David Cheriton

David Ross Cheriton
David Ross Cheriton
Born	March 29, 1951 (age 75); Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Occupation(s)	Computer scientist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist, professor
Known for	Distributed Systems Group at Stanford University; early angel investments in Google and VMware; co-founder and chief scientist of Arista Networks

David Ross Cheriton (born March 29, 1951) is a Canadian expert in computer science, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He serves as a professor of computer science at Stanford University, where he established and currently directs the Distributed Systems Group.

Specializing in distributed computing and computer networking, Cheriton has demonstrated a remarkable ability to recognize significant market trends and design system architectures to meet those demands. He has founded multiple tech firms and made early angel investments in companies such as Google and VMware. Additionally, he co-founded Arista Networks and holds the position of chief scientist there. To date, he has provided funding to more than 20 enterprises.

By 2025, Forbes estimated his net worth at approximately US$19.8 billion, while Maclean's appraised it at $18.64 billion. His philanthropic efforts include a $25 million gift to the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, which was subsequently renamed the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. Other notable donations include $7.5 million to the University of British Columbia and a $12 million endowment at Stanford University supporting faculty positions, graduate fellowships, and student scholarships within Computer Science.

Education

Originating from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Cheriton attended public schools located in Edmonton’s Highlands district in Alberta. He briefly enrolled at the University of Alberta, applying for both mathematics and music programs; however, he was not admitted into the music faculty. He completed his undergraduate studies with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in mathematics at the University of British Columbia in 1973.

He pursued graduate education at the University of Waterloo, earning a Master of Science (M.S.) degree in 1974 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in computer science in 1978. After spending three years as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, he transitioned to Stanford University.

Research

Cheriton played a pivotal role in the development of three microkernel-based operating systems. Among his early contributions were key development roles on Thoth, a real-time operating system, and the Verex microkernel. At Stanford, he founded and led the Distributed Systems Group responsible for creating the microkernel OS known as V. His scholarly work extensively covers distributed computing and networking topics. In recognition of his lifetime achievements in telecommunications networks, he was honored with the SIGCOMM award in 2003.

He has guided several prominent figures including Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google; Kenneth Duda, founder of Arista Networks; as well as executives like Hugh Holbrook (VP Software Engineering at Arista), Sandeep Singhal (former General Manager at Microsoft), and Kieran Harty (CTO and founder of Tintri).

As of 2016, Cheriton continues collaborating with Stanford students on transactional memory systems designed to improve fault tolerance and cost efficiency within memory architectures.

Industry

Cheriton, alongside Andy Bechtolsheim, co-established Granite Systems, focusing on the creation of gigabit Ethernet technology; this enterprise was later acquired by Cisco Systems in 1996.

In August 1998, Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page encountered Bechtolsheim at Cheriton's residence. Bechtolsheim provided the initial financial backing for their startup, Google, while Cheriton became an angel investor, contributing $200,000.

He was also among the first to invest in virtualization pioneer VMware, which was purchased by EMC for $625 million in 2004 and subsequently went public in 2007.

In 2001, Cheriton joined forces with Bechtolsheim again to launch Kealia in Palo Alto. The company specialized in high-capacity streaming video servers, AMD Opteron-based Galaxy servers, and the Thumper enterprise-grade network attached storage solution. Sun Microsystems acquired Kealia in 2004, integrating Thumper into the Sun Fire X4500 product line.

Cheriton partnered with Bechtolsheim once more in 2004 to cofound Arista Networks, where he took on the role of chief scientist and contributed to the development of its Extensible Operating System (EOS). Arista became a publicly traded company in 2014.

He provided investment and guidance to Aster Data Systems, a key player in data warehousing that was acquired by Teradata for $263 million in 2011.

Among his early investments were storage virtualization company Tintri, founded by his former student Kieran Harty, and video advertising firm Zunavision. Additionally, he founded OptumSoft.

In 2014, Cheriton co-established and invested in Apstra, Inc., followed by cofounding BrainofT, Inc. (Caspar) in 2015.

Currently, he holds the position of Chief Data Center Scientist at Juniper Networks.

Lifestyle

Although his stake in Google has grown to exceed US$1 billion, Cheriton is recognized for maintaining a modest lifestyle, steering clear of luxury vehicles and expansive residences. He has been described as one of the more frugal billionaires.

On November 18, 2005, the University of Waterloo revealed a $25 million gift from Cheriton aimed at enhancing graduate education and research within its School of Computer Science, which was subsequently renamed the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science as a tribute. In 2009, he contributed $2 million to the University of British Columbia supporting the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI), and later donated $7.5 million to establish an academic chair and a course dedicated to computational thinking.

His philanthropy extends to funding graduate and undergraduate fellowships at Stanford University as well as providing multi-million-dollar donations to facilitate research endeavors there.

Cheriton opposed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology favored by telecommunications providers, advocating instead for Ethernet due to its simplicity and proven reliability—a stance that ultimately saw Ethernet become dominant.

Personal life

Cheriton married Iris Fraser in 1980; their marriage ended in divorce in 1994.

Publicly available records indicate that Cheriton has contributed over $5,000 to Republican political entities, including the party itself, various candidate political action committees, senators, and presidential candidate Donald Trump.

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