10 Extremely Wealthy Tech Executives Who Choose To Live Frugally
Madeline Stone, Business Insider, Aug. 6, 2014
While some tech executives are quick to splurge on yachts and mega-mansions, others aren’t so flashy with their riches.
Mark Zuckerberg, for example, drives a $30,000 Volkswagen GTI, while Sergey Brin likes to buy things in bulk at Costco.
We’ve rounded up 10 tech executives who have made millions or even billions with their companies yet have chosen lives of frugality and charity.
David Cheriton, Stanford professor
Net worth: $3 billion
Cheriton, a professor at Stanford and cofounder of Arista Networks, became one of the first investors in Google after Larry Page and Sergey Brin did a demo of their project on his front porch in 1998. That initial $100,000 check has obviously paid off, but Cheriton dislikes the thought of being a billionaire.
“I’m actually quite offended by that sort of thing,” he told the Edmonton Journal in a 2006 interview. “These people who build houses with 13 bathrooms and so on, there’s something wrong with them.”
He drives a 1986 Volkswagen Vanagon, has lived in the same Palo Alto home for the past 30 years, cuts his own hair, and even claims to reuse his tea bags. He did, however, splurge on a Honda Odyssey for his kids back in 2012.
Charlie Ergen, chairman of Dish Network
Net worth: $16.3 billion
Ergen is notorious for being a frugal leader and micromanager--up until about 10 years ago, he insisted on signing every check that came out of Dish.
He packs a lunch of a sandwich and Gatorade before work every day, and until recently, he shared hotel rooms with colleagues during travel.
“My mom grew up in the Depression,” he told the Financial Times. “I don’t have a mahogany desk.”
Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay
Net worth: $8.1 billion
Omidyar became a billionaire when eBay went public in 1998, but he never thought spending all of his money would be satisfying.
“We sort of skipped the ‘regular rich’ and we went straight to ‘ridiculous rich,’” he said to Forbes. “I had the notion that, OK, so now we have all of this wealth, we could buy not only one expensive car, we could buy all of them. As soon as you realize that you could buy all of them, then none of them are particularly interesting or satisfying.”
David Karp, founder and CEO of Tumblr
Net worth: at least $200 million
Tumblr, the blogging platform Karp founded as a teen, may be worth some $1.1 billion, but Karp prefers to live a simple lifestyle.
His one splurge was a 1,700-square-foot loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He reportedly paid $1.6 million for the space, but apparently it’s half-empty.
“I don’t have any books. I don’t have many clothes,” Karp said to Forbes. “I’m always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff.”
Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro Limited
Net worth: $15.4 billion
As the chairman of tech services giant Wipro, Premji is India’s wealthiest tech tycoon, but he hates spending money.
Premji routinely flies coach and takes a three-wheel auto rickshaw from the airport to the Wipro offices. He is known to monitor the toilet paper used at Wipro facilities, and he often reminds employees to turn the lights off in the office before they leave.
“Premji makes Uncle Scrooge look like Santa Claus,” a Bangalore tech executive said to Businessweek.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook
Net worth: $32.4 billion
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is one of three people in the world who has more billions in his possession than years lived.
Still, Zuckerberg is surprisingly unflashy about his wealth. He previously drove a black Acura TSX but recently upgraded to a Volkswagen GTI, both of which typically cost about $30,000.
In 2011, he bought a $7 million home in Palo Alto, but even that home is “still well below his means,” according to the Los Angeles Times. On his Facebook profile, he lists “minimalism” and “eliminating desire” among his interests, and he’s very rarely seen dressed in anything more formal than a t-shirt or hoodie.
Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp
WhatsApp CEO and cofounder Jan Koum.
Net worth: $6.8 billion
Koum may be worth billions now, but he came from humble beginnings. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and moved with his family to the U.S. when he was 16 years old. The family struggled and lived on food stamps.
Koum has continued his money-saving ways into adulthood--when WhatsApp was bought for $19 billion in February, Koum pressured Facebook to close the deal before he missed his flight to Barcelona, which he had purchased using frequent flier miles.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple
Net worth: rumored to be as much as $400 million
Tim Cook has historically been one of Silicon Valley’s highest-paid executives, but you would never know it by the way he lives.
Cook is famously low-profile, and he makes his home in a 2,095-square-foot condo in Palo Alto. The $1.9 million he paid for it is a relatively low price for the neighborhood.
“I like to be reminded of where I came from, and putting myself in modest surroundings helps me do that. Money is not a motivator for me.”
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
Net worth: close to $1 billion
Though Hsieh sold his company LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million in 1999, he has decided to put his wealth to a more constructive use rather than live a glamorous life.
Over the past several years, he has personally invested $350 million to transform downtown Las Vegas into a tech hub.
“What Tony is doing is out of the box, not typical, not normal,” early Zappos investor Erik Moore said. “Most people would wonder why he doesn’t ride off into the sunset with the amount of money he’s earned.”
Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google
Net worth: $30.9 billion
It may seem counterintuitive to say that a man who owns several private planes is frugal, yet Brin has confessed to disliking spending money.
“From my parents, I certainly learned to be frugal and to be happy without very many things,” he said in a 2007 interview. “It’s interesting--I still find myself not wanting to leave anything on the plate uneaten. I still look at prices. I try to force myself to do this less, not to be so frugal. But I was raised being happy with not so much.”
He’s also a frequent Costco shopper and a major philanthropist--he and his now-separated wife Anne Wojcicki gave away $219 million in 2013.
