So we all know of the huge wealth that flowed to the well-known creators/exploiters of Microsoft, Paypal, Youtube, Google, Facebook…
Can you identify computer programs/applications that might be less readily familiar to non-techies, but generated tremendous wealth? I’m thinking about things like java, or McAfee, or the countless other names that flash across my screens as my computer basically does what it does. Or maybe some other aspect of computing/information technology that is even MORE hidden to a casual user such as me.
Mods: Please move and apologies if this is considered IMHO, but I thought responses MIGHT reflect factual financial data and such.
Aart de Geus founded a company called Synopsys in 1986. Synopsys was the first commercially successful logic synthesis program (then called a “silicon compiler”). A logic synthesis program allows complex digital hardware (i.e., microprocessor) to be designed using code (text) rather than schematics. This caused an explosion in productivity in the digital design world. Synopsys software (now a collection of software suites) remains one of the most used pieces of software in IC design. Annual license fees for Synopsys start in the $100k range and go upwards from there, depending on the features you need.
An online estimate show de Geus’ current net worth around $70 million. Not crazy money, but better than a poke in the eye. I am actually surprised it is so low, many Synopsys employees ended up fabulously well off.
Hasso Plattner, one of the founders of SAP, is worth about $13 billion, and I’ll bet that few people have even heard of SAP. (On the other hand, this and other mentions aren’t one single computer program but whole companies.)
Was at a family function recently where 2 younger guys in computer and accounting fields were discussing applying SAP. They kinda did a spit-take when the old man asked, “What is SAP?”
Of course, even after they explained it to me, all I can recall is it is something computer having to do with business.
90% of people who work in IT probably can’t tell you what SAS is or have even heard of it. In addition although plenty of random people on the street don’t know what Oracle is, or even have a very good idea what database software is, they could well have heard of the company because it markets itself for name recognition.
Factoring the amount of money and relative obscurity should put SAS ahead. However, the broader field of IT is incredibly large now and billion dollar obscure specialties aren’t that rare.
Perhaps not precisely what you’re looking for, but a number of companies emerged out of the innovative technologies developed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. Since you’re interested in software rather than hardware technology, one candidate might be the Interpress page description language developed at PARC by Chuck Geschke and John Warnock. Who cares, you ask? Well, after they left PARC, Geschke and Warnock founded a company to commercialize their own version of it, which became known as PostScript. The company was called Adobe, and now of course produces Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, and many other products from that humble beginning, most of them regarded as premium products in their application areas. Today Adobe has a market cap of about $124 billion.
Maybe we need some sort of continuum mapping the obscurity of a program against wealth created. SAP seems like it would beat SAS though.
Dinsdale’s mention of trading reminded me of Kenneth C. Griffin, the founder of Citadel LLC. That’s a $10 billion fortune basically built by using a few nameless computer algorithms to invest money quite profitably.
It’s really hard to guess whether this is the most profitable trading algorithm (or set of algorithms) ever. There could be similar algorithms at Goldman Sachs et. al. that are both more obscure and more profitable but whose performance is buried deep within a big bank’s income statement.
In that arena, I think it’s pretty well agreed upon that Jim Simons at Renaissance Technologies is the king. His net worth is estimated at ~$20bn vs. Ken Griffin’s meager $10bn.
The winner is probably something like this. For the purpose of obscurity it would the smallest userbase possible, perhaps just one, and generate enormous sums of money.
Sorry for my ignorant phrasing. Did not intend to restrict the discussion to software. A part of me finds it amazing that so many people have reaped such phenomenal wealth regarding things I’m barely aware of (and don’t really understand). As opposed to - say - a Henry Ford or Sam Walton, who made their mint making cars and running stores.
Trumpet Winsock This was how you got on the Internet before Win95 came along with TCP/IP built in. So everyone that was in Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and wanted on this newfangled Internet had Trumpet Winsock or one of their few competitors.
PKZIP This program zipped/unzipped (compressed/decompressed) files and was invaluable in modem days and variations such as WinRAR are still standard to this day. It was shareware that came out in 1989 and was standard for a long time. I can’t hazard a guess of how many copies were sold, especially to businesses that actually purchased software, but I would think a lot.
Yeah, well, count me as one who has never understood Google’s business model! They monetize search, you say? So how did they get from search engines to redeveloping the Toronto waterfront? They actually seem to be edging into the role of a quasi-governmental organization in this ambitious urban planning initiative! This seems like a very long way indeed from Larry Page and Sergey Brin going, “we think we can do Internet search better than anybody else!”
Neither of these programs was obscure, and Trumpet Winsock, which was widely bootlegged, rather notoriously did not make its author much money at all. So notoriously, in fact, that there was recently a public campaign to compensate the author.
How famous is Minecraft among people who don’t have kids?
The $2.5 billion that Markus Persson got for selling that is not up to Facebook/Google standards, but it’s noteable as an instance where someone earned an enormous payout with only one product and without ever having to run a big company - Mojang still only had a couple of dozen employees when Notch called it a day, where Facebook and Google have tens of thousands and have diversified substantially from their initial product
Super pedantic point: SidewalkLabs is part of Alphabet, which owns Google, but not part of Google itself. Kind of akin to referring to the USSR as “Russia” in the 80s.
They actually seem to be edging into the role of a quasi-governmental organization in this ambitious urban planning initiative! This seems like a very long way indeed from Larry Page and Sergey Brin going, “we think we can do Internet search better than anybody else!”