Duffield is the co-founder and largest shareholder of Workday, a provider of cloud applications for financial and human capital management. The Pleasanton, California-based company's customers include Netflix and MGM. Duffield was also the founder of PeopleSoft, an enterprise-software maker acquired by Oracle in 2005.
Dave Duffield's net worth of $12.8B can buy ...
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The majority of Duffield's fortune is derived from his stake in Workday, a provider of cloud-based applications for finance and human resource workers. He owns about a quarter of the company, according to a 2020 SEC filing.
Prior to founding Workday, Duffield was the chief executive officer of PeopleSoft. Between the company's initial public offering in 1992 and its sale to Oracle in 2005, Duffield collected more than $600 million through stock sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from SEC filings. He has sold more than $2 billion of Workday stock since 2013, according to stock exchange filings.
The value of his cash and other investable assets is based on an analysis of insider transactions, market performance, investments, taxes and charitable donations.
Eric Glass, a spokesman for Duffield, declined to comment on the billionaire's net worth.
Dave Duffield was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1940. His parents moved to New Jersey when he was six months old. Among his early memories was watching his father, an engineer, build the first television in their community. He enrolled at Cornell University where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from the business school.
Soon after, he went to work for IBM. There he honed his entrepreneurial skills by developing new computer systems. He left in 1968 to start his own company, Information Associates, which created exam software for colleges. He founded PeopleSoft in 1987. The company, which specialized in employee management systems, was acquired for $10.3 billion by Oracle in 2005. He started Workday, which also made employee management software, later the same year.
The majority of Duffield's giving goes to Cornell University and to Maddie's Fund, his personal foundation that works to end animal euthanasia at pet shelters. The organization is named after his miniature schnauzer, Maddie, who died in 1997.