"Professor Billionaire" David Cheriton, who is professor emeritus at Stanford University, made his fortune thanks to an early investment in Google. Cheriton and Andreas von Bechtolsheim (also now a billionaire) each invested $100,000 in Google when it was just getting started. The pair cofounded 3 companies: Arista Networks (IPO in 2014), Granite Systems (sold to Cisco in 1996) and Kealia (sold to Sun Microsystems in 2004). Cheriton resigned from Arista's board in March 2014 and has been unloading his stock; he still owns nearly 10% through a trust for his children. Cheriton became chief data center scientist at Juniper Networks after the acquisition of his company Apstra in 2021.
