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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 153 Nicolas Puech|# 155 Theo Albrecht Jr ➡

# 154 David Duffield 

$14.2B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 12/19/2024
$259.5M (1.83%)

# 154 David Duffield 

$14.2B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 12/19/2024
$259.5M (1.83%)
OccupationChair and Cofounder, Workday
Source of WealthBusiness Software
Age84
ResidenceIncline Village, Nevada
Marital StatusMarried
Children10
EducationBachelor of Engineering, Cornell University; MBA, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$2.80B
David Duffield
David Duffield
United States
Net worth: $14.2B

Self-Made Score 

Breitling Navitimer Chronograph Black Dial Men's Watch

Wealth History

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Biography

Overview

David Arthur Duffield was born on September 21, 1940, in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and grew up in Ridgewood.
He graduated from Ridgewood High School in 1958, where he co-captained the baseball team.
Duffield earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from Cornell University, later becoming a benefactor of Cornell's Duffield Hall.
In 1964, he began his career at IBM as a marketing representative and systems engineer.
Duffield founded Information Associates in 1972 and Integral Systems in 1979, eventually becoming a leading vendor in higher education human resources management systems.
In 1987, at the age of 47, he founded PeopleSoft, serving as CEO and board chairman. PeopleSoft was acquired by Oracle in 2005 for $10.7 billion in cash.
In 2005, at age 64, Duffield co-founded Workday, Inc., a cloud software firm for HR and finance. He stepped down as chairman in April 2021 and assumed the role of CEO emeritus.
Duffield founded his sixth enterprise software company, Ridgeline, in 2017, serving as its current CEO. Ridgeline is a cloud software platform for investment management.
Duffield is married to Cheryl Duffield, and they currently reside near Lake Tahoe.

Career

Duffield began his career at IBM in 1964 and later founded Information Associates, Integral Systems, and Business Software Corporation, focusing on HR and payroll applications.
He co-founded PeopleSoft in 1987, which grew to be the world's second-largest application software company before being acquired by Oracle in 2005.
In 2005, Duffield co-founded Workday, Inc., serving as its CEO and later transitioning to chairman emeritus.
In 2017, he founded Ridgeline, his sixth enterprise software company, focusing on cloud software for investment management.

Philanthropy

Duffield and his wife Cheryl established Maddie's Fund in 1994, contributing over $345 million to animal welfare causes.
The Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation (DCDF) was founded in 2016, supporting animal welfare, disabled military veterans, local schools, and community organizations.
DCDF is financing the construction of Liberty Dogs, a service dog training campus in Reno, Nevada, planned to open in 2026.
The Duffields have pledged more than $68 million to Cornell University, supporting engineering, scholarships, and the Duffield Institute for Animal Behavior.

Awards

Duffield received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement in 1998.
He was honored with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2013.
In 2018, Duffield received the Cornell Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest alumni honor.

David Duffield's Wealth is Equivalent to:

10,923,788 Herman Miller Aeron Chairs

Herman Miller Aeron Chair

2,684,957 Gold Bars (50 gram)

24K Solid 50g Gold Ingot

145,025 Tiny Homes

Tiny House, Two Bedroom Solar Prefab Home

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

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 42.79% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach David Duffield's net worth of $14.2B.

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 66.02% compared to 28.56% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

Enter data in all but one field below, then calculate the missing value

David Duffield 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 Duffield, Business Software 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.

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means that, at no additional cost to you, we may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. We only recommend products or services we believe will add value to our readers.

Edited by: Lee Bailey