how to be a billionaire overnight
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; Thursday December 9, 8:34 pm Eastern Time
Va Linux founder worth over $1 billion on paper
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9 (Reuters) - Larry Augustin, the founder of VA Linux Systems Inc. (NasdaqSC:LNUX - news), likes to tell the story that while a graduate student at Stanford University, he had a chance to join fellow students David Filo and Jerry Yang when they started up Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news).
Instead, he decided to build workstations that run the then little-known Linux operating system in his apartment, much to the amazement of some who later heard his tale.
But on Thursday, Augustin, 37, joined the ranks of Silicon Valley's instant paper billionaires, when the company he founded in 1995, formally known as VA Research, went public with the biggest one-day percentage gain in IPO history.
Augustin owns 6.6 million shares of VA Linux Systems, including 384,000 shares owned by his wife Alice Augustin, according to the company's SEC filings. Shares of VA Linux Systems, which soared almost 700 percent Thursday, closed at 239-1/4 on the NASDAQ, making Augustin's stake worth about $1.57 billion on paper.
Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital of Menlo Park, Calif. was the biggest beneficiary on paper, with a stake of over 18 million shares. Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), another early investor in VA, owns 3.5 million shares. |
