From being an intern, he worked his way up until he became one of the richest black men in America. Robert F. Smith may not be that popular, but just this year, he made an appearance on Forbes' Richest American issue. As per Celebrity Net Worth, at just 52 years old, Smith is already hailed as the founder of the Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm. As of today, he now has a net worth of $2.5 billion which makes him the second richest African American following Oprah. He's number 268 on the list of the wealthiest Americans.
He may be a billionaire, but Smith was not born rich. Born in Denver, Colorado in December 1, 1962, Smith was raised by PhD parents who were school teachers. During his high school life, he applied for an internship at Bell Labs, the internship however was only offered to junior and senior college students only. Smith isn't qualified yet so they have to turn him down. He was disappointed but he never gave up. He called the HR director of Bell Labs every day for two weeks. He eventually became less aggressive and would only call on Mondays for a span of 5 months.
A light was finally given when one of the interns from M.I.T didn't show up, so he was able to take his position. While he was doing his intern work, he was able to develop a reliability test for semiconductors. Smith eventually was able to get his B.S. Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and after graduating, he still continued his internship at Bell Labs during both summer and winter breaks up until he was finally able to get his MBA. He then headed to Wall Street and got a job at Goldman Sachs. He worked for the company for 6 years as a co-head of enterprise system and storage investment banking.
As per Business Insider, Smith's investing strategy worked wonders as it eventually lead him into being one of the wealthiest men in his time.
