 1: of like there was some tensions between Google and Apple,
Speaker 1: mainly stemming from iOS versus Android. In fact, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was called iOS at the time. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: because he joined it in two thousand and six. Um.
Speaker 1: And and then when when everything was 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, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they're not. Is that they both had they both had babies,
Speaker 1: and they both thought their baby was the most and
Speaker 1: then they tried to fight them with 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,
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 considered a conflict of interest, and he stepped down.
Speaker 1: He married a woman by the name of Windy Boyle
Speaker 1: and had two children with her, but they separated in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, and now he's dating a concert pianist.
Speaker 1: I think one really interesting thing about a bunch of
Speaker 1: these big, big names is that technically their salaries are
Speaker 1: are practical nothing. In in Eric Schmidt's case, as of
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, anyway, his salary was technically one dollar
Speaker 1: per year. And you know, all of his fortune is
Speaker 1: 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 you might have made one or
Speaker 1: two good calls right in your time, especially when when
Speaker 1: you're the one who who created the launch of those
Speaker 1: stock options. That, yeah, that speaks well for you. I'm
Speaker 1: almost certain that taxes have something to do with that
Speaker 1: 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 a 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 the 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 of the you know, the
Speaker 1: interest in this company. So again that's before the dot
Speaker 1: com bubble bursts. So eBay had a lot of the
Speaker 1: right parts in place to survive the dot com bubble.
Speaker 1: But it also I think helped create the dot com
Speaker 1: bubble in a way because all these other people said
Speaker 1: that was possible, Why can't I Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of bandwagoning that happened, and and at a certain point,
Speaker 1: 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 mentioned 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 Befett is not the number one in tech and
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 are several people on this list who have created
Speaker 1: uh foundations that are actually investment firms because what they
Speaker 1: do is they were given a certain amount of grant
Speaker 1: money to start and then they invest that money and
Speaker 1: then from the returns on those investments, they fund various
Speaker 1: charitable efforts. Uh So. He graduated with a degree in
Speaker 1: computer science from Tufts University and for a while before
Speaker 1: he founded eBay, he worked for a subsidiary of a
Speaker 1: little company called Apple Computer. The subsidiaries called Claris and
Speaker 1: that's when he then went on to co found a
Speaker 1: company called in Development, which was originally pen based computers.
Speaker 1: So any sort of computer that would have a pen
Speaker 1: based operating a stem that you would use that's what
Speaker 1: he originally went into. It eventually became a shop which
Speaker 1: was an e commerce site, and then from that he
Speaker 1: got the idea for eBay. Yeah, I think was auction web.
Speaker 1: The first thing that he technically sold was a broken
Speaker 1: laser pointer. Yeah, fantastic. That just makes me think of
Speaker 1: the weird al song about I bought it on ebit.
Speaker 1: Uh and Uh and almady are married Pamela Kerr Almadyar
Speaker 1: who supposedly had a huge pest dispenser collection, and that
Speaker 1: that is this is part of why he decided to
Speaker 1: found eBay because of his wife's pest dispenser wow collection.
Speaker 1: I did not know that. It's always amazing to me
Speaker 1: to hear the the what was the genestic alright number twelve? Oh,
Speaker 1: here we go with a German uh Entry Hasso Plotner,
Speaker 1: who was worth eight point nine billion dollars acoring of
Speaker 1: Forbes and he is the co founder of German software
Speaker 1: company s A P, s A P A G and
Speaker 1: U s A P stands for a system analysis and
Speaker 1: program development or if I'm going to butcher my German
Speaker 1: system and a system analyze on program the vic lunk
Speaker 1: that's I a thrish dish The only thing that I
Speaker 1: can pronounce in German is my own last name. So
Speaker 1: that's that's fair. I got my German is terrible. Uh.
Speaker 1: He he founded this company along with four other former
Speaker 1: IBM colleagues. So he used to work for IBM along
Speaker 1: with these other four gentlemen, and and they they founded
Speaker 1: this and it was a company that made enterprise software.
Speaker 1: Now that means that they made software for other companies.
Speaker 1: It wasn't software for you know, you to bring home
Speaker 1: and install in your personal computer. This is something that
Speaker 1: large companies would use. And in the case of of
Speaker 1: S a P, it was software that's designed to manage
Speaker 1: business operations and customer relations. So you know, this is
Speaker 1: not something that would appeal to small businesses. It was
Speaker 1: meant for big, big, big, big big. Yeah. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of database kind of crunching going on in
Speaker 1: the process. But that means, you know, big companies mean
Speaker 1: big customers. So it's it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: a lot of other companies have looked into. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the names we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: will be familiar to you, but maybe not as a
Speaker 1: customer like a direct customer, but rather that you know,
Speaker 1: of you know the name, and maybe if you work
Speaker 1: for a big company and work with those those products
Speaker 1: you know the name of, you know some of the software,
Speaker 1: but you know, yes, yeah against on your computer at home,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have this kind of stuff installed.
Speaker 1: But um yeah yeah he he um co founded this
Speaker 1: back in two he's he's sixty nine as of right now. Yep,
Speaker 1: and uh he uh he he has an interest in
Speaker 1: lots of different things, including yachting and uh. And his
Speaker 1: interest in yachting, he has seen himself compete head to
Speaker 1: head against another person who will appear on our list
Speaker 1: further down. I'll go ahead and spoil it because it's
Speaker 1: too funny and I will never remember by the time
Speaker 1: we get down to to this fellow Larry Ellison, CEO
Speaker 1: of Oracle, So Larry Elson very well known for his
Speaker 1: yachting uh interests and uh and how so Platner have had.
Speaker 1: So they've both participated in yachting events where their individual
Speaker 1: yachts went directly head to head against each other. And
Speaker 1: apparently there have been words exchanged battle yachts, some in
Speaker 1: German battle battle yachts driven by babies. All right, we're
Speaker 1: getting a little too far. That's sorry. It's maybe like
Speaker 1: after season four or five and things are starting to
Speaker 1: peter off, we have to introduce a new twist. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of interesting that these guys
Speaker 1: and I got really snarky in my notes, didn't. I said,
Speaker 1: it shows that the CEO still know how to have fun,
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us common folk. Uh. He
Speaker 1: has also Plattner has also supported philanthropic efforts. In his case,
Speaker 1: he has spent a lot of money UM to support
Speaker 1: effort 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 because because she's
Speaker 1: the woman. What what is 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 okay, all right, Lauren Powell Jobs
Speaker 1: worth a net ten point seven billion UM. She is
Speaker 1: she is the wealthiest woman in tech in fact, and
Speaker 1: this is this is um Steve Jobs widow who we
Speaker 1: are talking about so um. She she most of her
Speaker 1: wealth comes from the fact that she owns seven point
Speaker 1: three percent of a little entertainment company you may have
Speaker 1: heard about, Disney, yep, seven point of Disney. That that
Speaker 1: translates to about six point nine billion dollars worth of cares. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is through the trust that Steve Jobs left
Speaker 1: to her when he passed away. Yes, but she's also
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it's not she has inherited quite
Speaker 1: a bit from Steve Jobs, but she herself has been
Speaker 1: very instrumental in several different companies. Oh. Absolutely, she's She's
Speaker 1: only forty nine years old. She's um. She's got a
Speaker 1: few degrees in business, and unlike Jobs, she stuck with
Speaker 1: her her studies. But he met her when she was
Speaker 1: in college, I believe, and so at the at Stanford University.
Speaker 1: And she is the co founder and president of the
Speaker 1: board of for College Track and College Track as an
Speaker 1: after school program that's designed to help high school students
Speaker 1: study and and excel and also to succeed in college.
Speaker 1: And uh. And her interest in education goes well beyond that,
Speaker 1: which is you know, this makes sense too, because Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs was very much interested in education when he was
Speaker 1: the head of the Next Computer back back when Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs initially left Apple or was fired for Apple, depends
Speaker 1: on your point of view. When he left, he founded
Speaker 1: a new company called Next Computers, and it was really
Speaker 1: for to make an educational computer, like a computer for
Speaker 1: education systems for students. Uh. And then he was called
Speaker 1: back to save Apple when it was on the brink
Speaker 1: of bankruptcy and he uh, he never really lost his
Speaker 1: his passion for education, but he definitely had a lot
Speaker 1: more on his play at that point. Well. She has
Speaker 1: dedicated much of her life to working on ways to
Speaker 1: improve education and to give students tools that they could
Speaker 1: use to improve themselves. And she also co founded tera Vera,
Speaker 1: which is a natural foods company. She served on the
Speaker 1: board of directors for a couple of other companies like Achieva,
Speaker 1: which is a company that makes study tools for students.
Speaker 1: Again and um, she was appointed in twenty ten to
Speaker 1: be part of the White House Council for Community Solutions.
Speaker 1: She was appointed by President Barack Obama himself. Um and yeah.
Speaker 1: She received an NBA for Stanford and n and married
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs that same year and they had three kids together. Yeah. Right. Lately,
Speaker 1: she's been really into promoting the Dream Act, which is
Speaker 1: the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. It's
Speaker 1: failed to pass through Congress a couple of times now,
Speaker 1: but it would give undocumented US citizens, undocumented US citizens,
Speaker 1: undocumented US youth a chance to gain citizenship by um
Speaker 1: either joining the armed services or going to college. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The idea of being that these are people who are
Speaker 1: going to uh to contribute positively to society, and therefore
Speaker 1: society should extend to them the opportunity, right, especially if
Speaker 1: they came here before they were fifteen. And you know
Speaker 1: that's because that's not at that point, that's not their fault,
Speaker 1: so right, and beyond that, just the idea of for
Speaker 1: the United States to succeed, we have to encourage uh,
Speaker 1: you know, excellence, and so you know, this is one
Speaker 1: way of doing it. Yeah, it's really interesting. Well that's
Speaker 1: that's our first batch of five. Uh. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: back to talking about some of these uh, these really
Speaker 1: influential billionaires in technology. So at number ten, we have
Speaker 1: a Zeem PMG who is worth about eleven point two
Speaker 1: billion dollars and he's an Indian businessman who's the chairman
Speaker 1: of white Pro Limited, which is one of those companies
Speaker 1: that started doing one thing and then dramatically changed its focus.
Speaker 1: I know, I know currently they do they work with outsourcing. Yes,
Speaker 1: it started out making vegetable oil. Vegetable oil, that is
Speaker 1: a jump. Yeah, I started making vegetable oil for for
Speaker 1: Indian food and then um, it eventually began to diversify.
Speaker 1: It started making hydrogen atdive, fats, toilet trees, soaps, lighting products, hydraulics.
Speaker 1: It's it is. It is still diversifying right now. It's well,
Speaker 1: the the entire outsourcing industry is getting pretty tough right now,
Speaker 1: and so they're they just spun off its consumer products
Speaker 1: arm and two why Pro Enterprises and bought a skincare
Speaker 1: firm in December. Yeah, so this is um. This is
Speaker 1: one of those things where if you were to have
Speaker 1: the you've heard of the elevator's speech right when you
Speaker 1: you are in an elevator with someone else and they
Speaker 1: asked you what you do, you have to have like
Speaker 1: a way of summing up what you do in just
Speaker 1: about fifteen seconds that that explains accurately what you do.
Speaker 1: I bet this guy has a hard time doing that, um,
Speaker 1: especially since he's considered Asia's most generous person. He has
Speaker 1: donated a two point three billion and shares a hy
Speaker 1: pro to his educational foundation in February after signing that
Speaker 1: that Buffett giving pledge Buffet slash somebody someone who could
Speaker 1: it be? And that was on top of two billion
Speaker 1: dollars that he had already donated. So again a very
Speaker 1: generous philanthropist. Uh. And he actually holds a degree in
Speaker 1: electrical engineering from Stanford University. UM. And he's married to
Speaker 1: Yasmine prim g and they have two children. All right,
Speaker 1: so let's move on to number nine. Now, this is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, number nine. This is a guy who
Speaker 1: has been on this list several times and hash seeing
Speaker 1: his his ranking changed pretty dramatically year over year. Uh.
Speaker 1: We expect to see that happen a lot now because
Speaker 1: the company he founded had an initial public offering last
Speaker 1: year back in two thousand twelve, and his personal value
Speaker 1: hinges directly upon the stock price of his company. We are,
Speaker 1: of course, talking about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Yes,
Speaker 1: he is worth a net thirteen point three billion. He
Speaker 1: is also only twenty eight years old, which somehow had
Speaker 1: escaped me up until I was researching this article, and
Speaker 1: that was that was what it hurts it really, it
Speaker 1: really does. Yeah. I am nearly a decade older than
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and I haven't seen my first billion yet. But
Speaker 1: then I haven't founded a company that has over one
Speaker 1: billion active users either, so I can't really complain, I guess. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you haven't been working quite as hard. Yeah. Yeah. Facebook
Speaker 1: when public last May at a thirty eight dollars per
Speaker 1: share and had fallen to under twenty by August. It's
Speaker 1: it's rebounded about thirty according to Forbes. Since then. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this was one of those you may remember,
Speaker 1: Chris and I did a podcast all about Facebook going
Speaker 1: public and the issues that surrounded it, and part of
Speaker 1: that was that, um, there was there was a scandal,
Speaker 1: something of a scandal anyway, that when the the company,
Speaker 1: you know, when the actual public offering happened, that Facebook
Speaker 1: had told some of its larger shareholders who would have
Speaker 1: started off right at the very beginning, that the company
Speaker 1: was going to be worth less than what they had
Speaker 1: projected earlier in the year, and that that would in
Speaker 1: turn affect the stock price. But the actual stock price
Speaker 1: itself the starting stock price didn't change, Okay, so uh
Speaker 1: so it's like saying that, you know, this five dollar uh,
Speaker 1: this five dollar thing you bought, turns out it's really
Speaker 1: worth more like three dollars fifty cents, but they don't
Speaker 1: tell you that, and you go and spend the five
Speaker 1: dollars and then you go around to you turn around,
Speaker 1: you decide you don't want you turn around to sell
Speaker 1: it to someone else, but you can only get three
Speaker 1: dollars and fifty cents for it. Um. It's an oversimplified
Speaker 1: way of saying what happened, but that's it's that's essentially
Speaker 1: what happened. And some people or some really some financial
Speaker 1: institutions knew about this and some didn't, and that caused
Speaker 1: a bit of the scandal. Technically, nothing was illegal, but
Speaker 1: some people say that it may have been kind of underhand,
Speaker 1: and yeah, so, uh you know that that was a
Speaker 1: bit of a black eye. And also again because the
Speaker 1: stock price took a hit, Zuckerberg's personal net wealth took
Speaker 1: a hit. Yeah, but like eight point one billion dollars, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot of money. He attended Harvard College,
Speaker 1: but he did not finish matriculating. He dropped out. Um,
Speaker 1: he created Uh, you may remember we've talked about this
Speaker 1: in the past. He created an application called facemash, which
Speaker 1: allowed people to vote on the attractiveness of their fellow
Speaker 1: students and are right, yeah, I remember that from from
Speaker 1: the social network more than anything else. Um, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it was just if you could, you could
Speaker 1: call it tacky, but we've seen plenty more of those
Speaker 1: sort of things pop up, mostly from people who voluntarily
Speaker 1: share their image. Face mash was kind of similar to that.
Speaker 1: But then he launched Facebook in two thousand and four
Speaker 1: while he was a student at Harvard, and it dropped
Speaker 1: out to focus primarily upon Facebook, and it got kind
Speaker 1: a little popular hit you know again one billion users,
Speaker 1: so that was pretty exciting. He also is one of
Speaker 1: the people who has signed this giving pledge that we
Speaker 1: talked about that Buffett and uh came up with, And
Speaker 1: so he's probably that pledge, by the way, states that
Speaker 1: the people who signed it are promising essentially to give
Speaker 1: away at least half of their wealth before the pass right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's he's also um Glass Doors top employee
Speaker 1: rated CEO. Oh okay, yeah, he also I remember back
Speaker 1: when he was known as the guy who would only
Speaker 1: eat what he could kill. I don't know, did you
Speaker 1: ever read that or hear about that? I heard, I
Speaker 1: heard a crazy internet rumor about it, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that I saw it on a reputable story. So
Speaker 1: I heard I heard about on so many tech podcasts
Speaker 1: back when that that kind of news story broke. But
Speaker 1: then in he posted on his Facebook profile that he
Speaker 1: is now a vegetarian. So maybe he's a really bad
Speaker 1: hunter and he can only catch cucumbers. I think only
Speaker 1: carets would be about my speed personally, Mrs Zuckerberg, I'm
Speaker 1: just joshing, Please don't hunt me. Um. He got married
Speaker 1: in to Priscilla Chan and uh so, yeah he's Um.
Speaker 1: He's doing pretty well for himself. Not too bad that
Speaker 1: despite that one point year old and ranked number nine
Speaker 1: and tech Building well last year he was six, So
Speaker 1: really he should he should feel bad. He's bad, and
Speaker 1: he should feel bad right, exactly, just like I do
Speaker 1: every day. Number eight. Paul Allen. Allen worth that he's
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Microsoft, the other one
Speaker 1: being well, you know anyway, So he co founded Microsoft.
Speaker 1: He made a lot of his current wealth in real estate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Vulcan real Estate. It's the name of his company, Vulcan Incorporate, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which also manages his philanthropic efforts, because, like several the
Speaker 1: other billionaires on this list, he is a philanthropist. He
Speaker 1: is also another dropout. He went to Washington State University
Speaker 1: but dropped out after two years to start working in
Speaker 1: Honeywell in Boston. Um And he owns a couple of
Speaker 1: sports teams, right, yeah, the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland's Trailblazers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a football game in our football game
Speaker 1: football team and the basketball. I'm not big on the
Speaker 1: sports 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 sport that sports entertainment. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Paul Ellen lately has been selling off a
Speaker 1: lot of his shares with Microsoft and starting to um
Speaker 1: invest and diversify in a bunch of other stuff. And
Speaker 1: he's he's also he lost his mother recently to Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: and related complications and has been UM really active in
Speaker 1: brain research. Um donated five hundred million to the Allen
Speaker 1: Institute for Brain Science. Yeah, he's He's made some substantial
Speaker 1: contributions financial contributions to lots of different nonprofit organizations. Um.
Speaker 1: He also just another here's a little trivia for you.
Speaker 1: When he took the S A T S he got
Speaker 1: a perfect score, perfect scoring math. That was back in
Speaker 1: both sides. I have heard about the math, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't heard about Yeah back when the s S went
Speaker 1: up to sixteen. Yeah, that was by the way, back
Speaker 1: back in then. That's how it was when I took
Speaker 1: to so back in the day, kids, was the top
Speaker 1: score you could make and you could not You couldn't
Speaker 1: fudge that like that was a perfect score. You know,
Speaker 1: because there are versions of the S A T since
Speaker 1: then where you could quote unquote hit a perfect score
Speaker 1: 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 them anyway.
Speaker 1: He made a perfect score on that. So, yes, smart guy. UM.
Speaker 1: He never never married. He is he's a bachelor he's had,
Speaker 1: uh had just the only bachelor I think that we
Speaker 1: have on this list. Is there a call I might
Speaker 1: be wrong about that. We'll find out when we get
Speaker 1: towards the very bottle him. 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 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 uh.
Speaker 1: He also went to Harvard University, but he finished Uh
Speaker 1: he like Zuckerberg, he earned a degree in mathematics and
Speaker 1: one in economics. UM. And he met he met one
Speaker 1: 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 a Microsoft
Speaker 1: in the seventies. They invite the bomber to come and
Speaker 1: work for Microsoft. He drops out of grad school at
Speaker 1: Stanford and he becomes the thirty employee of Microsoft and
Speaker 1: was a business manager. His salary was about fifty thou
Speaker 1: dollars a year when he first started, and he had
Speaker 1: also received a percentage of ownership in 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 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, he became. Yeah, so he's he's been he's
Speaker 1: been working there for a total of thirty three years
Speaker 1: and it's been CEO for thirteen. Um. He's he's actually
Speaker 1: a little bit 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: the 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. There are some areas of
Speaker 1: Microsoft that I think you can say pretty strongly are
Speaker 1: are are doing really well. One of them is something
Speaker 1: that Lauren and I both enjoy, which is the Xbox
Speaker 1: as 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 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
Speaker 1: also 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 moved 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: in 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, Balmber'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
Speaker 1: right right, It's easy for us to sit back here
Speaker 1: and go like, wow, why are you doing? And then
Speaker 1: but if you were to put me in charge of
Speaker 1: that company, we'd be bankrupt in two days, you know.
Speaker 1: All right? Moving on to number six, Jonathan liquid fied
Speaker 1: all of our shares to kid cats himself off in
Speaker 1: the back off butterfinger actually, but yes, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: not a bad guest. I'm sure will be at least
Speaker 1: a few kit kats. Oh good times, all right. Number
Speaker 1: six is uh is the co founder of another company
Speaker 1: or a founder of another company. Michael Dell worth a
Speaker 1: net fifteen point three billion. Dude, He needed lots of
Speaker 1: delves there. He's the founder and CEO of Dell Incorporated,
Speaker 1: Dell Computers. So that was one of those companies that
Speaker 1: made personal computers a viable business, right, this was they
Speaker 1: founded it? Yeah, yeah, it was as while he was
Speaker 1: attending the University of Texas at Austin, which he dropped
Speaker 1: out of. He's another dropout, ye, and became the youngest
Speaker 1: CEO to have his company ranked in Fortune's Top five corporations.
Speaker 1: He was only twenty seven at the time that that happened.
Speaker 1: Uh so, you know, again, pretty amazing and and uh
Speaker 1: very determined. He became interested in investments when he was
Speaker 1: still a teenager, Like he would take part time jobs,
Speaker 1: and instead of just you know, putting the money away
Speaker 1: or or spending it on something frivolous, he was actually
Speaker 1: investing in things like precious metals and stocks as a team.
Speaker 1: That's that would probably be why he's worth fifteen point
Speaker 1: three billion and I'm worth a negative. And I also,
Speaker 1: I also read an interesting story. I all know if
Speaker 1: this is true or not. And I'm I'm paraphrasing because
Speaker 1: I didn't write this down on my notes, but I
Speaker 1: wrote a story that he had discovered, um like, he
Speaker 1: had essentially was what amounted to a paper route where
Speaker 1: it was really him selling newspapers, selling newspaper subscriptions. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's selling newspaper subscription He's really more of a
Speaker 1: salesperson for a newspaper and he noticed a trend, and
Speaker 1: this is something that he got really good at. It
Speaker 1: is is UH analyzing systems and seeing how best to
Speaker 1: work within a system or to manipulate that system, not
Speaker 1: in a bad way, but just the most advantageous way.
Speaker 1: He started to notice that people who were moving into
Speaker 1: the city were more likely to subscribe to a newspaper
Speaker 1: as part of establishing their new home, and so he
Speaker 1: began to target people he had, like he would get
Speaker 1: records showing where houses had just been bought, and he
Speaker 1: would 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 so
Speaker 1: he was putting that kind of brain power to use
Speaker 1: when he was in the university and he began to
Speaker 1: realize that. He started to to offer to build and
Speaker 1: sell PCs to other students and noticed that this was
Speaker 1: a viable way of making money, and so he became
Speaker 1: he started a company called PCs Limited that would eventually
Speaker 1: become del incorporated. UH He married Susan Lynn Lieberman in
Speaker 1: ninety nine and they have four children together. And they
Speaker 1: also established the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, which a
Speaker 1: philanthropic organization that focuses primarily on child health and family
Speaker 1: economic stability. They are committed to donating a hundred million
Speaker 1: a year to that. UM. Dell meanwhile, is not doing
Speaker 1: extraordinarily well these days there. Um uh, their stock is
Speaker 1: done I think from as a February from last year,
Speaker 1: and um, Michael Dell has announced that he wants to
Speaker 1: take Dell private and is trying to strike an agreement
Speaker 1: with the shareholders right now, who are not really excited
Speaker 1: about the deal. Yeah. He his plan was to buy
Speaker 1: back all those shares make it a private company again,
Speaker 1: so essentially reversing the I p O. Yeah, for point
Speaker 1: four billion, which the shareholders are going like, that's what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're saying that's way too that's that's that's undervaluing the company,
Speaker 1: is their argument, whereas his argument is, if we keep
Speaker 1: going the way we're going, this company is going to
Speaker 1: be worthless. So um, it'll be interesting to see how
Speaker 1: that works out, because you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: there are times when a company goes public, where you
Speaker 1: realize further down the road that that was that was
Speaker 1: not a good deal, because again you have to answer
Speaker 1: or to shareholders. Sometimes that's a great thing. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: exactly what a company needs to succeed. Other times, like
Speaker 1: in this case, you can tell that maybe that was
Speaker 1: the you know, maybe it was the right decision at
Speaker 1: the time, but it's no longer. Yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, it's it's computer industry needs
Speaker 1: to be nimble, and dealing with shareholders is never really
Speaker 1: a nimble. It's pretty hard to reverse that decision once
Speaker 1: it happens, too, But we'll see if that pans out. Well,
Speaker 1: we're about to go into our top five. Before we do,
Speaker 1: I'd like to take a quick moment to thank our
Speaker 1: other sponsor. So we're getting into the top five here,
Speaker 1: Number five is another person from Schmoogle Google. We can
Speaker 1: say the name now, it's not I kind of I
Speaker 1: kind of can't can't help myself at this point, we're
Speaker 1: talking about Sarah A. Brenn, who was one of the
Speaker 1: co founders of Google. Yes, he is worth a net
Speaker 1: twenty two point eight billion and he's the director of
Speaker 1: Special Projects at Google, which means that he so oversees
Speaker 1: the super awesome, cool ridiculous stuff like the autonomous cars,
Speaker 1: Google glass, yeah, things, things like that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: where you know, we've heard rumor that Google might have
Speaker 1: a smart watch in the works that could have an
Speaker 1: augmented reality application included in this. UM I I would
Speaker 1: imagine that falls under his jurisdiction and as a special project.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty clear that Sarah a Brand wants to
Speaker 1: become a cyborg and rule us all. Uh. He he's
Speaker 1: a smart, smart guy. His parents were both from Moscow
Speaker 1: and right then they moved the family to America when
Speaker 1: he was six, yes, six years old. His father was
Speaker 1: a mathematics professor at the University of Moscow and his
Speaker 1: mother ended up being a researcher for NASA. Sorry, sorry
Speaker 1: I cut off here. You know, it's just gonna be
Speaker 1: it's gonna be smart. But you d smartified me. That's fine.
Speaker 1: The listeners wish they could do it all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But so the point being that his parents wicked smart,
Speaker 1: like you know, already, mathematicians, researchers, really smart people. Um
Speaker 1: some of the people on this list we've talked about
Speaker 1: our folks who you know, they came from maybe not
Speaker 1: you know, humble beginnings, but not there the parents were
Speaker 1: not necessarily normal people more or lest. Yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna. I'm not gonna. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: personally don't have any parents who have worked for NASSA,
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. He received degrees
Speaker 1: 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 towards that.
Speaker 1: His studies are on indefinite hold right now, so technically
Speaker 1: he hasn't dropped out of grad school right in Stanford.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really want to go get in the boot, I
Speaker 1: don't think. Yeah, but I mean it all depends. Like
Speaker 1: the Stanford's already got that that record of other people
Speaker 1: who said, can I get a deferment and they said no,
Speaker 1: And that's fine. I'm going to become a billionaire. That's
Speaker 1: happened a few times. But uh, but so he and
Speaker 1: when I had became a billionaire. But maybe maybe one
Speaker 1: day 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 Bren 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 it wasn't necessarily a friendly kind
Speaker 1: of snark. Yes, supposedly they did not totally get along
Speaker 1: upon first meeting, but they ended up spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time together because they were working on the same
Speaker 1: research project called back rub, which was this project to
Speaker 1: help index the up They were talking about how a
Speaker 1: link on a web page is kind of like a site,
Speaker 1: like a c i T. E. Site, not sitation excitation exactly,
Speaker 1: and that if you were to index all of these
Speaker 1: you could easily navigate around the web, so that was
Speaker 1: the basis of BackRub, which eventually became Google. And and
Speaker 1: this had been pages idea at first, I believe, and
Speaker 1: he kind of needed somebody with with a stronger computer
Speaker 1: background and mathematical skill. Yes, so Brent came on. Brent
Speaker 1: had already been at Stanford for a while, and in fact,
Speaker 1: originally Brent had shown Page around for the graduate program.
Speaker 1: That's time when they first met, and then he ended
Speaker 1: up working on pages project. And as they worked together
Speaker 1: they became they became buddy buddy. They got past that
Speaker 1: initial he's kind of a jerk. That guy's kind of
Speaker 1: a jerk. Uh. And in two thousand seven, Sarah Gey
Speaker 1: Brenn married Anne 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 arm of Google. And it's a division that
Speaker 1: looks at lots of different problems, including ways of creating
Speaker 1: 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 bag Change. So the other half of the Google
Speaker 1: co founder duo's He's worth a net twin ye, so
Speaker 1: point two billion more than h than Sarage. 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 play monopoly with real cities. Uh. I
Speaker 1: was gonna make a joke, but I'm gonna stop on
Speaker 1: that one. So anyway, Uh, he's actually been the acting
Speaker 1: He's been the CEO for Google since April eleven, so
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt, of course was the former CEO. When Schmidt
Speaker 1: stepped down, they were talking about who was going to
Speaker 1: be the next CEO. Was there going to be an
Speaker 1: 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 Brinn 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 Teslamotors. Ye have
Speaker 1: Tesla Motors. Um I found both him and Aswer I think, okay,
Speaker 1: I believe I knew that page was um and he
Speaker 1: married Lucinda Southworth in two thousand seven and they have
Speaker 1: one child together. And um Google is doing incredibly well.
Speaker 1: There's Stacros, which earned page four billion personally, So don't
Speaker 1: don't 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 our Amazon two
Speaker 1: part two part. Keep talking about doing the third part,
Speaker 1: but we keep putting it off because we're we think
Speaker 1: after covering Amazon so thoroughly that we didn't want to
Speaker 1: you 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, he's
Speaker 1: very very close with him. He considers him his real dad.
Speaker 1: That's his real dad, because he was there to raise him.
Speaker 1: And so he his maternal grandfather worked for DARPA on
Speaker 1: space technology and missile defense technology, and he was a
Speaker 1: very instrumental figure in early life. On a calm, Jeff, Jeff, Well,
Speaker 1: you guys are so I'm so tight. Yeah, I've ordered
Speaker 1: three day It's Jeff this and Jeff that I ordered
Speaker 1: so many things from his site, you would think he
Speaker 1: would know me by name. At this point, he at
Speaker 1: least knows my address. So he graduated with a degree
Speaker 1: in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton. He met
Speaker 1: his wife, mckensey Bezos while they were both working at
Speaker 1: a hedge fund company called D. E. Shaw. And while
Speaker 1: he was working there, he was working on some database
Speaker 1: projects and that's when he got the idea of you
Speaker 1: could create a website that could become an online retail
Speaker 1: space for books, which is exactly what Amazon dot Com
Speaker 1: was originally. When it first started, it was just about
Speaker 1: the books books only. Yeah, they shipped their first one um,
Speaker 1: but had expanded so much that they went public in
Speaker 1: h didn't take long at all. So again, this is
Speaker 1: one of those companies that existed before the dot com
Speaker 1: bubble burst and uh and really quite well through it.
Speaker 1: They didn't they didn't make a profit for a long time. No,
Speaker 1: they weren't. Their revenues were not profitable, but they were
Speaker 1: growing quite a bit. And and the reason that they
Speaker 1: weren't profitable was was not because they were not doing well,
Speaker 1: but because they kept you know, they were growing so
Speaker 1: quickly and expanding so quickly into so many new distribution
Speaker 1: centers and so many new areas. The costs were higher
Speaker 1: than what they were bringing in, but they were Their
Speaker 1: revenues were increasing year over year, so there was lots
Speaker 1: of growth. There just wasn't a lot of of actual
Speaker 1: profit for the first few years. But it did start
Speaker 1: to turn profit and then didn't stop. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not a problem anymore. They their stock last year, earning
Speaker 1: Bezos personally six yea, and he was in He was
Speaker 1: named Time Magazines Person of the Year because that the
Speaker 1: Amazon had become so influential even back then in ninety
Speaker 1: nine before again the dot com bubble went Carr pluey.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's done quite well for himself. He's number
Speaker 1: three on the list, which leads us to number two.
Speaker 1: Mr Larry Ellison, one of the more controversial figures from
Speaker 1: technology where worth worth the net billion controversy or now
Speaker 1: he is. He is America's third richest man. In fact, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. We went from twenty five point
Speaker 1: two billion with Bezos to forty three billion with Larry Ellison.
Speaker 1: He of course, is a co founder of the Oracle Corporation.
Speaker 1: UM and uh, he's. He's made quite a name for
Speaker 1: himself for multiple reasons. One is that again he's the
Speaker 1: guy who sets his yacht against the fellow we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier in the podcast Great Right. He's he's also removed
Speaker 1: to be exploring a deal to purchase the Sacramento Kings
Speaker 1: to prevent them from being moved to Seattle, so he's
Speaker 1: in direct conflict with two of the people on our list.
Speaker 1: He also he's he's bought some pretty famous places, like
Speaker 1: an island of Hawaii, Lennai, of one of the Hawaiian 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, he just dropped
Speaker 1: five hundred 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 Az you're
Speaker 1: in Malibu and you think there's an earthquake, make sure
Speaker 1: that Ellison's not having a house Parker starting. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If he's dropping some mad beats, that might be what
Speaker 1: you're feeling instead. He's another college dropout, not from both
Speaker 1: in the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois
Speaker 1: at Urbana Champagne. Yeah yeah he um. He believes in
Speaker 1: doing it wholeheartedly in multip full universities. UM. His adoptive
Speaker 1: father actually assumed the name Ellison to commemorate the fact
Speaker 1: that he came to America and passed through Ellis Island.
Speaker 1: So Ellison Ellison is from that. UM. He worked at
Speaker 1: a few companies in California when he was in his twenties,
Speaker 1: and he designed a database for a little organization called
Speaker 1: the c I A UH, and that database was called Oracle,
Speaker 1: and that's when he got the idea to found a
Speaker 1: software company. It was originally called software Development Laboratories, not laboratories, um,
Speaker 1: which is how I usually say it, and that's what
Speaker 1: eventually became Oracle. UH. This is again enterprise software. So
Speaker 1: the Oracles one of those names that I think like Oracle,
Speaker 1: Sun Microsystems like these are these are big names that
Speaker 1: people are familiar with, even IBM to some extent, they're
Speaker 1: familiar with, but they haven't necessarily used it in a
Speaker 1: personal person unless they work for a company that has
Speaker 1: these systems and they're in charge of him anyway. Um.
Speaker 1: I believe he's been married and divorced four times, so
Speaker 1: he's had some issues in his personal life. Um. He's
Speaker 1: also known 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 our number
Speaker 1: one number one is yet that's it's amazing. Yes, he's
Speaker 1: thus far donated um million, mostly by Oracle Stock. Right. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's another one of the members of this this
Speaker 1: elite club of billionaires who have signed the giving Pledge
Speaker 1: to to really try and make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: I can't criticize that at all. That's a phenomenal thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why I would like to think that
Speaker 1: if I were a billionaire, I would do the same thing.
Speaker 1: But of course I'm not in that position, so it's
Speaker 1: really easy for me to say it. Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that you would be a mad scientist and
Speaker 1: would be really busy doing mad, So you gotta at
Speaker 1: least be a frustrated scientist if not outright mad. But
Speaker 1: you can still you can, you can still participate in
Speaker 1: have you sharity? Have you watched? If you watched the
Speaker 1: forward thinking episode about our cities growing, you'll see me
Speaker 1: deliver one of my megalomaniacal monologues. And I guess man
Speaker 1: scientists is pretty accurate, you know, based on that. So
Speaker 1: that's fair, all right. So that takes us up to
Speaker 1: number one. And number one, of course is the the
Speaker 1: other person along with Warren Buffett, who said let's do
Speaker 1: this pledge, and that is of course Bill Gates, Yes,
Speaker 1: um net sixties seven billion, yes, seven billion dollars, has
Speaker 1: a huge amount of money um and he he only
Speaker 1: retains about five percent ownership of Microsoft, so most most
Speaker 1: of that wealth comes from investments that are in other
Speaker 1: industries and things in bonds and stocks. He's invested in
Speaker 1: other companies, He's founded other companies. UH. He was the
Speaker 1: CEO of mike or Soft for many years. He stepped
Speaker 1: down in two thousand. Of course, Bomber 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 six, and retired in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: And I actually remember when you retired because I went
Speaker 1: to c E S when they were talking about the
Speaker 1: fact that Gates was going to retire. It was his
Speaker 1: final keynote at c E S UM, and so they
Speaker 1: presented this very cute video package that showed a typical
Speaker 1: day of Gates. Yeah, and it was absolutely ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: was very clear that Bill Gates has a very healthy
Speaker 1: sense of humor about himself. He seems to enjoy poking
Speaker 1: fun at his own reputation. Uh and um. And that's
Speaker 1: also clear. If you guys know where the phrase conquistadors
Speaker 1: 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 screen about developers for a
Speaker 1: good thirty seconds, go and type in Jerry Seinfeld Bill Gates. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was a commercial that ran several years ago that
Speaker 1: was really just to promote Microsoft. It wasn't any particular
Speaker 1: Microsoft product, just a Microsoft men and a half long
Speaker 1: and it was mostly about Jerry Seinfeld walking through the
Speaker 1: mall and seeing Bill Gates getting fitted for new shoes
Speaker 1: and then having a bizarre, absurd conversation with him. I
Speaker 1: have somehow completely missed this. It was it only aired
Speaker 1: a few times. But one of the things they talked
Speaker 1: about the type of shoes. They talked about our conquistadors
Speaker 1: and they run tight, as you find out in the
Speaker 1: in the commercial. Chris and I would quote that all
Speaker 1: the time because we both really appreciated how goofy that
Speaker 1: commercial was. He was also once arrested in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven d traffic violation. So it is nineteen seven. Mug
Speaker 1: shot is on the internet and it is the goofiest
Speaker 1: looking thing you've ever seen. By the way, that mug
Speaker 1: shot also appears in that contest door commercial herschell yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And like Jonathan said, he's only retained five
Speaker 1: percent of ownership and Microsoft, So most of the money
Speaker 1: that he is making right now, and which is he's
Speaker 1: he made six billion in has been from investment in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, other stocks and bonds and etcetera. He uh,
Speaker 1: when he went to college at Harvard and he of
Speaker 1: course dropped out uh and went to work with Paul
Speaker 1: Allen at Honeywell first, and then the two of them.
Speaker 1: Actually he was still going to Harvard when he went
Speaker 1: to work for Honeywell. He dropped out of Harvard when
Speaker 1: Paul Allen said, Hey, we should get together and make
Speaker 1: a company. And so Allen, essentially, according to what I read,
Speaker 1: convinced 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 So he and Allen co founded this company.
Speaker 1: Of course, it went on to amazing success, and he
Speaker 1: went on to great success both at company and a
Speaker 1: part of from it. So he and his wife, Melinda
Speaker 1: Gates uh founded the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Speaker 1: which has done an incredible amount of philanthropic work, a
Speaker 1: lot in developing nations, really all concentrating on things like
Speaker 1: access to clean water, healthcare, education forms Forbes lists and
Speaker 1: is the world's most generous person. It's it's pretty phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and of course he's still making boatloads of money. I
Speaker 1: know that this foundation has received criticism because the way
Speaker 1: that the foundation ends up funding the various projects it
Speaker 1: works on is through investments, just like we've spoken about earlier,
Speaker 1: and sometimes some people have said that there are times
Speaker 1: where the foundation has invested in companies that are causing
Speaker 1: some of the very problems that the foundation is trying
Speaker 1: to So things like companies that through their operation contribute
Speaker 1: to pollution and air quality, things like that, and if
Speaker 1: that's in fact how they are funding the projects, then
Speaker 1: that might be counterproductive. And they the Gates Foundation said
Speaker 1: at one point that they were going to uh instill
Speaker 1: a new policy where everything would be reviewed before it
Speaker 1: would be funded, but then eventually apparently went back to look,
Speaker 1: the MORESS really compresme, this is leading us to not
Speaker 1: actually get money out to people, not quite not quite
Speaker 1: so far as to say the ends justify the means.
Speaker 1: But that's what the critics have said, right that that
Speaker 1: was their position. But ultimately they have funded a lot
Speaker 1: of charitable efforts to make the world a better place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they Bill and Milinda have personally given over billion. That's incredible.
Speaker 1: And like we said, you know, Bill Gates was one
Speaker 1: of the ones who founded this giving pledge idea uh
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of people who have signed
Speaker 1: onto it, not just the tech billionaires. We've mentioned um.
Speaker 1: He also owns a one hundred twenty five million dollar
Speaker 1: home on Lake Washington. Not actually on the lake. It's
Speaker 1: actually just on the shore of the lake. It's should
Speaker 1: should be on the lake, that would be come on
Speaker 1: floating home. Technically it's underground, or most of it is.
Speaker 1: We did a Chris and I did a great podcast
Speaker 1: about Bill Gates's house, like a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: and the place from what we could what we were
Speaker 1: able to read, because you know, there's not not all
Speaker 1: the details are available. But he didn't invite you over
Speaker 1: when he found out that you were doing the episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sadly that invitation has been lost in the never been written. Male. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's an incredible house. It's one of those places
Speaker 1: where they incorporate a lot of environmental design in the
Speaker 1: house itself to make it kind of a compliment to
Speaker 1: the area, not just you know, not just a big
Speaker 1: house that's sitting on a pretty day. It's part of
Speaker 1: a pretty hill. Uh. They also incorporated a lot of technology,
Speaker 1: including and I'm I'm assuming that he's upgraded this since then,
Speaker 1: but I remember one of the first systems I I
Speaker 1: read about was an r F I D system where
Speaker 1: you would get something that would have an r F
Speaker 1: I D chip in it, and you could program the
Speaker 1: chip to whatever specifications you like, so you could say,
Speaker 1: you know, I like it when a room is seventy degrees,
Speaker 1: and I like this kind of music, and I like
Speaker 1: this kind of art, and as you moved through the house,
Speaker 1: the house around. Yeah, 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: sus is first being built, that's that was state of
Speaker 1: the art. So yeah, I mean, pretty interesting guy. Um,
Speaker 1: he's the father of three kids. Uh. Thought i'd go
Speaker 1: ahead and drop that on there. So yeah, it's he's
Speaker 1: he's definitely done a lot uh in technology and and
Speaker 1: again the world be a very different place without his contributions.
Speaker 1: So about the contributions of all of these people, yep,
Speaker 1: And so I just thought one of their little interesting tidbits.
Speaker 1: Since we talked about fifteen people, one third of the
Speaker 1: billionaires we talked about dropped out of college. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: found this fascinating. Yeah, five five out of the top
Speaker 1: fifteen billionaires in technology billionaires dropped out of college, and
Speaker 1: and we're not saying that you shouldn't necessarily drop out
Speaker 1: of school. And it's it's a great the first Star
Speaker 1: is listening to tech stuff. Obviously you are congratulations. We
Speaker 1: don't we don't know. We only teach, No, don't. We're
Speaker 1: not saying you drop out of school. But what what
Speaker 1: I was talking I was telling to Lauren before we
Speaker 1: came into the studio, and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: think part of it is that when you are really smart,
Speaker 1: like like these people are smart, Yes, this level of smart,
Speaker 1: which is way over my head. When you're this smart
Speaker 1: and you're this ambitious and you have this kind of vision,
Speaker 1: So it's not just that you're smart, but that you
Speaker 1: can you can apply that intelligence in a way that's
Speaker 1: going to resonate with people and be valuable to people.
Speaker 1: And when you are of this age so we're talking,
Speaker 1: you know, of the college age, you know, in eighteen,
Speaker 1: funny fast somewhere around there. Uh, then you you also
Speaker 1: are at an age where you can afford to take
Speaker 1: some pretty big risks because you haven't necessarily got these
Speaker 1: other things that you have to worry about, like a family,
Speaker 1: your home or something like that you don't already have
Speaker 1: large investments that you're going to you know, yeah, that
Speaker 1: you're going to throw away if you if you risk
Speaker 1: everything and lose. So you have you have it 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 be it would take a
Speaker 1: lot for me to have to make a 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. I hope you enjoyed that
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, you know, brand new ones, not future classics,
Speaker 1: let me know. Send me a message on Twitter or
Speaker 1: on Facebook. The handle we use it both is text
Speaker 1: stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. Eight