When learning about the Gold Rush as 7-year-old kid I thought about how I would have set up shop selling gold panning and mining equipment to the prospectors instead of becoming one of them myself. Now, a 70-year-old kid who once had the same idea reflects back on the business moves he made concerning a similarly abundant substance, in about the same place. Carl Berg wasn't in the race to create the personal computer, didn't conceive of or program the OS of the future, and isn't into writing client-side programming languages. But he sure loves leasing property to those that do (including Microsoft, Apple, and Google).
Oh yeah, and he lends to them too—to anyone looking to start a business in the silicon industry, really. (He put up venture capital for folks like, oh, you know, Sun Microsystems and other nobodies like IBM). And you know what's cool about him—besides being inducted into the Silicon Valley Hall of Fame last May? (I'll give you a hint, it's not a $1 million.)
$1.4 billion. That's what's cool about him.
But that's not all.
Even though Berg is well-known in commercial real estate circles, he's got something far more important in the works. After long hours at his Cupertino-based company, Mission West Properties, Inc., which specializes in Real Estate Investment Trusts, he's investing time into Cytotech—a company whose been spending a lot of time with the FDA lately.
To get their cancer treatment approved.
Read the rest of the scoop on Carl Berg, the magnate behind the Pirates, here.
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