# 141 David Duffield
- Occupation
- Chair and Cofounder, Workday
- Source of Wealth
- Business Software
- Age
- 85
- Residence
- Incline Village, Nevada
- Marital Status
- Married
- Children
- 10
- Education
- Bachelor of Engineering, Cornell University; MBA, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
- Age-adjusted net worthi
- $2.36B
Wealth History
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:
9,879,861 Herman Miller Aeron Chairs
2,428,371 Gold Bars (50 gram)
131,166 Tiny Homes
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 39.04% CAGR, it would take you 35.25 years to reach David Duffield's net worth of $12.8B.
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 99.00% compared to 62.03% for the S&P 500 benchmark.
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- Your starting capital
- Your earnings after expenses
- 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.
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About the estimates: Net worth figures are based primarily on the latest available Forbes estimates. Bloomberg may be used when a current Forbes value is unavailable. Net worth is inherently approximate and can change as markets move or source data is revised.
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