The incredible life of private equity titan Robert Smith, the 268th wealthiest American by Jonathan Marino on Oct 2, 2015, 8:46 AM Advertisement
 Robert F. Smith, CEO and founder of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, just graced the cover of Forbes' richest Americans issue. With a net worth of $2.5 billion, he's ranked #268 on the list of Forbes' wealthiest Americans. That puts Smith ahead of early Facebook investor Jim Breyer, who has a net worth of about $2.4 billion, and on par with private equity veteran and Philadelphia 76ers co-owner Josh Harris, who has earned $2.5 billion to date. He also displaced Michael Jordan, becoming the second-richest African American in the United States — behind Oprah Winfrey. It's the latest accomplishment in a stellar 12 months for the leader of one of Silicon Valley's budding software and technology investors. Last October, Smith and Vista closed a fund nearing $6 billion, the firm's biggest ever. He also got hitched to Hope Dworaczyk, mother of his young son, in a wedding that can only be described as epic. Check out scenes from the life of one of private equity's rising stars: He faced an uphill battle in Silicon Valley from early on  Smith gave the commencement speech at American University's 2015 graduation, where he spoke about his earliest attempts to get work in Silicon Valley while he was still in high school. "I dug up the phone number for Bell Labs to ask about summer internships. 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." But, he was persistent, and eventually got his way. "I called back every day for two weeks straight. The HR director stopped taking the calls after the second day but….I left a message with my phone number. Then I called every Monday for about 5 months, and every Monday the receptionist chuckled and took a message. I kept at it. To my great surprise, Bell Labs HR Director finally called me back - in June. An intern from MIT hadn’t shown up, and they needed someone fast."
Smith spent years working as an intern at Bell  Smith attended Cornell for undergrad but he never lost touch with Bell Labs. He continued to do work there as an intern during his summer and winter breaks before graduating Cornell with a chemical engineering degree.
After Cornell, Smith headed to Columbia University  Smith would go on to earn his MBA from Columbia University. Afterwards, he headed straight to Wall Street, taking a job at Goldman Sachs. "When I finished business school and decided to join the tumultuous world of investment banking, my family and friends spoke up with concerns about my sanity," he said in his American University commencement speech. Smith would rise to co-head of enterprise systems and storage investment banking, advising on $50 billion of deals from 1994 to 2000.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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