Robert F. Smith
The Wealthiest Black Person in the U.S.
Robert F. Smith, a black billionaire from Colorado, is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Established in 2000, Vista Equity exclusively invests in business software startup ventures, which it buys and manages more efficiently to handily increase their value. Vista Equity Partners manages over $73 billion in assets and has amassed a personal net worth for Smith to the tune of $7.05 billion as of this writing. That means his net worth has tripled since 2016. His company is among the best-performing private equity firms in the space and, since its founding, posted annualized returns of 22% according to Forbes.
But aside from his private equity investments, Smith is also known for his philanthropy. He is a generous giver, and that fact was cemented in May of 2019 during a commencement speech he gave at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Smith promised to pay off the collective student loans of that year’s graduating class, which he later extended to include the parents of the graduates. The gift, according to Moorehouse officials, totaled $34 million. Smith also received an honorary doctorate from the historically black college.
Robert Frederick Smith was born in Denver, Colorado on December 1, 1962. His parents, Dr. William Robert Smith and Dr. Sylvia Myrna Smith were both teachers who enjoyed a middle-class status. Smith found the number for Bell Labs Innovations and applied for an internship while attending Denver East High School, but was denied. During a 2015 commencement address at the American University School of International Service, Smith added:
“They said I could apply if I were a junior or senior in college. I said that was fantastic, because, while I was only a junior in high school, I was getting A's in computer science and my advanced math courses, so it was like I was in college. Much to my dismay, they disagreed.”
Smith continued to call Bell Labs every day for the next two weeks, then each Monday for several months, until a position opened up after an M.I.T. student did not attend. That summer Smith developed a reliability test for semiconductors, an invention that won him praise from fellow interns as well as supervisors. He continued to intern for Bell Labs in the summers and during winter breaks while attending Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He graduated from the prestigious university in 1985 and received an engineering degree. Cornell’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was named after Smith following a hefty $50 million donation, and in 2020, they also favored him with their highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award.
He worked as a chemical engineer for a few years and even received European and U.S. patents for two inventions, but investment banking seemed to be his calling. Smith made the transition in 1994 when he accepted a job at Goldman Sachs in the technology investment banking department. In 2000, Smith left Goldman Sachs to establish his own private equity and venture capital firm, which is now the fourth-largest enterprise software company in the world behind Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.¹
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This article appears in 21st Century Black Changemakers.
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Lauren Simmons made history in 2017 when she was hired as the youngest black floor trader at the New York Stock Exchange.