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Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's tech giants - and its high-ranking billionaires.
Consistently ranked as one of the most expensive places to live in the US, Silicon Valley encompasses the Santa Clara area and includes company headquarters based in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Mountain View. The tech titans - with executives ranging from Google to Uber - who work in these areas are among some of the richest in the industry.
Looking at the top 25 richest people working in Silicon Valley based on real-time data from Forbes, the list includes social behemoths such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey, alongside Tesla founder Elon Musk. Also on the ranks are successful venture capitalists, real estate moguls, and the legendary filmmaker George Lucas.
Scott Cook cofounded software company Intuit in 1983, and retired as the firm's CEO 11 years later. However, he has remained Intuit's chairman and holds 5% of shares in the company — now worth over $5 billion.
Current vice chairman and director of Franklin Templeton, Robert Johnson, Jr. also owns the second largest stake in his family's successful investment firm. The company was founded by his father in 1947; Johnson has served as vice chairman for the past two decades.
Though he has not worked at the company in 18 years, Jeffrey Skoll earned the majority of his money as eBay's president in the early 2000s. According to Forbes, Skoll was the online auction site's first full-time hire. Since leaving, Skoll has worked with his self-named foundation, as well as his film production firm. The firm — Participant Media — won the Academy Award for "Spotlight" in 2016.
David Filo cofounded Yahoo in 1995; Verizon purchased it for almost $4.5 billion in 2017. In addition to heading Yahoo, Filo also runs a charity foundation with his wife, supporting issues from education to the environment.
Tied with Yahoo's David Filo for net worth, Jack Dorsey returned as social giant Twitter's CEO in 2015, after previously stepping down in 2008. He cofounded the company in 2006, and also cofounded Square in 2009.
Building his fortune in the private equity business, George Roberts cofounded KKR & Co. The firm is named after Roberts and fellow cofounders Henry Kravis and Jerome Kohlberg. Alongside its New York offices, the firm is also based out of San Francisco and Menlo Park — roughly 20 minutes from Facebook's headquarters. Roberts himself resides in Atherton.
Though he has since stepped down as the CEO following company scandals, Travis Kalanick is known for founding Uber in 2009. Now the CEO of holding company City Storage Systems, Kalanick still owns seven percent of Uber shares.
After working under Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff founded his own company, Salesforce, in 1999. He remains the company's CEO, but has also invested in other tech startups in the Silicon Valley area.
Though John Sobrato didn't start a tech company in Silicon Valley, he made his fortune selling homes in the Palo Alto area. Today, his company owns the office spaces of big names such as Netflix.
John Doerr is the current chairman of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a venture capital firm. According to Forbes, "KPCB is one of Silicon Valley's most storied firms, having backed Amazon, AOL, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Google, Netscape and Twitter." Prior to KPCB, Doerr worked at Intel.
Unlike Silicon Valley's tech execs, Charles Schwab is the former CEO of his self-named brokerage firm headquartered in the Bay Area. Though he stepped down from his lead role in 2008, he still serves as company chairman.
After working at Apple for two years, Robert Pera founded the wireless equipment company Ubiquiti Networks in 2005. Today, he serves as the company's CEO and owns 75% of shares.
Before cofounding WhatsApp messaging service, Jan Koum spent nine years with Yahoo. In 2014, Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $22 billion and Koum joined the social giant's board of directors — a role he gave up in 2018. Koum also served as WhatsApp's CEO before the merger.
Sergey Brin currently serves as president of Google parent company Alphabet. Brin cofounded the search engine with fellow Stanford University student Larry Page in 1998. Today, the company headquarters — known as Googleplex — are stationed in Silicon Valley's Mountain View area.
Larry Page cofounded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998, and is credited with inventing the search engine's PageRank algorithm. He previously served as Google's first CEO and currently works as CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, which also oversees Calico healthcare and Nest smart home systems.
Larry Ellison is known for cofounding Oracle software company in 1977, where he served as the firm's CEO until 2014. Alongside the majority shares of Oracle, Ellison also owns a significant stake in Elon Musk's Tesla and the Hawaiian Island Lanai.
