The Fabulous Real Estate of 5 Tech Superstars Who Might Surprise You
Bisnow has brought you to the fabulous real estate of Super Bowl champ Tom Brady and billionaire inventor Elon Musk—now here are some under-the-radar tech superstars with serious property holdings.
Company: Microsoft
Net Worth: $17.4B
Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen may not get as much light as partner in crime Bill Gates, but I’m sure cruising the high seas on one of his super-yachts to one of his many luxurious retreats is good consolation. Allen has a sweet $25M 5.8k SF Malibu beach house on Carbon Beach, an island in Washington, a beachfront Hawaiian estate, and a hilltop mansion on the Côte d'Azur (aka the French Riviera) called the Villa Maryland. He also paid $70M for the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers back in 1988—not real estate, just awesome.
Company: Oracle
Net Worth: $44.2B
Everyone loves Hawaii, multi-billionaires buy Hawaii. Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison purchased the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai for $300M in 2012 because it’s simply an awesome thing to do. When Hawaii gets boring, he can work on his swing at his private golf club in Rancho Mirage or lounge at one of his two dozen properties in Malibu. In 2012 he bought the home belonging to former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, and in 2013 he paid $18M for producer Jerry Bruckheimer's house.
Company: Salesforce
Net Worth: $3.9B
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is the man behind one of the biggest cloud-based softwares on the planet, and a huge fan of Hawaii, so when a five-acre estate on the Big Island was up for sale in 2000 Marc ponied up $12.5M for the plot and it’s been Hawaiian shirts and flip flops ever since. Benioff also notably pulled off the S.F. land deal for the ages when he dropped $278M for 14 acres in Mission Bay, S.F.
Company: Hewlett-Packard
Net Worth: $2.2B
HP chief Meg Whitman's penchant for the outdoors is evident in her real estate acquisitions. In addition to buying a $4.8M, mountaintop ski home and an $18M dude ranch in Telluride, CO, she's ponied up millions to preserve endangered land in the area, most recently near Alta Lakes.
Company: PayPal
Net Worth: $3.3B
PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel bought a lavish 1.7-acre oceanfront property in Maui in 2011, and at a selling price of $27M, it was reportedly the biggest single-family purchase ever completed on the island. Thiel recently dropped a cool $11.5M for a 6k SF, multi-wing S.F. mansion called The Glint on a 1.23-acre lot just above LA's iconic Sunset Strip.
