David Cheriton Net Worth & Biography

Born on March 29, 1951, David Ross Cheriton is a computer scientist, venture capitalist, investor, philanthropist, and Stanford professor. He attended the University of Alberta for a brief period before attending the University of British Columbia from which he graduated in 1973 with his bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He received his Master’s and Doctorate degrees in computer science from the University of Waterloo, before going on to work as an Assistant Professor at his alma mater for three years, after which he moved to Stanford University in 1981. He founded and managed the Distributed Systems Group, which was useful in running several operating systems at Stanford. In 1998, he invited two graduate students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page to demonstrate their project on his front porch. He eventually wrote a $100,000 check to the duo to help them develop their new project, a search engine named Google in 1998. Mr. Cheriton who likes to lead a quiet life is also an angel investor. He has co-founded several successful startups including Kealia, which was bought by Sun Microsystems in 2004, and before that, Granite Systems, acquired by Cisco in 1996. More details follow below.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

David Ross Cheriton was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on March 29, 1951. He joined the University of Alberta with the aim of studying music, but the school’s music department rejected his application. He then enrolled at the University of British Columbia from which he graduated with his first degree in 1973. Advancing in his educational pursuit, David earned a Master’s and Doctorate degrees in computer science at the University of Waterloo.

Professional Life: Teaching Career, Businesses

Upon graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1958, he spent the first three years of his professional career working as an assistant professor back at the University of British Columbia. He then landed a position at Stanford University where he taught computer science.

While at Stanford, in the 1980s David led a team that developed an operating system which they called “V.” The operating system would have significant impacts on a number of future tech innovations like the Internet Protocol layer and the Graphical User Interface. He also lectured a brilliant Ph.D. student named Andy Bechtolsheim. In 1982 Andy left the university and founded Sun Microsystems, which went public in 1986. By 1998 the company was generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue. Decades later, Oracle purchased Sun for $7.4 billion.

In 1995 Andy left Sun and worked with David Cheriton to set up an Ethernet networking company called Granite Systems. The following year, they sold their company to Cisco for over $220 million. As a 10 percent owner of the company, David, the humble college professor, earned a payout of $22 million, while Andy, a 60 percent owner, earned $132 million.

David and Andy also combined to write a check of $200,000 for the development of Google when two Stanford Ph.D. students named Sergey Brin and Larry Page met up with David Cheriton and Andy Bechtolsheim in 1998. That small investment would later earn David and Andy billions.

David was also an early investor in VMware before EMC acquired it for $625 million in 2004. He was an investor in Aster Data Systems, a data warehouse company that was acquired for $263 million in 2011. In 2001 David and Andy worked together once more to set up a streaming video server called Kealia, a company that was later acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2004. The two businessmen also co-founded network technology company Arista Networks, which went public in 2014 and has a market cap of over $30 billion presently.

Personal Life: Marriage, Children, Private Interests

David and his former wife Iris Fraser were married from 1980 to 1994 and had four children.

Despite being worth billions, this guy is known for maintaining a frugal lifestyle. He gave a $25 million gift to the University of Waterloo in November 2005. He has also gifted millions to the University of British Columbia. The University of Waterloo subsequently renamed its school of computer science the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.

David Cheriton Net Worth

David Cheriton’s net worth is $10 billion dollars. He has earned this fortune by making smart investments in several companies throughout his career. Born and raised in Canada, David is a computer science professor at Stanford University. He is ranked as the 20^th richest Canadian and the 882nd richest person in the world. He founded and managed the Distributed Systems Group, invested in Google, founded Kealia, Granite Systems, and earns dividends from his contribution as founder, co-founder, or angel investor in a number of other successful businesses.