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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 125 Leon Black|# 127 Ray Dalio ➡

# 126 David Cheriton 

$15.0B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
$91.5M (0.61%)

# 126 David Cheriton 

$15.0B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
$91.5M (0.61%)
OccupationProfessor, Stanford University
Source of WealthGoogle
Age73
ResidencePalo Alto, California
Marital StatusDivorced
Children4
EducationBS, University of British Columbia; Doctorate, University of Waterloo; MS, University of Waterloo
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$6.21B
David Cheriton
David Cheriton
Canada
Net worth: $15.0B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Early Life and Education

David Ross Cheriton was born on March 29, 1951 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Attended public schools in the Highlands neighborhood of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree from the University of British Columbia in 1973.
Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in computer science from the University of Waterloo in 1974 and 1978, respectively.
Three years as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia before joining Stanford University.

Career and Entrepreneurship

Cofounded 3 successful companies: Arista Networks (IPO in 2014), Granite Systems (sold to Cisco in 1996), and Kealia (sold to Sun Microsystems in 2004).
Invested $100,000 in Google alongside Andreas von Bechtolsheim in its early stages.
Resigned from Arista's board in March 2014 and started unloading his stock.
Became Chief Data Center Scientist at Juniper Networks after the acquisition of his company Apstra in 2021.
Angel investor in Google, VMware, and Arista, showcasing his ability to identify and support innovative ventures.
Advocated for Ethernet over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) in the networking industry.

Philanthropy

Donated $25 million to the University of Waterloo to support graduate studies and research, resulting in the renaming of the School of Computer Science to David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science.
Contributed $7.5 million to the University of British Columbia for the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative.
Endowed $12 million in 2016 to Stanford University to support Computer Science faculty, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate scholarships.
Funded multiple graduate and undergraduate fellowships at Stanford University.

Personal Life

Married Iris Fraser in 1980; they had four children and divorced in 1994.
Known for political donations, including over $5,000 to the presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Known for a frugal lifestyle despite substantial wealth, earning him the label of a 'cheapskate billionaire.'

How long would it take you to become as rich as David Cheriton?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.06% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach David Cheriton's net worth of $15.0B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 48.24% compared to 16.19% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

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David Cheriton is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For David Cheriton, Google is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey