Robert F. Smith (investor)
| Robert F. Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Robert Frederick Smith December 1, 1962 Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
| Residence | Austin, Texas, U.S. |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater |
Cornell University Columbia Business School |
| Occupation | Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners |
| Net worth | US$3 billion (Forbes 2016) |
| Spouse(s) | Hope Dworaczyk (m. 2015) |
| Children | 5 |
Robert Frederick Smith (born December 1, 1962) is an American businessman, investor and philanthropist. A former chemical engineer and investment banker, he is the founder, chairman and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Smith was ranked by Forbes in 2016 as the 274th richest person in America, the second wealthiest African American on the list after Oprah Winfrey. He was #688 on Forbes 2016 list of the world's billionaires, with a net worth of US$3 billion.
Robert F. Smith was born a fourth generation Coloradoan to two school teacher parents with PhDs. He grew up in a predominantly African American, middle class neighborhood in Denver, and attended a newly-integrated school.
When he was an infant, his mother carried him at the March on Washington, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
In high school, he applied for an internship at Bell Labs but was told the program was intended for college students. Smith persisted, calling every day. When a student from M.I.T. did not show up, he got the position, and that summer he developed a reliability test for semiconductors.
Smith earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University. At Cornell he was a brother of Alpha Phi Alpha.
After working at Kraft General Foods as a chemical engineer, where he earned two United States and two European patents, he attended Columbia Business School. Smith graduated with honors. From 1994–2000, he joined Goldman Sachs in technology investment banking, first in New York City and then in Silicon Valley. He advised on over $50 billion in merger and acquisition activity with companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, eBay and Yahoo. He was the first person at Goldman Sachs to focus solely on technology mergers and acquisitions and foreign countries .
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