Sergey Brin | GeorgMedia

August 10, 2021

The luxury boats owned by some of the wealthiest people in tech, from a yacht so big it has its own support boat to superyachts with swimming pools and basketball courts

Many billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson enjoy spending their time on massive luxurious yachts.
The boats are decked out with amenities that many Americans can only dream of.
Here are some of the billionaires in tech who own private yachts.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Billionaires are often known for their luxurious lifestyles and high profile gadgets.

Some billionaires, like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, buy private planes to take control of the open skies – others purchase yachts to access the open seas.

From Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, many leaders in tech have created their own mini vacation hubs at sea, decking their boats with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, nightclubs, and movie theaters.

If you want to find out what life is like aboard these multi-million-dollar yachts, some of them are available to rent out for a few nights or weeks at a time. For instance, late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s yacht is expected to be available for rent for around $1 million per week, The Guardian reported. In the past, chartering yachts owned by billionaires like Alphabet President Sergey Brin has cost customers anywhere from $773,000 a week to $1.2 million.

Take a look at some of the yachts that have been owned by tech billionaires.

A mystery buyer bought a 414-foot superyacht that was once owned by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for $278 million. Allen had the boat, which was named “Octopus,” built in 2003 for $200 million. Since the tech billionaires death in 2018, the boat has been listed for as much as $325 million.

The blue hull of the luxury yacht "Octopus" sits at the dock in London's Canary Wharf — Octopus in Canary Wharf, London, in 2012.
Ki Price/Reuters

Source: SuperYacht Times

The undisclosed Scandinavian buyer is expected to charter the yacht for the first time in January 2022 via major yachting broker, Camper & Nicholsons. A price has yet to be announced for renting the boat, but it is expected to be around $1 million per week.

octopus paul allen luxury yacht — 414ft luxury yacht ‘Octopus’ owned by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is moored to fuel up at Ege Ports in Kusadasi district of Aydin, Turkey on April 27, 2015.
Ibrahim Uzun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Sources: The Guardian, SuperYacht Times

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is building his own 127-meter yacht, according to a book. The yacht is so massive it has an additional “support yacht” with its own helipad.

Source: Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire

Bezos has long been interested in yachts. In 2019, he was spotted aboard entertainment mogul David Geffen’s superyacht.

12686190635_8b47dfabbc_c — David Geffen’s superyacht
Flickr

Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison owns a 288-foot yacht named Musashi that he acquired in 2013.

larry ellison musashi yacht — rulenumberone2/Flickr, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Forbes

Ellison has owned several superyachts over the years, including the Katana, the Ronin, and the Rising Sun.

The Oracle cofounder also has a knack for competitive yacht racing, and helped to found and back a racing team, called Oracle Team USA, in 2000. The team has found success and won several prestigious titles over the years.

larry ellison oracle yacht team usa — Xaume Olleros/Getty Images Sport

Source: Telegraph

Ellison previously owned a bigger, 454-foot yacht called Rising Sun, which was designed specifically for the CEO in 2005. That yacht reportedly has 82 rooms, a movie theater, a wine cellar, and a basketball court. However, Ellison sold off the Rising Sun to Geffen for a reported $300 million.

Larry Ellison — Kimberly White/Getty Images

Source: Forbes, Boat International

Ellison’s boat, Musashi, is a sister ship to the yacht of another billionaire, former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert. However, the yacht, named Fountainhead, is often mistaken for belonging to billionaire investor Mark Cuban. “The guy who owns the boat tells everyone that it’s mine,” Cuban told Page Six in 2016. “It’s so crazy … I don’t even own a boat.”

Source: Page Six

Ellison’s yacht reportedly influenced the decision of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs to get a boat himself. However, Jobs never set foot on the boat – the yacht was commissioned in 2008, but wasn’t completed until 2012, a year after his death.

Source: Business Insider

When Jobs died in 2011, his yacht – along with his $14.1 billion fortune – was inherited by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of a social-impact nonprofit called the Emerson Collective. The 256-foot yacht in named Venus, and is worth $130 million.

laurene powell jobs steve jobs yacht — AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Source: Business Insider

Google’s cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are two of the richest people in the world. The two billionaires are known to splurge: In addition to each owning a super yacht, they both own private planes as well.

Larry Page Sergey Brin — Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page.
Getty / Michael Nagle

Sources: Forbes, Business Insider

Page owns a yacht named Senses, a $45 million 194-foot boat that he bought in 2011 from a New Zealand businessman. The yacht has a private beach club with a Jacuzzi and sun beds, both indoor and outdoor dining areas, and a helicopter pad.

Larry Page superimposed with Senses yacht — Ari Helminen/Flickr, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Boat International

Meanwhile, Brin owns a longer, 240-foot yacht that he bought for a cool $80 million in 2011. It’s reportedly one of the world’s fastest super yachts, and is equipped with a dance floor and open-air movie theater.

dragonfly yacht — Abell Point Marina/YouTube

Source: Business Insider

Brin’s yacht is named Dragonfly. The boat shares a name with Google’s once-secret project to launch a censored search engine in China. Google said in 2019 it had officially terminated the project.

Sergey Brin — Eric Risberg/Associated Press

Source: Business Insider, Forbes

But Brin and Page aren’t the only two high-powered Google figures with yachts. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt owns a 194-foot yacht name Oasis. The yacht reportedly features a pool and a gym-turned-nightclub. He bought the boat in 2009 for a reported $72.3 million.

eric schmidt oasis — Sean Gallup/Getty Images, Y.CO

Sources: Business Insider, GQ

For Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom, his interest in yachts skews toward racing and competitive sailing. Zennstrom has gone through a succession of boats all named Ran, and his most recent purchase is the seventh in the series.

Co-Founder and CEO of Skype Technologies, United Kingdom Niklas Zennstroem listens during a plenary entitled ‘Digital 2.0:Powering a Creative Economy’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,
AP Photo/Michel Euler

Source: CNN

His latest yacht, appropriately named Ran VII, is the most technologically advanced of all of Zennstrom’s boats. The racing yacht uses electrical power, which Zennstrom says makes it “lighter, less drag, quieter, and most importantly it is environmentally friendly.”

ran vii 7 yacht niklas zennstrom — Carkeek Design Partners/YouTube

Source: CNN

The 40-foot yacht will compete in regattas through the racing team owned by Zennstrom and his wife, Catherine. The Ran racing team launched in 2008, and has won some prestigious regattas.

ran 7 yacht niklas zennstrom — The Ran racing team.
Carkeek Design Partners/YouTube

Source: CNN

Barry Diller, chairman of digital media company IAC, co-owns a $70 million yacht with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.

Barry Diller Diane Von Furstenberg — Diane von Furstenberg, left, and Barry Diller.
Scott Olson/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

The sailing yacht, named Eos, is 350 feet long with six bedrooms. The power couple has hosted many celebrities over the years – a few that have been spotted aboard Eos include model Karlie Kloss, actor Bradley Cooper, journalist Anderson Cooper, and singer Harry Styles.

Source: W Magazine

For Jim Clark, the cofounder of Netscape, one yacht hasn’t been enough. Clark has owned boats for more than 30 years, and in 2012, he put up two of his sailing yachts for sale.

jim clark boat — Jim Clark, right.
Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Clark listed the boats for a combined $113 million: the 136-foot Hanuman for $18 million, and the 295-foot Athena for $95 million. However, Clark has yet to offload Athena. Clark also previously owned a 155-foot yacht named Hyperion, and currently also owns a racing yacht named Comanche.

jim clark athena yacht — The yacht Athena.
Fosnez / Wikimedia Commons

Source: Boat International

Charles Simonyi worked at Microsoft until 2002, and oversaw the creation of Microsoft Office software. A few years before he left, Simonyi decided to purchase a yacht. He told the designer that wanted his yacht to be “home away from [his] home in Seattle.”

Source: Boat International

The product of that conversation in 1999 is Simonyi’s yacht named Skat, meaning “treasure” in Danish. The yacht measures 233 feet long, and is unique with its nontraditional design and gray color. Skat features a matching gray helicopter, a gym, and motorcycles.

charles simonyi skat yacht — Christopher Hunt/Getty Images

Source: Yacht Charter Fleet

Opulent British billionaire Richard Branson owned a yacht until he sold it in September 2018. The 105-foot catamaran sold for $3 million, significantly lower than the $9.6 million price Branson listed the boat for in 2014.

richard branson necker belle — Anthony Harvey/Getty Images, Virgin

Source: Business Insider

Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, bought the boat in 2009. He named it Necker Belle, a nod to his private Caribbean island, Necker Island.

Source: Business Insider

Additional reporting by Paige Leskin.

Read the original article on Business Insider

June 26, 2021

Jeff Bezos is heading to space, but he’s not the only mogul obsessed with extreme experiences. Here are the wildest ways the world’s elite spend their free time.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin — Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

A passion for extreme experiences seems to be common among the world’s billionaires.
Jeff Bezos is going to space, Larry Ellison races yachts, and Richard Branson kitesurfs.
Jack Dorsey once did a 10-day silent meditation and only eats seven meals per week.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

In just a few short weeks, Jeff Bezos will take the riskiest flight of his life, one that takes him 62 miles above Earth, right to the edge of space.

The soon-to-be-ex-Amazon CEO is something of an adventurer, what with his trips out to sea or to the bottom of caves. But that doesn’t exactly make him unique among his peers – in fact, a passion for extreme experiences seems to be a common trait among the world’s billionaires.

And Bezos isn’t even the only executive with a passion for space travel. Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Paul Allen, and Sergey Brin have all expressed an interest in leaving planet Earth.

But while outer space appears to be the dominant source of fascination for the world’s most powerful people, there are plenty of other billionaires with extreme pursuits of their own.

Jeff Bezos has used his extensive resources to fund extreme trips – and now, space travel.

While Bezos made his $200 billion fortune redefining retail, it seems his true passion lies in more extreme pursuits.

The Amazon CEO has spent his vacation time over the years on a range of unusual and, oftentimes exclusive pursuits: He went on a 50-mile horseback ride through West Texas alongside his father and his brother, Mark; he’s rappelled hundreds of feet down into dark caves, equipped with a harness and a headlamp; and he once spent three weeks at sea recovering pieces of the engine of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which took the first humans to the moon.

He was even once involved in a serious helicopter crash, which reportedly turned him off of helicopters for years (although he seems to have since rekindled his interest in the aircraft).

But in just a few weeks, Bezos will embark on his most extreme adventure yet: Taking an 11-minute flight to the edge of space onboard a Blue Origin spacecraft. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 with the goal of democratizing human spaceflight, and the trip on July 20 will be the culmination of a lifelong obsession with space.

Richard Branson is known for his outlandish stunts and his passion for space tourism.

Richard Branson holds up helmet inside Formula E racecar — Richard Branson poses in the DS Virgin Racing Formula E car to promote the FIA Formula E Championship at The New York City ePrix in New York.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Branson is known for daredevilish antics: He jumped off the Palms Casino in Las Vegas in 2007, he kitesurfed the English Channel in 2012 (an activity he’s also performed with a naked model on his back), and he became the first man to cross both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in a hot air balloon.

In 2011, he launched Virgin Oceanic with the goal of exploring the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, although that venture has since been scrapped.

Perhaps more ambitious than Branson’s underwater pursuits, however, are his goals for space tourism. His space venture, Virgin Galactic, is focused on suborbital tourism where passengers can pay $200,000 to $250,000 for a luxurious trip to space. (The company plans to start accepting passengers next year.)

Sergey Brin appears to be a fan of all manner of flying objects, including spaceships.

Sergey Brin wearing Google Glass — Sergey Brin pictured wearing Google Glass in 2012.
Eric Risberg/AP

Brin, the Google cofounder worth $108 billion, has a passion for unusual aircraft. For the past four years, Brin has been working on a secretive airship company known as LTA Research and Exploration — “LTA” being short for “lighter than air.” The company got its start inside NASA’s Ames Research Center and is working to bring its vision of zero-emission aircrafts to life.

While the goal of Brin’s airships is to deliver humanitarian aid, the ship — similar to a Zeppelin or blimp — is also luxuriously appointed so it could serve as an “intercontinental air yacht” for Brin’s friends and family.

But it seems Brin is hoping to go higher than even a blimp can take him. In 2008, Brin invested $5 million in space tourism company Space Adventures. According to Forbes, the investment was also a deposit for a future spaceflight.

The company has completed several spaceflights with private citizens including Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi and Cirque Du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, but it’s unclear if and when Brin will embark on a trip of his own.

Paul Allen had a luxury submarine and a passion for underwater exploration.

Paul Allen looks at Ansari XPrize trophy — Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen at the 2004 Ansari XPrize ceremony.
Stephanie S. Cordle/Getty Images

Before Allen’s death in 2018 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, he was the owner of a fleet of fabulous megayachts. But aboard those luxury yachts was something more exotic: submarines and underwater vehicles capable of diving hundreds of feet into the depths of the ocean.

“It turns out if you go 1,000 feet down in the ocean, it’s really dark, and the animals are really strange,” Allen told Geekwire in 2011. “But if you put on some Pink Floyd, it’s fantastic.”

The details of Allen’s yachts and submarine were something of a secret, with Fred Rodie, one of Allen’s boatbuilders, telling the Seattle Times in 2007 that he’s “not really supposed to talk about the sub, but it’s a fancy one, a mighty nice piece of work.”

Allen’s submarine, named Pagoo, was 40 feet long, cost $12 million to build, fit eight passengers and two crew members, and was capable of diving for up to eight hours, according to the Seattle Times and Allen’s website. The best part? It was actually yellow.

Allen was passionate about underwater exploration and used his fleet of yachts, subs, and underwater vehicles to help find long-lost artifacts, including the wreckage of multiple World War I and II battleships. He was also present for director James Cameron’s 2012 dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, according to Geekwire.

And, like many of his peers, Allen had space ambitions of his own. In 2011, he launched Stratolaunch Systems with the goal of building the world’s largest airplane in order to launch satellites and send humans to space.

Mark Zuckerberg prefers sports like electric surfing and bow-hunting.

While Mark Zuckerberg’s pursuits are more Earth-bound than some of his fellow billionaires, he has plenty of extreme pastimes of his own.

The Facebook CEO is a fan (and talented user of) the Lift Foils efoil, an electric surfboard that retails for $12,000. He’s been spotted aboard the unusual surfboard multiple times near his property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and has posted videos of himself successfully navigating choppy waters.

Zuckerberg’s interests appear to extend to other outdoor pursuits: He recently posted videos of himself using a bow and arrows and throwing spears in what appeared to be hunting practice, and he once served Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a goat he had killed as part of a 2011 challenge to only eat animals he killed himself.

Jack Dorsey meditates for hours each day and only eats dinner.

Jack Dorsey wearing tie-dye shirt onstage — Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a crypto-currency conference in Miami.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For Dorsey, a love of the extreme is much more inward focused. Rather than kitesurf or explore outer space, Dorsey fasts and participates in silent meditations.

In 2018, Dorsey spent his birthday in Myanmar doing a 10-day silent vipassana meditation. He described the experience on Twitter as “extremely painful”: He meditated from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day; wasn’t allowed to eat dinner, read, listen to music, or make eye contact with others; and ended up with 117 mosquito bites in a single night.

Since then, Dorsey has said he tries to meditate for two hours each day and eats only seven meals in a week — only dinner.

Larry Ellison has spent millions on yacht-racing and even founded his own racing league.

Larry Ellison sailing onboard an Oracle catamaran — Oracle founder Larry Ellison aboard the Spithill Oracle catamaran.
Marco Secchi/Corbis via Getty Images

While Ellison has been passionate about sailing since his early 20s, he didn’t get serious about the sport until the 1990s, when he bought a 78-foot racing sailboat he called Sayonara. He started competing in races, winning world championships, once almost dying in a storm on Sydney Harbour.

He later began competing in the America’s Cup, an annual yacht race that takes place every three or four years. In 2010, Ellison and his crew won the race, with the then-65-year-old billionaire onboard.

Ellison has now spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his racing pursuits, won a second victory at the America’s Cup in 2013, and launched his own sailing league that was most recently valued at $200 million.

Read the original article on Business Insider

June 1, 2021

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Away’s Jen Rubio just had their first child together. Here are 13 other power couples who rule the tech world.

Evan Spiegel Miranda Kerr — Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and wife Miranda Kerr.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Snap Inc

Slack’s Stewart Butterfield and Away’s Jen Rubio just had their first child together.
They’re among over a dozen other leaders in the tech industry in relationships with powerful people.
Some, like Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott, and Bill and Melinda Gates, have recently split up.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

As the singer Grimes, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s girlfriend, might say, we appreciate power.

While some tech leaders, like Mark Zuckerberg, have been with their partners since college, notable figures in the tech sector have gravitated toward partners with just as much – or more! – power and pull in their industries.

Some are becoming new parents: This month, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Jen Rubio, the CEO of luggage startup Away, announced the birth of their first child together. The couple got engaged in May 2019, but postponed a planned wedding in Peru after the pandemic hit.

Others, sadly, have broken up: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, now MacKenzie Scott, announced in early 2019 that they were getting a divorce. And one of the most famous power couples in the world, Bill and Melinda Gates, are now headed for divorce as well.

Still, there are 14 other notable couples that hail from Silicon Valley who are still going strong.

Jen Rubio and Stewart Butterfield

—Jen Rubio (@jennifer) May 27, 2019

Who they are: Rubio is the CEO of luggage startup Away, and Butterfield in the cofounder and CEO of work messaging platform Slack.

Their backstory: The relationship between Rubio and Butterfield initially flew under the radar, but it came under the spotlight in May 2019 when Butterfield jokingly proposed to Rubio on Twitter. Butterfield’s Twitter proposal followed news that Away had landed a $1.4 billion valuation, and the Slack CEO joked he wasn’t “just a goldigger.”

Butterfield and Rubio both acknowledged the proposal was a joke after a few hours. They got engaged for real that Memorial Day and announced the birth of their first child together, Oliver, in May 2021.

Emily Weiss and Will Gaybrick

So, a week ago, we got engaged. (!) Even during the wildest most uncertain times, there are silver linings. ❤️
A post shared by Emily Weiss (@emilyweiss) on Mar 18, 2020 at 10:25pm PDTMar 18, 2020 at 10:25pm PDT

Who they are: Weiss is the cofounder and CEO of online makeup company Glossier. Gaybrick is the chief product officer at payments platform Stripe. Glossier is valued at more than $1 billion, while Stripe is the most valuable US startup with a valuation of $95 billion.

Their backstory: Not a whole lot about their relationship has been shared publicly. The couple made their relationship public in an Instagram post from New Years Day of 2019, then announced their engagement in a post in March 2020.

“Even during the wildest most uncertain times, there are silver linings,” Weiss wrote in the caption for the Instagram photo. Their engagement came just as the World Health Organization classified the coronavirus as a “pandemic.”

Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr

Who they are: Spiegel is the cofounder and CEO of Snap Inc., Snapchat’s parent company. Kerr was, at one time, one of the highest-earning models in the world, and is currently the founder of wellness company KORA Organics.

Their backstory: The couple started dating in 2015, and got married in May 2017. They have one son, Hart, who was born in May 2018, and another son, Myles, who was born in October 2019. Kerr also has a son, Flynn, from her previous relationship with actor Orlando Bloom.

Sergey Brin and Nicole Shanahan

sergey brin nicole shanahan — Kimberly White/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize

Who they are: Brin is the cofounder of Google. Shanahan is the founder of law-tech company ClearAccessIP and the Bia-Echo Foundation.

Their backstory: The couple has been linked since 2015, when they were seen together at the star-studded wedding for a dating app CEO in Jamaica. The couple reportedly have a baby girl together who was born in late 2018, although they’ve kept information about their child under wraps. Brin has two other children from his previous marriage to 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki.

It was revealed in October 2019 that Brin and Shanahan have been married since 2018, but there were no other details made public about the wedding.

Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner

josh kushner karlie kloss — Jackson Lee/GC Images

Who they are: Kushner is the founder of venture capital firm Thrive Capital and is the cofounder of health insurance startup Oscar Health. Kloss is a prominent model who runs coding camps for young girls called Kode with Klossy.

Their backstory: Kloss and Kushner reportedly started dating in 2012. The couple got married in October 2018 in a small ceremony, then got married again in June 2019 on a ranch in Wyoming. In March, the couple announced the birth of their first child, Levi.

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

Who they are: Zuckerberg is the CEO and cofounder of Facebook. Chan is a former pediatrician. Together, the couple launched the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropy focused on science and education.

Their backstory: Zuckerberg and Chan are college sweethearts — they met in 2003 while they were students at Harvard University. In May 2012, the day after Facebook went public, they got married in a surprise ceremony. The couple has two daughters together, Max and August, who were born in 2015 and 2017.

Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian

Serena Williams. right, and husband Alexis Ohanian — Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Who they are: Ohanian is the cofounder of Reddit, and later cofounded the VC firm Initialized Capital. Williams is one of the best tennis players in the world, and ranks third on the all-time list of most winning players with 39 major tournament titles. In 2014, Williams launched her own investment firm, Serena Ventures, to invest in companies like Billie, Tonal, and Daily Harvest.

Their backstory: The couple met in May 2015 in Rome, and started dating that same year. They got engaged at the end of 2016 at the same place in Rome where they had first met. Williams gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, in 2017, and they got married later that year.

Marissa Mayer and Zachary Bogue

marissa mayer zach bogue — Jesse Grant/Getty Images

Who they are: Mayer is the former CEO of Yahoo, and the cofounder of software company Sunshine. Prior to Yahoo, she was Google’s 20th employee. Bogue is a cofounder and managing partner at the investment firm DCVC.

Their backstory: The couple met through a mutual friend in 2007, and got married two years later. Mayer announced her first pregnancy in 2012 on the same day she was publicly named Yahoo’s CEO. She gave birth to identical twin girls in 2015.

Marc Benioff and Lynne Benioff

marc benioff lynne benioff — Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for J/P HRO

Who they are: Marc Benioff is the founder and CEO of enterprise cloud company Salesforce. Lynne Benioff is a notable philanthropist who serves on the board of the nonprofit ONE, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, the Benioff Ocean Initiative, and others.

Their backstory: The Benioffs were married in 2006, although details of their Hawaiian wedding were kept under wraps. In 2018, the couple bought Time Magazine together for $190 million.

Dave Morin and Brit Morin

dave morin brit morin — Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Brit + Co

Who they are: David Morin helped to create Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, and cofounded Path, a now-defunct photo-based platform. He’s currently an investor with VC firm Offline Ventures. Brit Morin is the founder of Brit + Co., a popular lifestyle media company for millennial women.

Their backstory: The pair first met when they both were working at Apple years ago. They got engaged in 2011 after an elaborate proposal set in the Maldives, and got married the following year.

Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz

Julia and Keith Hartz — Getty / Drew Angerer

Who they are: Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz cofounded the ticketing company Eventbrite in 2006. He is currently a chairman at the company, while she serves as CEO.

Their backstory: The couple met back in 2003 at a mutual friend’s wedding. In a 2012 interview with Business Insider, Julia Hartz said that “we knew we wanted to start a company together before we lived together.” The pair got married in 2006, and now have two children.

Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg

Who they are: Diller founded the Internet company IAC in 1995, and now serves as a chairman for that company and for Expedia. Furstenberg is a lauded fashion designer who first rose to fame after marrying into a royal German family.

Their backstory: The couple got married in 2001, but have had an on-and-off relationship and friendship that’s spanned more than 40 years. They first met in the 1970s at a party Diller was hosting.

Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston

paul graham jessica livingston y combinator — Joe Corrigan/Getty Images; Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

Who they are: Graham and Livingston helped found Y Combinator, a wildly successful startup accelerator program that’s produced companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe.

Their backstory: The pair started Y Combinator in 2005 while they were already dating. They got married in 2008, and now have two sons.

Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum

Who they are: Greene and Rosenblum both helped found the cloud computing software company VMware in 1998. They also cofounded the cloud startup Bebop, which Google acquired in 2015. Greene was put in charge of Google’s cloud computing unit, and later sat on Alphabet’s board of directors. Greene is now chairman of the MIT Corporation, which is Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s board of trustees.

Their backstory: The couple met while attending the University of California, Berkeley, when Rosenblum gave Greene a ride on his motorcycle. They have two children together.

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February 3, 2021

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the latest major tech founder to step down as CEO. Here’s what others are up to now.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is stepping down as the company’s CEO.
Bezos was among the few founders of major tech companies still running their “startups.”
Here’s what the former founder-CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants are up to now.

Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage in 1994 as a way to sell books online. In 26 years as its CEO, he transformed the company into a behemoth in ecommerce, web services, logistics, robotics, groceries, AI, media, and more.

On Tuesday, Bezos said he will step down as CEO in the third quarter of 2021, passing the reins to Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy and taking a backseat as executive chairman of Amazon’s board of directors.

Before the pandemic hit, Bezos had spent several years mostly focused on long-term projects. and said in his letter to employees Tuesday that he plans to shift that focus to “other passions” like his space startup Blue Origin, philanthropies (Day 1 Fund and Earth Fund), and The Washington Post, which he acquired in 2013.

Bezos’ plans track closely with those of other high-profile tech founders who ran, and eventually left, their own startups-turned-tech-giants to pursue pet projects and philanthropic endeavors.

He was also one of the few remaining founder-CEOs of a generation of tech companies born in the past 50 years that played major roles in bringing computers, the internet, ecommerce, and social networking to the masses. That shrinking crowd still includes Facebook CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO and cofounder Jack Dorsey, and Netflix co-CEO and cofounder Reed Hastings.

But Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others have since bid farewell to the founders who had led their companies for years. Here’s what those tech icons are up to now.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs died in 2011.

After Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976, the company had a long line of CEOs. Jobs was eventually ousted after a failed board takeover in 1985, before returning in 1996 with a successful board takeover, eventually transforming the struggling company into the $2.3 trillion giant it is today.

Jobs left Apple in early 2011 as his health deteriorated, turning over the reins to CEO Tim Cook. Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in October 2011.

Wozniak, who left Apple in 1985 but is still technically an employee and is paid $50 per week, has since started multiple companies. Most recently, he launched a cryptocurrency business that helps companies raise money for eco-friendly projects, according to CNBC.

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is working on global health initiatives through his philanthropy.

Bill Gates 1998 — Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates in 1979.
Scott Audette/AP

Bill Gates and Paul Allen cofounded Microsoft in 1975, and by the time Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000, he had helped build the company into such a dominant player in the tech industry that it became the subject of one of the biggest antitrust cases ever.

Gates stayed on the company’s board until March 2020, when he said he would focus full-time on his philanthropic work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates has pledged to give away a majority of his wealth within his lifetime — though he and 75% of signatories of the “Giving Pledge” have actually become wealthier since signing on.

Gates has for years focused on global health and warned about the dangers of pandemics, and the Gates Foundation has poured $1.75 billion into coronavirus-related causes.

Google cofounder Larry Page is working on secretive flying-car startups.

Larry Page (L), Co-Founder and President, Products, and Sergey Brin, Co-Founder and President, Technology, at Google's campus headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google, the popular Internet search engine company, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 29, 2004 to raise as much as $2.72 billion in its long-awaited stock market debut. They founded the company in 1998. (Photo by Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images) — Google cofounder Larry Page in 2003.
Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images

Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, and Page led the company until 2001, when Eric Schmidt was brought in as “adult supervision.” But Page stepped back in as CEO in 2011 and eventually became the CEO of its parent company Alphabet in 2015, working mostly on “moonshot” projects and recruiting talented people.

Page and Brin stepped down as Alphabet CEO and President in December 2019, with then-Google CEO Sundar Pichai taking over, though both remain on the board. Page has since focused mostly on his investments in flying-car startups Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk.

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has invested in media, social impact fintech startups, and a basic income experiment.

GettyImages 799286 F 343440 11: Chairman and founder Pierre Omidyar and CEO Meg Whitman of EBay.com, the online auction service. California, June 15, 1998. (photo by James D. Wilson / Liaison Agency) ***EXCLUSIVE*** — eBay founder Pierre Omidyar in 1998.
James Wilson/Getty Images

Pierre Omidyar launched Auction Web, which ultimately became eBay, in 1995. The company eventually brought in Meg Whitman as CEO in 1998, and Omidyar stayed on the company’s board until September 2020.

After leaving day-to-day operations at eBay, Omidyar — a Hawai’i resident — started a local investigative journalism outlet, the Honolulu Civil Beat, and founded First Look Media, a digital journalism company that owns The Intercept. He also launched a $300 million fund to back social impact-focused fintech startups, and has given to a range of philanthropic causes, including basic income and pandemic response.

AOL co-founder and CEO Steve Case got into venture capital and philanthropy.

America Online Inc chairman Steve Case talks to reporters at a Tokyo hotel April 14. In Tokyo to announce the launch of AOL's online service in Japan, Case said he expects the Japanese market to become the largest market outside of the United States of AOL's online services. Case declined to comment on market rumours of merger talks with CompuServe Corp, an affiliate of H&R Block Inc. JAPAN ONLINE — AOL co-founder Steve Case in 1997.
Reuters

America Online, known to most people as AOL, was founded from the ashes of its short-lived predecessor, Control Video Corporation, by Jim Kimsey, Marc Seriff, and Steve Case.

Case ran AOL from 1991 until 2001, when the company completed its — ultimately ill-fated — merger with Time Warner, becoming chairman of the combined company until resigning that position in 2003 amid criticism from investors.

After leaving AOL’s board outright in 2005, Case launched a venture capital firm, Revolution, that has focused on funding startups outside of Silicon Valley. He has also launched a philanthropic foundation and chairs the board of the Smithsonian Institute.

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January 24, 2021

Billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison says he and Elon Musk are ‘close friends.’ Here are 8 other tech exec friendships that have thrived in the competitive world of Silicon Valley.

Mark Zuckerberg driving car — Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, left, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Getty Images

Silicon Valley might be competitive, but it also appears to be a breeding ground for friendships among its famous execs.
Elon Musk is close friends with Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
Larry Ellison gave the eulogy at Steve Jobs’ funeral, and he has a love/hate relationship with Salesforce’s Marc Benioff.
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Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Elon Musk and Larry Ellison. Jeff Bezos and Barry Diller.

What do all these high-profile pairings have in common? They’re all close friendships within the world of tech.

Silicon Valley may be known for its competitive spirit, but it’s also fostered several years-long friendships among some of its most famous executives. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, for example, have been buddies for nearly 30 years. And Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff have been friends for decades, even though their respective enterprise software companies are technically rivals.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has several close pals in tech, including friends he’s defended online or taken for Tesla test drives.

Here’s a closer look at some of the friendships among tech CEOs.

Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey

Elon Musk Jack Dorsey — Elon Musk, left, and Jack Dorsey.
Joe Skipper/Reuters; Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

While it’s not clear if Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey actually hang out in real life, they do seem to have a solid virtual friendship.

As far back as 2016, Dorsey said Musk was “a really good model” for how to use Twitter. More recently, Dorsey said in an interview that Musk is his favorite Twitter follow, to which Musk responded, “Thanks Jack, Twitter rocks!”

Then, in January, Dorsey and Musk spoke over video chat in front of Twitter employees, and Musk gave Dorsey advice on how to improve the platform.

In March, as Dorsey faced a possible ouster at the hands of an activist hedge fund, Musk publicly tweeted his support of the CEO.

“Just want to say that I support @jack as Twitter CEO,” Musk tweeted. “He has a good <3.”

Jeff Bezos and Barry Diller

Jeff Bezos Barry Diller — Jeff Bezos, left, and Barry Diller.
David Ryder/Getty Images; Mike Blake/Reuters

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and IAC Chairman Barry Diller appear to have been friends for years.

In January 2016, Diller correctly predicted that Bezos would become the richest person in the world.

And in the last few years, as Bezos has gone through changes in his personal life, he’s been spotted hanging out with Diller and his wife, designer Diane von Furstenberg, more often. Diller and von Furstenberg have reportedly attended multiple parties hosted by Bezos, and Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, have sailed aboard von Furstenberg’s yacht. The two couples were also reportedly spotted exploring Venice together.

Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs

Larry Ellison Steve Jobs — Larry Ellison, left, and Steve Jobs.
Stephen Lam/Reuters; Jeff Chiu/AP

Oracle founder Larry Ellison and late Apple CEO Steve Jobs were friends for 25 years before Jobs’ death in 2011.

Ellison and Jobs used to be neighbors in Woodside, California, and the pair often went hiking together. It was during one of those hikes that Ellison helped Jobs plot how to regain control of Apple after he was ousted — Ellison even suggested buying Apple himself and installing Jobs as CEO.

It was Jobs who came up with the idea that Apple should acquire his company, Next, instead. When Ellison questioned how the pair would make money, Jobs said to him, “Larry, this is why it’s so important that I’m your friend. You don’t need any more money,” Ellison said in a commencement speech in 2016.

Ellison said he spent time with Jobs in his final days, taking shorter walks around the block with him as he became weaker. Ellison gave a eulogy at Jobs’ funeral.

Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin Elon Musk Larry Page — From left: Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, and Larry Page.
Mike Blake/Reuters; Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters; Ruben Sprich/Reuters

Elon Musk has been friends with the cofounders of Google for a long time.

In the early days of Musk’s tenure at the electric car maker, he took Brin and Page on a test drive. Unfortunately, a software bug prevented the car from going any faster than 10 miles per hour, Musk recounted at a company shareholder meeting in 2016. Despite “the world’s worst demo,” however, the duo ended up investing in Tesla anyway, Musk said.

Over the years, Musk and Page especially have become close friends — Musk even sometimes sleeps at Page’s house when he’s in town, and Page once said he’d rather leave his money to Musk than give it away to charity.

Brin, Page, and Musk also reportedly used to hang out in a Google-owned apartment and brainstorm ideas.

“It’s fun for the three of us [including Google cofounder Sergey Brin] to talk about kind of crazy things, and we find stuff that eventually turns out to be real,” Page told Ashlee Vance, who wrote a 2015 biography about Musk.

Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff

Larry Ellison Marc Benioff — Larry Ellison, left, and Marc Benioff.
Stephen Lam/Reuters; Kimberley White/Getty Images

Ellison and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff met when Benioff began working at Oracle when he was 23. He was a star early on, earning a “rookie of the year” award that same year and becoming Oracle’s youngest VP by age 26. He spent 13 years at Oracle, during which he became a trusted lieutenant to Ellison.

The pair became such close friends that rumors swirled about their relationship’s backstory — people wondered if they were related, or if Ellison had been Benioff’s childhood babysitter. Ellison and Benioff took trips together, sailed on Ellison’s yacht, and went on double dates.

Benioff began working on Salesforce with Ellison’s blessing, and Ellison became an investor, putting in $2 million early on.

The duo has publicly feuded over the years — including when Benioff fired Ellison from Salesforce’s board — but Benioff has also described Ellison as his mentor.

“There is no one I’ve learned more from than Larry Ellison,” Benioff said in 2013.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett Bill Gates — Warren Buffett, left, and Bill Gates.
Dennis Van Tine/AP Images; Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates met in 1991 when Buffett was invited over to Gates’ mother’s house. Neither man was very interested in meeting the other, but they ended up hitting it off. Soon after, Gates asked Buffett for a business book recommendation, and Buffett loaned him his copy of “Business Adventures” by John Brookes — Gates still has it today.

Since then, the duo has done everything from play table tennis together to participate in Berkshire Hathaway’s annual newspaper toss competition. And Gates, his wife Melinda, and Buffett launched the Giving Pledge together in 2010, vowing to give away the majority of their wealth in their lifetimes or in their wills.

While Buffett owns a major stake in Apple, he’s said that he’ll never invest in Microsoft due to his friendship with Gates.

Larry Ellison and Elon Musk

Larry Ellison Elon Musk — Larry Ellison, left, and Elon Musk.
Stephen Lam/Reuters; Mike Blake/Reuters

Ellison and Musk appear to be two of the friendliest CEOs in tech, if their relationships with Benioff and Jobs, and Page, Brin, and Dorsey are any indication. So it’s not much of a surprise that the two moguls are “very close” friends with each other, too.

Back in 2018, when Ellison was named to Tesla’s board of directions, he highlighted his relationship with Musk.

“I think Tesla has a lot of upside,” Ellison said at the time. “I am not sure how many people know, but I’m very close friends with Elon Musk, and I’m a big investor in Tesla.”

It makes sense that Ellison and Musk would get along well, as they’re two of the most colorful personalities in tech. Ellison owns an entire $300 million island in Hawaii, likes to race yachts, and doesn’t mind trash-talking his competitors. Musk spends his money on rare cars, has had multiple high-profile relationships, and is often outspoken on Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg and Drew Houston

Mark Zuckerberg Drew Houston — Charles Platiau/Reuters; Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have apparently been friends for years, with the former often turning to the latter for advice.

“[Zuckerberg’s] given me a lot of advice just on company scaling, how do you organize people, how do you set up these systems,” Houston told Bloomberg in 2015.

That same year, a Fast Company profile on Dropbox described Houston as a “close friend” of Zuckerberg’s. The pair has been photographed together everywhere from Houston’s birthday party at a ping-pong club to the prestigious Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

This past February, Houston was appointed to Facebook’s board of directors.

“Drew brings valuable perspective to our board as a leader of a technology company with services used by millions of people and businesses,” Zuckerberg said in a statement at the time. “He thinks deeply about where technology is going and how to build a culture that delivers services that always work well.”

Kevin Systrom and Jack Dorsey

Kevin Systrom Jack Dorsey — Jim Bennett/WireImage/Getty Images; David Becker/Getty Images

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey started out as close friends, but it’s hard to tell where they stand these days.

According to the book “No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram” by Sarah Frier, the pair met when they were early employees at Odeo, the audio and video site created by eventual Twitter cofounders Ev Williams and Noah Glass. Dorsey expected to dislike Systrom when he joined as a summer intern in the mid-2000s, but the pair ended up bonding over photography and expensive coffee.

Systrom and Dorsey stayed in touch even after Systrom got a full-time job at Google — he was an early proponent of Twitter (then known as Twttr), and when Systrom was working on Burbn, the precursor to Instagram, he reached out to Dorsey for guidance. Dorsey ended up becoming an early investor, putting in $25,000. When Burbn pivoted to Instagram, Dorsey became one of the app’s biggest fans, cross-posting his Instagrams to Twitter and helping the app go viral soon after it launched. Dorsey eventually attempted to buy Instagram, but Systrom declined, saying he wanted to make Instagram too expensive to be acquired, according to Frier.

But the Dorsey-Systrom relationship appeared to have soured in 2012, when Dorsey found out through the grapevine that Instagram had signed a deal to be acquired by Facebook, Twitter’s biggest rival. According to Frier, Dorsey was hurt that Systrom hadn’t called him to discuss the deal, or to negotiate one with Twitter instead.

Dorsey hasn’t posted to his Instagram account since April 9, 2012, when he snapped a photo of an unusually empty San Francisco city bus — according to Frier, it was taken the morning he found out Instagram had sold.

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