David Cheriton – Billionaire

“Professor Billionaire” David Cheriton, who teaches at Stanford University, made his fortune thanks to an early investment in Google. In 2014, Cheriton’s firm OptumSoft made the unusual move of suing Arista Networks, a computer networking firm he had cofounded, shortly after the company’s IPO. In December 2015, OptumSoft lost the first phase of the legal battle when a judge found that Arista had not violated the terms of a licensing agreement. A second trial over trade-secret allegations is pending. Arista denies the allegations. Cheriton resigned from Arista’s board in March 2014 and has been unloading his stock; he still owns more than 12% through a trust for his children. The lawsuit cuts into Cheriton’s 30-year business relationship with Arista cofounder and fellow billionaire Andreas von Bechtolsheim. They each invested $100,000 in Google when it was just getting started; they also cofounded Granite Systems (acquired by Cisco in 1996) and Kealia (sold to Sun Microsystems in 2004). Cheriton is an angel investor in a number of tech companies. He still lives in the Palo Alto home he’s owned for 30 years and cuts his own hair.

Source:forbes