The frugal life of Stanford’s ‘professor billionaire’ David Cheriton, who helped launch Google

Born in Vancouver, Canada, the Stanford University professor was the third of six children born to two Canadian engineers who grew up during the Great Depression in the 1930s. His father, Ross, recalled him as an independent, "self-sufficient" boy who avoided team sports and once built his own timber fort in the family yard away from other children. Cheriton skipped 11th grade because he found the curriculum too slow.

"He went his own way," his father told Forbes. "We didn’t channel him."

He grew up playing guitar, including classical and flamenco styles, and applied to study music at university. After being rejected by the University of Alberta, he turned to mathematics and later computer science. He got a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia in 1973, and his master’s and PhD in computer science from the University of Waterloo, where he became a pioneer in distributed computing.

In 1981 he moved to California, U.S., to teach at Stanford University. There, he combined teaching with applied research, building his own companies and investing in Silicon Valley startups that sparked his intellectual interest.

Stanford University professor, also known as "Professor Billionaire", David Cheriton. Photo from X

"Professor Billionaire" said in a 2021 interview with Canada's Financial Post: "And I also look at who are the people involved.

"I like the startups where there’s a technological challenge so that, you know, not every idiot can do this.

"There’s just not that many smart people in the world, in my humble opinion."

Front-porch investment that made history

His most pivotal investment took place in 1998 on his own porch, when Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin approached him for help licensing their PageRank algorithm, which they believed could revolutionize internet search.

Fresh from earning more than $20 million by selling Granite Systems, an Ethernet switching company he co-founded with German tech whiz Andy Bechtolsheim, to Cisco for $220 million, Cheriton was ready to help. He and Bechtolsheim each wrote a $100,000 check to Page and Brin, a stake now worth billions of dollars in stock, and Google Inc. was officially born. The Internet search giant has since become the dominant search engine, with Page and Brin each holding fortunes exceeding $100 billion, according to Forbes.

Before and after Google, Cheriton invested in dozens of companies. He co-founded Kealia, another networking company, which was sold to Sun Microsystems for $90 million, and Arista Networks, which went public in 2014.

Although Cheriton credits much of his success to luck, his strategy shows otherwise. He avoids market fads, calling social networking one of them, and focuses on breakthroughs that deliver measurable improvements to life. He said he has "a belief that if you are providing real value to the world and doing it in a sensible way, then the market rewards you."

Siddharth Batra, a former student backed by Cheriton, told Forbes: "Technologists probably find it easier to share things with David since he will understand a lot more than if you go to a VC who will sort of give you a blank stare and not really understand the promise of what you’re doing."

With an estimated net worth of $17.7 billion in 2025, Cheriton said he did not grow up wealthy and still carries what he calls a "cheap bastard" mentality. He drives a 1986 Volkswagen Vanagon, lives in the same Palo Alto home he has owned for 40 years, and cuts his own hair. "It’s not that I can’t fathom a haircut. It’s just easy to do myself, and it takes less time."

He has little admiration for displays of wealth. "I’m actually quite offended by that sort of thing," he told the Canadian newspaper Edmonton Journal in 2006. "These people who build houses with 13 bathrooms and so on... There's something wrong with them."

One of his rare significant purchases was a 2012 Honda Odyssey "for the kids," according to Business Insider. He jokingly calls himself "spoiled" for occasionally taking surfing holidays in Maui, Hawaii. Asked about his only expensive passion, he replied: "Startup companies."

"I feel like I’ve been very fortunate in investing, but I still have the brain of a scrounger in terms of spending money."

When Forbes approached him for a story on frugal billionaires, he cited Wikipedia’s definition of frugality: "The acquiring of and resourceful use of economic goods and services in order to achieve lasting and more fulfilling goals." "That’s certainly something I aspire to," he said.

Instead of luxury, Cheriton channels his wealth into the educational institutions that shaped him. He donated $25 million to the University of Waterloo, which renamed its School of Computer Science the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science in his honor. He has also made major contributions to the University of British Columbia and Stanford to fund scholarships and research.

In an interview for Stanford University, he described philanthropy as an investment.

"If you look at all the options for using one’s financial resources, I think education is the best investment. I don’t think about it in the sense of, ‘Oh, I want to help people,’" he said. "To me, it’s just a good investment for the future."

Though he avoids social media, keeps a low profile and shuns public attention, Cheriton’s journey continues to inspire entrepreneurs worldwide, showing that groundbreaking success often begins with a simple idea fueled by curiosity and a commitment to knowledge.