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David Cheriton    

Stanford Professor and Early Investor in Google

"Professor Billionaire" David Cheriton, who teaches at Stanford University, made his fortune thanks to an early investment in Google. In December 2015, his firm OptumSoft lost the first phase of a legal battle against Arista Networks, a computer networking firm he had founded with longtime business partner, billionaire Andreas von Bechtolsheim. In an unusual move, Cheriton sued Arista shortly after its IPO in June 2014, claiming it had violated the terms of a licensing agreement. A second trial over trade-secret allegations is scheduled for April 2016. Cheriton resigned from Arista's board in March 2014 and has been unloading his stock; he still owns nearly 13% through a trust for his children. The lawsuit cuts into Cheriton's 30-year business relationship with 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.

News


The Billionaire Professor Behind New Networking Startup Apstra
Computer scientist David Cheriton has been a quiet force behind the scenes in Silicon Valley for decades, using his brains and bank account to fund vendors of equipment that transmits data between computers and over the Internet. Now he wants the customers of those suppliers to feel free to shop elsewhere.

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