# 17 – Howard Ahmanson Jr.
Trustee, Fieldstead and Co.
estimated worth: $575 million
Howard Ahmanson, a banking fortune heir known for funding religious and conservative causes, has a new home, an Old World-style mansion spanning three lots on Corona del Mar’s Ocean Boulevard.
Ahmanson finished the estate in late 2010.
The 12,000-square-foot home, estimated to be worth about $30 million, is called Casa de Los Peregrinos, or house of the pilgrims. It has a backyard chapel.
The house, with its rustic touches, unique look and stunning ocean views, draws a lot of attention from neighbors and passersby.
It also speaks to the tastes, wealth and idiosyncrasies of its owner.
Ahmanson is a big financier of conservative Christian cultural, religious and political causes.
He gave $1.1 million to support Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. He’s a board member of Seattle-based Discovery Institute, known for its advocacy of intelligent design.
Ahmanson also serves on the boards of John M. Perkins Foundation in Jackson, Miss., and the Claremont Institute.
He’s been a big supporter of Tustin-based Orange County Rescue Mission.
He’s feared by critics on the left who see him as a behind-the-scenes adversary on key issues.
But Ahmanson likely is more complex than some foes make him out to be.
He surprised many in 2009 when he said he registered as a Democrat because he was turned off by the California Republican Party’s sole focus on resisting new taxes. He now considers himself a conservative Democrat.
Ahmanson and wife Roberta do a lot of humanitarian work on race relations, feeding the hungry and other causes.
Lending to Ahmanson’s mystique is that he’s somewhat reclusive. He suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that can result in involuntary body movements and repetitive, compulsive thoughts.
Roberta is a former religion writer for the Orange County Register and author of “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion.” She’s a collector of Christian art and a director of the Museum of Biblical Art in New York.
We estimate Ahmanson’s wealth at $575 million, up about 5% after considering the strong stock market with an offset for his giving.
Our estimate is conservative, and Ahmanson could be worth more.
His father, Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Sr., started and grew Home Savings & Loan, which was bought for $10 billion in 1998 by Washington Mutual Inc.
The elder Ahmanson spent much of his later years as a philanthropist, creating the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and the Ahmanson Gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
When Ahmanson Sr. died in 1968, his estate was split between the Ahmanson Foundation and then-18-year-old Howard Ahmanson Jr. Today, the foundation, of which Ahmanson is a trustee, has $949 million in assets and gave $43 million in the year through October.
—Sherri Cruz
# 18 – Lynsi Martinez
Owner, president, director, In-N-Out Burgers Inc.
estimated worth: $500 million
A push into Texas earlier this year gave an extra boost to In-N-Out Burgers Inc., if long lines at recent grand openings are any indication.
The Irvine-based company’s 29-year-old heiress expanded the chain into new territory a year after becoming president.
Martinez replaced Mark Taylor—the brother-in-law of one of her half-sisters—who is now the company’s chief operating officer.
In-N-Out now has Texas restaurants in Frisco, Allen and Dallas with plans to open six more in the state.
Texas is a big move for In-N-Out, which has 259 restaurants.
Growth in prior years had been concentrated in a 500-mile radius around the company’s Baldwin Park distribution center.
The distribution center is where In-N-Out’s secret blend of ground beef from local suppliers is made into burger patties and sent to restaurants daily, leaving the freezer out of the equation for its meat and fries.
In-N-Out is operating out of a temporary processing and distribution center near Dallas until a permanent location is found.
Besides California and Texas, In-N-Out has restaurants in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
In-N-Out’s estimated annual revenue is $500 million.
We estimate Martinez’s wealth up from $475 million last year. That’s based on sales growth from new locations, including in Texas, where the chain scored an immediate hit with customers and managed to replicate its unique distribution system to meet demand.
Martinez doesn’t own the entire company—not yet, anyway.
We allocated In-N-Out’s full value to Martinez on the expected fortune coming her way.
She owns a third of In-N-Out’s holding trusts. Next year, she’ll own half and by 2016 Martinez is expected to own the entire company.
Martinez’s grandparents are the late Harry and Esther Snyder, who opened the chain’s first restaurant in Baldwin Park in 1948.
A set of unfortunate circumstances within the family sped up Martinez’s ascension and stake in the company.
Before she became president, she had been a director and was involved with the In-N-Out Foundation.
When Martinez’s grandfather Harry Snyder passed away in 1976, her uncle Rich Snyder took over the helm of the company.
Martinez’s father, Guy Snyder, led In-N-Out when Rich Snyder passed away after a 1993 plane crash.
Guy Snyder died from a prescription drug overdose six years later.
Esther Snyder served as In-N-Out’s president until her death in 2006.
In-N-Out keeps out of the media spotlight but couldn’t avoid it in 2005 when former executive Richard Boyd filed a lawsuit alleging Martinez was attempting to remove her grandmother from the top spot. The company filed a countersuit accusing Boyd of embezzlement and fraud.
The matter was settled in 2006.
—Kari Hamanaka
# 19 – Anthony Maglica
Founder, president, owner, Mag Instruments Inc.
estimated worth: $400 million
Anthony Maglica’s riches come from a common household item: the flashlight.
The Anaheim Hills resident owns and runs Ontario-based flashlight maker Mag Instruments Inc., which sells products to everyone from everyday shoppers to firefighters and police officers.
We estimate Maglica’s worth at $400 million, unchanged from last year, based on prior estimates and the steady strength of his core business.
Maglica also holds hundreds of patents for his inventions.
Plus, Mag Instruments is known for aggressive enforcement of its intellectual property rights, having won some multimillion-dollar decisions along with out-of-court settlements that also included compensation.
Last year, Mag Instruments bought Germany’s Eubama Eugen Bader Maschine-bau GmbH, a seller of rotary transfer machines used to cut metal.
The company could be an attractive buy for private equity firms or companies such as St. Louis-based Energizer Holdings Inc., but Maglica has shown no interest in selling the business.
His two sons are said to be the most likely candidates to take over the company when Maglica retires.
Until then, Maglica can still be found on the shop floor tinkering with prototypes. Maglica founded his company in 1974 and trademarked the company’s first flashlight in 1979.
He had originally intended the flashlight to be used within the public safety sector.
The popularity of the Maglite among police officers and firefighters spread.
New versions of the Maglite—including rechargeable and personal-sized ones—helped broaden the company’s appeal.
Maglica was born in New York but grew up in Croatia.
He left for the United States in 1950 when communists took control of the country.
Maglica picked up what jobs he could while slowly teaching himself English.
He found a job as a machinist and saved up $125. It was just enough for a down payment on a lathe to start his own machine shop building parts for aerospace companies and the military.
Maglica’s personal life made headlines in the 1990s when he went through a palimony case with former longtime girlfriend Claire Halasz.
Halasz asked for $150 million, but the case was settled for about $30 million.
—Kari Hamanaka
# 19 – Sheldon Razin
Founder, chairman, Quality Systems Inc.
estimated worth: $400 million
Boston native Sheldon Razin, who years earlier turned $2,000 into fast-growing Irvine medical software maker Quality Systems Inc., is starting to see a bounce from healthcare reform.
Quality, which had a $2.6 billion market value at recent check, is getting benefits from the $20 billion in healthcare information technology spending that came from last year’s healthcare reform law.
The company makes software that helps doctors and dentists manage their practices and has begun to get into making medical record software for smaller hospitals. (Even though Quality is seen by analysts as benefiting from health reform, Razin was critical of it because he contended it was about shifting costs rather than containing them).
Quality Systems has been a longtime Wall Street darling. The company’s shares are up more than 3,000% since early 2000. After some cooling, it’s regained momentum—shares are up 56% over the past 12 months.
Razin, 73, owns 5.1 million shares of Quality, a 17% stake with a recent market value of nearly $460 million. Our estimate of his wealth is up by $100 million this year, based mostly on Quality’s share price and some assumptions of other investments. We have tried to account for past stock sales, the cost of exercising options and taxes.
Razin’s Quality has grown through doctors’ and dentists’ adoption of technology to create “paperless offices.”
It has its roots in a management consulting business Razin started in the early 1970s.
Quality began selling to dentists, then added doctors and went public in 1982, raising $11 million.
Razin holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before starting Quality, he held various technical and managerial positions with former Orange County aerospace company Rockwell International Corp.
He has given to MIT, the Chabad Jewish Center of Laguna Beach and the Alzheimer’s Association.
In March, Razin was named a director of the year by the Forum for Corporate Directors for his contributions to Quality’s growth.
A married father of two and grandfather of five, Razin said he follows the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as well as the Boston Red Sox.
—Vita Reed
# 21 – James Downey
Owner, Wave Equity Partners LLC
estimated worth: $375 million
James Downey cashed out in a wave of consolidation in the aerospace industry in the 2000s.
We estimate his wealth at $375 million based on the sale of his C&D Aerospace in Huntington Beach to France’s Zodiac SA for $600 million in 2005.
Our estimate is based on the sale, and we tried to factor in other owners and debt. We’ve increased it by $25 million to reflect the strong stock market and gains in other asset classes, with some give-back based on his generosity.
Childhood friend Toby Crowley was the other founder of C&D, which was launched in 1972.
The company now goes by C&D Zodiac Inc. and makes commercial and military aircraft cabin fixtures, including overhead bins, cabin lighting and reinforced cockpit doors.
Downey now oversees Aliso Viejo-based family investment firm Wave Equity Partners LLC. He keeps a low profile. Since the C&D sale, he’s given millions through his foundations.
His Aliso Viejo-based Downey-Short Foundation supports patients undergoing cancer treatment. It has $4 million in assets. The James E. Downey Foundation, with about $3 million in assets, has given scholarships to more than 200 college students in Orange County and Illinois. He also supports education in Brazil.
Downey’s estimated giving through 2010 is $14 million.
—Sherri Cruz
# 21 – Fariborz Maseeh
Founder, managing principal, Picoco LLC
estimated worth: $375 million
Engineer-turned-financier Fariborz Maseeh has a new passion: the fight against autism.
Maseeh, who has become a leading philanthropist in Orange County in recent years, established the Kids Institute for Development and Advancement in Irvine three years ago.
New passions come naturally to Maseeh. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained pioneer in microelectromechanical systems cashed out the software company he built with a $750 million sale to Corning Inc. a decade ago. Now he manages several hedge funds and other assets through his Picoco LLC in Newport Beach.
Maseeh’s giving is just as varied and innovative. The nonprofit autism education and treatment center is set to relocate from its 10,000-square-foot space to a 50,000-square-foot building that’s being touted as the first of its kind for education, therapy and medical support in one location.
“One of the main aims of my life now is to create a center of excellence dedicated to autism treatment that is the best in the world,” said Maseeh, a parent of an autistic child.
In September the institute will host a national conference on autism at the University of California, Irvine, that will focus on the family and new technologies to aid treatment.
Maseeh founded and ran IntelliSense Corp., a Massachusetts maker of software for the microscopic machines that run on a chip. MEMs, as they’re called, go into a variety of devices, including pacemakers and aircraft landing gear.
He ran the the company from 1991 until the sale to Corning Inc. was completed with the second of two transactions in 2000.
Our $375 million estimate for Maseeh is based on the sale and presumption that he exited some of his Corning shares before the stock crashed in 2001. He could be worth more.
Without a good read on his investments, we opted to leave our estimate for him unchanged from a year ago. We assume he had some gains in his portfolio, but also note some big gifts that likely offset some of the increase.
We do know that he bought Corona del Mar’s Portabello Estate late last year in what appears to be the most expensive home sale OC’s ever seen, topping a $35 million sale in 2008 of a Newport Bay mansion previously owned by actor Nicolas Cage.
The deal also reportedly included the transfer of a property valued at roughly $7 million to the estate’s seller, Frank Pritt, founder of Seattle software maker Attach-mate Corp. That upped the price tag to $41.1 million for the triple-oceanfront lot with a panoramic view of the Pacific, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Portabello has eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a three-story grotto with two pools, two spas and a swim-up bar, a two-lane bowling alley, an auto museum, an art deco theater and a 2,000-square-foot master bedroom suite.
He gives via the Massiah Foundation, which makes investments in education, science, healthcare, the arts and humanities.
Last fall Maseeh donated $24 million to build a new residential complex at MIT, which will enable the school to increase its undergraduate enrollment by 400 students. Earlier this year, the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering held the first Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition, the result of his $1 million gift to annually recognize the best business plan written by engineering students.
Maseeh has given $12 million to Portland State University in Oregon, where he did undergraduate work, to support the school of engineering and the math and statistics department, both named after him.
His foundation also created several student awards at Portland State’s school of arts in honor of Maseeh’s late sister, Kamelia Massih.
Maseeh started the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at UC Irvine and gives to its Samueli School of Engineering.
He is a past recipient of the UC Irvine Medal, the school’s highest honor. He also has supported Hoag Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
Maseeh’s a member of the Samueli School of Engineering advisory board at UCI and serves on similar boards at Portland State, MIT and USC.
In May he was named a 2011 Distinguished Graduate of the University of Texas’ Cockrell School of Engineering, the school’s highest alumni award.
Maseeh grew up in Tehran, Iran, and came to the U.S. at 18.
—Chris Casacchia
# 21 – Duane Roberts
Chairman, chief executive, Entrepreneurial Corporate Group
estimated worth: $375 million
Duane Roberts, known for saving and restoring the landmark Mission Inn Hotel & Spa in Riverside, made his early fortune in food.
He since has diversified into real estate and other investments.
We estimate Roberts’ wealth at $375 million, the same as last year, based in part on his holdings in the lagging Inland Empire.
Besides the Mission Inn, his businesses include British food manufacturers, restaurants and apartments.
He lives in Laguna Beach and runs his businesses from Newport Beach-based Entrepre-neurial Corporate Group. He also frequents his native Riverside.
In 2010, Roberts launched another venture, Casey’s Cupcakes, with his wife, Kelly, and stepdaughter, Casey Reinhardt, who appeared on a reality TV show called Laguna Beach.
Casey’s cupcakes has two stores—one at the Mission Inn and another in Laguna Beach, with stores in Newport Beach and Irvine under construction.
In 1950, his dad, Harry Roberts, started Butcher Boy Food Products Inc., a meat company that was a supplier of hamburger patties to the original McDonald’s drive-in and other fast-food operators. Roberts dropped out of college to help his dad.
While working at Butcher Boy, Roberts, then 19, came up with what is billed as the first frozen burrito. At 27, Roberts became president and built Butcher Boy to six plants and 1,400 workers.
By the time the family sold the business to Central Soya Inc. in 1980, Butcher Boy had an estimated $85 million in yearly sales.
Roberts went on to sell another burrito company, Fernando’s Foods, to Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra Foods Inc. in the late 1990s for about $35 million in ConAgra stock.
Roberts took his Mexican food fortune and branched out into real estate, as well as banking and other investments.
He’s spread his wealth. Roberts built a 17,000-square-foot pet adoption center named after his mother, the Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center. He is a major long-term supporter of Santa Ana-based Olive Crest Children Treatment Centers Inc. He’s given “seven figures” to Pepperdine University, where his stepdaughter went to school.
The Mission Inn, which Roberts saved more than 18 years ago after it had been closed for eight years, has been the site of many Republican fundraisers.
—Sherri Cruz
# 24 – Peter Cooper
Founder, executive chairman, Cooper and Co.
estimated worth: $325 million
New Zealand native Peter Cooper made a fortune in the U.S. and is putting part of it to work in his homeland.
Cooper, a real estate developer and investor who splits his time between Newport Beach and New Zealand, is heading up a massive redevelopment of the rundown waterfront of Auckland’s Britomart precinct.
The project now is in its seventh year, and includes new offices, stores and apartments, and the restoration of historic buildings.
The New Zealand project has seen changes in financiers, development plans and some retailers during the downturn.
Cooper remains in charge of the project.
After dropping our estimate of Cooper’s wealth during the worst of the global downturn, we’ve kept the same $325 million estimate on this year’s list, based on the reported progress of the project over the past year.
Britomart is the largest project right now for Newport Beach-based Cooper and Co., which develops, manages and owns real estate in the U.S. and New Zealand. Cooper also invests in clean energy, financial and other companies.
In the 1990s, Cooper and partner Brian Stebbins sold a handful of U.S. shopping centers for about $180 million and went on to develop Southlake Town Square, a mall and residential center near Dallas.
Cooper also is undertaking a labor of love in his homeland—he’s built a 16,000-square-foot home on 4 acres on the northern coast of New Zealand.
The home is part of Cooper’s Mountain Landing development of custom home sites, which also has been slowed by the downturn.
The son of a truck driver, Cooper studied law in Auckland. He began his career as a real estate lawyer with Russell McVeagh, one of New Zealand’s largest law firms.
He went on to work for Australian beer brewer Lion Nathan Ltd.
Cooper came to the U.S. in 1989 with his wife and five children. He’s on the board of directors for Georgetown University.
—Mark Mueller
# 24 – Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr.
Chief executive, president, Fletcher Jones Management Group Inc.
estimated worth: $325 million
Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr.’s auto empire includes the top Mercedes-Benz dealer in the nation, Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach.
We estimate Jones’ wealth at $325 million, the same as last year. Although luxury car sales are up in recent months, they lagged in 2010 as the industry recovered from the worst downturn in recent memory.
Our estimate is based on a valuation of Las Vegas-based Fletcher Jones Management Group Inc. after subtracting a portion for debt and any other owners.
Jones, whose father started in the auto business in 1946, sells Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Toyota and other brands at dealerships in Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada and California. His Fletcher Jones Motorcars is the county’s largest dealership by revenue and second in the country after Longo Toyota in El Monte.
The group of 16 dealers has annual sales of about $1.6 billion, with the Newport Beach dealership accounting for about $400 million. His most expansive dealership is the 225,000-square-foot Fletcher Jones Imports, a Las Vegas Mercedes dealer modeled after the one in Newport Beach.
Jones recently finished a remodel of the Newport Beach dealership showroom. He plans to open a Mercedes dealership in Ontario in 2012.
Jones has a home in Peninsula Point in Newport Beach and an office at Fletcher Jones Motorcars, where general manager Garth Blumenthal oversees day-to-day business.
He recently bought Billy’s at the Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, a favored hangout of his that now operates under the guidance of his wife, Kimberly.
His dealerships contribute to several charities through sponsorships, the Fletcher Jones School Fund and golf tournaments.
—Sherri Cruz
# 26 – Michael Harrah
Owner, president, Caribou Industries Inc.
estimated worth: $300 million
He’s Santa Ana’s largest commercial real estate owner. But Michael Harrah, the man known as “Big Mike,” still is waiting to become that city’s largest office developer.
Harrah owns close to 4 million square feet of commercial space in downtown Santa Ana and around the Civic Center.
He also owns close to a quarter of Santa Ana’s office buildings—some 50—plus a handful of stores and restaurants.
We estimate Harrah’s wealth to have held steady at $300 million this year, based on his real estate holdings and Santa Ana’s Caribou Industries Inc., a development, construction and property management company he owns. Caribou is one of Orange County’s larger tenant improvement construction companies.
Harrah has minimal debt on his buildings, many of which were bought cheap during Santa Ana’s downtrodden days in the 1980s.
Older buildings in and around Santa Ana haven’t seen as much of a rebound in pricing in Orange County as their newer counterparts in other areas of the county over the past year. That’s one reason we haven’t bumped up Harrah’s wealth this year, as we have with other area commercial real estate owners.
At the peak of the market in 2007, we valued Harrah at $500 million.
His long-stalled, 37-story One Broadway Plaza tower in the heart of Santa Ana—first approved in 2004—got a boost last year when the city waived a rule requiring Harrah to lease half of the proposed 530,000-square-foot tower before starting construction.
Complaints could lead to another delay. A court ruling announced last month called on city officials to put the waiver to a citywide vote.
Harrah could be in line for a boost in his wealth next year based on recent buzz that he has a tenant lined up that will put him over the 50% mark on One Broadway and eliminate the need for another vote and further delay.
Beyond Santa Ana, Harrah’s company has built condominium towers and parking lots in Hawaii, among other projects.
Recent projects he’s worked on include the Pin-nacle Honolulu, a 36-story condominium tower in Hawaii. Harrah also owns a Honolulu hotel.
Other assets include jets, helicopters and a collection of rare automobiles.
Along with the Orange County High School of the Arts, Harrah supports the Boys & Girls Club, Drug Abuse Resistance Education and the Child Abuse Prevention Center of Orange County.
—Mark Mueller
# 26 – Stacey E. Nicholas
Co-trustee, Nicholas Broadcom Trust
estimated worth: $300 million
Stacey E. Nicholas is a newcomer to the list this year as co-trustee and co-settlor of the Nicholas Broadcom Trust and, more notably, the former wife of Henry Nicholas, No. 8 on this year’s list.
The trust includes about 26.2 million Broadcom Corp. shares. The gross value of half the trust currently is about $480 million.
The Business Journal pegs Stacey’s estimated worth at $300 million based on the value of those shares and other property and assets she likely retained from her 20-plus-year marriage to Nicholas, cofounder and former chief executive of Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp.
Stacey (maiden name Feller) married Nicholas in 1987.
She first filed for divorce in 2002, a year before her husband stepped down as Broadcom’s chief executive.
The couple apparently attempted reconciliation before divorce proceedings resumed in 2006.
The divorce became final in 2008, and details of the financial settlement are still being hammered out.
Stacey holds a bachelor’s degree and masters’ in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was an electrical engineer at the now-defunct defense contractor TRW Corp., where she met Nicholas.
TRW was also where Nicholas met Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli.
Stacey is on the board of the Pacific Symphony and vice president of the board of trustees of St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano. Her eldest son graduated from St. Margaret’s this year and is attending Dartmouth College. She and Nicholas are also the parents of another son and a daughter.
—Emily Weisburg
# 26 – Pawan Seth
Drug developer, founder, Pharma Pass LLC
estimated worth: $300 million
Pawan Seth, a drug developer and inventor, is in his second year on OC’s Wealthiest list after years on our list of Other Centimillionaires.
Seth made our main ranking based on input from several sources.
His wealth from patents and development deals isn’t easily discernable, and we’ve kept him even with last year’s estimate of $300 million.
Seth established Pharma Pass LLC, a developer of ways to control the release and boost the effectiveness of drugs.
He’s perhaps best known as the creator of Wellbutrin XL, a once-daily, time-release version of the anti-depressant that has maintained a loyal following despite competition from generic alternatives.
Seth has a longtime relationship with Biovail Corp., a large Canadian drug maker that bought Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, which was based in Aliso Viejo, last year.
Biovail bought products under development, technologies, intellectual properties and the assets of Pharma Pass LLC and Pharma Pass SA of France for $190 million in 2002.
Seth continued to independently work on drug development after the Biovail deal. He appears to have continued work at a successor company aptly named Pharma Pass II LLC.
Seth still works with Biovail, with the two striking a deal for two drugs under development in 2008.
He also has the distinction of inventing the only generic version of Prilosec, a blockbuster heartburn drug that didn’t infringe on patents held by Britain’s AstraZeneca PLC. Seth’s version of generic Prilosec is marketed by UCB SA of Belgium.
Seth is also a member of the oversight committee for the Mary and Dick Allen Diabetes Center at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.
—Vita Reed
# 26 – Michael Wilson
Chief executive, Makena Technologies Inc.
estimated worth: $300 million
Former eBay Inc. executive Michael Wilson is trying to resurrect a virtual world he brought to life eight years ago with There.com.
Wilson’s company, Makena Technologies Inc., wants the social media site to be a competitor of Second Life and Facebook. There.com users take on digital personas, participate in online activities and interact with each other.
The site generated money from members and advertising, with deals with Coca-Cola Co., Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and some clothing brands at one point.
Makena Technologies Inc. shut There.com down last year.
Wilson recently announced that There.com will reopen, sparking virtual joy among thousands of followers who keep tabs on him and respond to his frequent blog posts.
That same month some of the site’s users were invited to try out an instant messaging service to check for bugs in claiming avatars, inventories and other abandoned items.
The site is expected to open some time this year as a paid service for visitors over the age of 18.
The cost will be at least $10 a month, according to a Wilson blog post shortly after the announcement.
“We don’t know the opening date yet, but we do know we’ll start with ThereIM,” he wrote. “We’ve done some work to get ready for this, but clearly there’s lots more to do.”
The relaunch has run into some glitches with the site moving from the company’s dedicated servers to servers in the cloud run by Amazon Web Services.
Wilson works from Laguna Beach for Makena, which has its on-the-books headquarters in Silicon Valley.
Wilson was employee No. 5 at eBay. He made millions in eBay’s $63 million initial public offering in 1998 and its ensuing stock rise.
Our estimate for Wilson starts with his early eBay shares. He’s likely lost some money on There.com, but that’s been factored in for past years. This year we’ve increased the estimate $25 million based on the stock market’s strong performance, with a slight offset for his new bet on There.com.
Wilson “retired” from eBay in 2001 as chief scientist and dabbled in startups. He moved to Laguna Beach in 2005.
In the mid-1990s, Wilson was hired as an engineer at eShop, a software company that was bought by Microsoft Corp. in 1996.
At eShop, Wilson met eBay founder Pierre Omidyar—who doesn’t live in Orange County but is part of the ownership of Montage Laguna Beach resorts. At the time he was tinkering with the code for creating online auctions.
Wilson has said on his blog that he’s working on “a number of commercial projects” at Makena but didn’t give specifics.
He is involved with the Washington, D.C.-based Maya Foundation, an education nonprofit, and is a cofounder of its sister group, the Tzec Maun Foundation, which provides students with access to telescopes and “Internet astronomy.”
He also gives to Child’s Play, which gives sick kids video games during hospital stays, Ronald McDonald House in Palo Alto and Toys for Tots.
—Chris Casacchia
# 30 – Robert Hoff
General partner, Crosspoint Venture Partners
estimated worth: $275 million
We confess we don’t have a clear view into venture capitalist Bob Hoff’s wealth.
He returns to our list this year based on the persistent input of trusted sources that he should rank here. We’re figuring a 10% increase over last year based on the assumption that his savvy brought that much of a gain in the past 12 months.
Based on that circumstance, we figure our $275 million estimate for Hoff’s wealth is a safe bet. Some sources tell us he could be worth more.
Hoff is a general partner at Woodside-based Crosspoint Venture Partners and manager of its Irvine office. He’s invested in scores of startups in his career.
Some of Hoff’s hits include Innovent Systems (acquired by Irvine’s Broadcom Corp.), IPivot (bought by Intel Corp.) and PairGain Technologies (bought by ADC Telecommunications Inc.). Misses include the now-defunct Internet consultant marchFirst Inc.
Most of Hoff’s wealth is estimated to have come from investments during the technology boom.
In 2001, Forbes magazine ranked Crosspoint No. 1 in the country in terms of overall distributed returns to its limited partners. Investors who had placed $1 with Crosspoint in 1996 got back $29 by 2001. This was after fees and profit-sharing by general partners such as Hoff.
Venture capital firms such as Crosspoint normally charge 2% fees for managing money and take 20% of the profits.
After making his fortune, Hoff is semi-retired.
He’s on the advisory board of Encore Housing Opportunity Funds, a San Francisco-based distressed real estate investor. He serves alongside former Pacific Investment Manage-ment Co. executive Bill Powers, a principal at Encore.
He’s also been an investor in an Aspen, Colo., project that called for building an upscale, 75-room hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain.
The project filed for bankruptcy protection last year in what the company’s lawyers have described as a defensive move made to save the proposed lodge at Aspen Mountain from a bank foreclosure.
Hoff is a veteran of General Electric Co.’s executive ranks. He holds an undergraduate degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., and an MBA from Harvard.
—Staff report
# 30 – Joan Irvine Smith
Heiress, philanthropist
estimated wealth: $275 million
Joan Irvine Smith, great-granddaughter of James Irvine, the Irvine Ranch founder, is one of the county’s major givers to education, the arts and environmental causes.
She’s making a big change in her life—she’s selling the San Juan Capistrano farm that’s housed her world-class jumping-horse-breeding operation, a major passion of hers, for more than 25 years.
In March, she announced that she was selling The Oaks, which bred 50 to 60 American sport horses a year in its heyday.
Smith said she was selling The Oaks in order to dial back her commitments. The asking price for the farm, which includes stables, training areas and 200-year-old oak trees, is about $20 million.
Officials said they were looking for a wealthy buyer who would want to bring horses to The Oaks.
We estimate Smith’s wealth at $275 million, based on input from several sources and crediting her with a likely gain of 10% on the strong stock market.
She got her fortune from her great-grandfather, who struck it rich during the Gold Rush of 1849. James Irvine and three partners bought 120,000 acres of land, which made up about a quarter of Orange County at the time.
James Irvine II, Smith’s grandfather, incorporated the land as Irvine Land Co. in the 1890s.
A group including Donald Bren acquired control of what later became the Irvine Company in 1977. Bren, who is No. 1 on OC’s Wealthiest, became sole owner in 1996.
Bren paid Smith and mother Athalie Clarke $256 million for their Irvine Co. shares in 1991.
Smith and Bren are cordial, sharing a passion for the environment and preserving parts of the Irvine Ranch as open space.
Smith also championed the University of California, Irvine School of Law, which opened in 2009. She donated $1 million to the school.
Her other passions include politics.
Smith, an ardent Democrat, has given to Hillary Clinton, Loretta Sanchez, the late Ted Kennedy and others.
—Vita Reed
# 30 – William Wang
Founder, chief executive, Vizio Inc.
estimated worth: $275 million
William Wang always wanted more than a TV empire. He’s gone about getting it in the last year, as his vision to diversify Vizio Inc. has become as clear as pictures on the company’s top-selling flat-screen TVs.
“TV was a great way to get a brand,” said Wang, who launched the company in 2002 amid the flat-screen boom. “The goal was always to build a consumer electronics company.”
Vizio has made big strides in broadening the brand with accessories and other products in a relatively short period of time.
The company started sales of soundbars last year and now has roughly half the U.S. market, according to data from the Arlington, Va.-based Consumer Electronics Association. Its Blu- ray DVD business, while still small, is up roughly 400% since 2009.
Other Vizio offerings include subwoofers, headphones, cables and wireless routers.
The company also has jumped into the market for tablet computers. Its first model, dubbed the Vizio Tablet, debuted at January’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In June the company surprised industry watchers when it debuted a line of light bulbs at a Consumer Electronics Association show in New York. The recyclable and mercury-free light-emitting diode, or LED, light bulbs are expected to hit the market later this year at “a Vizio price,” according to the trade press.
“I’m very excited about all the products we carry now,” Wang said.
To accommodate its growth, Vizio bought a three-story office building earlier this year near its Irvine headquarters for $7.5 million. It’s been growing local employment and had about 195 people in Irvine through April, up 66% from a year ago. It employs 370 worldwide, up 89%, with its manufacturing done on a contract basis, mostly in Asia.
While Vizio has seen success in new-product rollouts as it diversifies into digital, mobile and online entertainment, TVs remain the company’s revenue driver.
It sold 6.9 million TVs in 2010 for a total North America market share of 18%, according to data from DisplaySearch, a unit of Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD Group Inc.
That’s up from 2009, when the company sold nearly 6 million sets and had 17% market share, and the trend has continued this year.
The company has yearly sales of about $3 billion and has taken away business from big-name rivals, including Samsung Group, Sony Corp. and Japan’s Funai Electric Corp., which sells sets under the Philips brand in the U.S.
Vizio’s TVs are often priced at hundreds of dollars less than competitors. The company gets big sales from retailers such as Costco Wholesale Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Vizio now ranks as Orange County’s fifth-largest private company by sales.
Wang relies on the same perseverance he showed in 2000 when he walked away from a Singapore Airlines crash, in which roughly half of the passengers died.
Vizio now is the second-largest minority-owned company here after Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co., run by John Tu and David Sun, who rank No. 3 among OC’s Wealthiest.
We estimated Wang’s worth at $275 million, up 10% from a year ago, given the strong year of sales at Vizio and market-share gains on its consumer electronics accessories.
That’s our conservative guess since his exact ownership stake, Vizio’s profits and other variables aren’t known (see Serial Entrepreneurs, page 1).
—Chris Casacchia
