Biography
Waitt was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa and attended the University of Iowa. Waitt and Mike Hammond started Gateway 2000 on September 5, 1985 with a $10,000 loan secured by Waitt's grandmother. The Company began on Waitt's father's cattle ranch in Sioux City, Iowa, moved to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa and later to North Sioux City, South Dakota, where they continued to develop their "down-home" branding, complete with computer boxes that patterned with black and white Holstein cow patterns.
He led a move of the company's headquarters from South Dakota to Poway, California in 1998. Mr. Waitt released the reins as CEO of Gateway in late 1999 to Jeffrey Weitzen, but returned to the post in January 2001.
In 2004, after the acquisition of eMachines, Waitt turned over day-to-day operations of Gateway and the title of CEO to Wayne Inouye, the former CEO of eMachines. In May 2005, he resigned as chairman of the company, ending a near 20-year run with the company he co-founded.
Waitt has been featured on numerous lists by Forbes magazine. He has held a spot on both the Forbes 400 Richest in America as well as Forbes list of the World's Billionaires. He has also been listed on Fortune Magazines "40 Richest Under 40", a list of the 40 wealthiest self-made Americans under the age of 40 in the United States. The 2008 Forbes 400 List listed Waitt with a net worth estimated at $1.4 billion. Waitt fell off the Forbes 400 list in 2009 with a net worth estimate of $900 million. The $500 million drop from the previous year was explained by "souring real estate" and a divorce settlement.
According to the September 2002 issue of Fortune Magazine, Waitt sold $1.1 billion in Gateway stock during the dot-com era. In August 2007, Gateway was acquired by Acer Inc. for $1.90 per share or $710 million.
Labeled a maverick by national business and technology publications, he has gone on to form two enterprises that are his chief interests: Avalon Capital Group, Inc., a wholly owned, billion-dollar private investment company with diverse interests in technology, health care, energy, finance, and real estate; and the Waitt Foundation, Waitt Institute and Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention, nonprofit organizations dedicated to the improvement of mankind’s knowledge through historical and scientific exploration.
Read more about this topic: Ted Waitt
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