David Cheriton

David Cheriton
Born
David Ross Cheriton

(1951-03-29) March 29, 1951 (age 73)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
EducationUniversity of British Columbia (BS)
University of Waterloo (MS, PhD)
Spouse
Iris Fraser
​
​
(m. 1980; div. 1994)​
Children4
AwardsSIGCOMM Award for Lifetime Contribution (2003)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
Mathematics
Business
Philanthropy
InstitutionsUniversity of British Columbia
Stanford University
Granite Systems
Kealia
Arista Networks
Websiteprofiles.stanford.edu/david-cheriton

David Ross Cheriton (born March 29, 1951) is a Canadian computer scientist, businessman, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He is a computer science professor at Stanford University,[1][2] where he founded and leads the Distributed Systems Group.[3]

He is a distributed computing and computer networking expert, with insight into identifying big market opportunities and building the architectures needed to address such opportunities. He has founded and invested in technology companies, including Google, where he was among the first angel investors;[4] VMware, where he was an early investor;[5] and Arista, where he was cofounder and chief scientist. He has funded at least 20 companies.[6]

Cheriton was ranked by Forbes with an estimated net worth of US$8.8 billion, as of April 2021.[7] He has made contributions to education, with a $25 million donation to support graduate studies and research in the School of Computer Science (subsequently renamed David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science) at the University of Waterloo,[8] a $7.5 million donation to the University of British Columbia,[9] and a $12 million endowment in 2016 to Stanford University to support Computer Science faculty, graduate fellowships, and undergraduate scholarships.[10]

  1. ^ "David Cheriton profile". stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
  2. ^ "David R. Cheriton Graduate Scholarship". Cheriton School of Computer Science. 2017-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Jolis, Jacob (16 April 2010). "Frugal after Google". Stanford Daily. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
  5. ^ "The Midas List: #4 David Cheriton". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2016-03-06. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
  6. ^ Clark, Don (2016-03-30). "The Billionaire Professor Behind New Networking Startup Apstra". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2016-05-07. Retrieved 2016-05-12.
  7. ^ "David Cheriton". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2016-02-20. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
  8. ^ Post, National. "University of Waterloo gets $25M 'Google dividend'". Canada.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-23. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
  9. ^ "Founding Google investor Cheriton donates $7.5 million to UBC computer science". UBC News. 14 November 2014. Archived from the original on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
  10. ^ Myers, Andrew (2016-05-02). "David Cheriton: "The goal is to get students to think like experts"". engineering.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2016-06-11. Retrieved 2017-04-18.