Irwin Jacobs – Billionaire

Irwin Jacobs cofounded mobile chipmaker Qualcomm in 1985. Since retiring from the company’s board in 2012, he has been focused on giving away his fortune. In 2013 he and his wife, Joan — both Cornell grads — pledged $133 million to create the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. They also donated $10 million, adding to an earlier gift of $20 million, to San Diego’s new Central Library. A Giving Pledge signatory, his earlier gifts include $100 million to save the San Diego Symphony and $185 million to the University of California at San Diego. Jacobs has also been a generous donor to Democratic candidates, including $2 million to Barack Obama’s Super PAC, Priorities USA, in 2012. In 2015, he hosted Obama at a fundraiser at his La Jolla home and was his guest at a state dinner with French president Francois Hollande. Jacobs taught electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and then at UCSD before cofounding LINKABIT Corporation, which developed satellite systems, in 1968. He launched Qualcomm 17 years later and served as its CEO until 2005, overseeing the development of technologies that revolutionized wireless communication. His son, Paul, is the company’s executive chairman.

Businessman and electrical engineer Irwin Mark Jacobs has an estimated net worth of $1.21 billion as of April 2016 according to Forbes. He currently serves as the chairman of the board of trustees of Salk Institute. Previously, he served as the former chairman and co-founder of Qualcomm. Irwin Mark Jacobs was born on October 18, 1933 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Of Jewish ancestry, Jacobs has been married to Joan Klein since 1954. They have four children together named Hal, Jeff, Paul, and Gary. He attended Cornell University where he finished his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1956. He then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he completed his S.M. and Sc.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in 1957 and 1959. In 1994, he became a recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and  Cornell University Entrepreneur of the Year Award. A year later, he won the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal for outstanding contributions to telecommunications which also include theory, practice, leadership and product development. In 2001, he received the Bower Award for Business Leadership.

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