H. Ross Perot died at home in Dallas today. He
was 89, and suffering from leukemia. Forbes estimates his net
worth to be $4.1 billion.
Americans know Perot best for his squeaky
prime-time TV talks during his two presidential runs in 1992 and 1996, when as
the populist Reform party candidate he railed against both big deficits and
free trade, warning of the “giant sucking sound” of
U.S. jobs moving to Mexico. Perot’s grandest legacy, however, was in his
instrumental role in evolving the information technology industry. Despite his
short stature and Texarkana twang, Perot was a true giant—especially in his
vision for how computers were set to transform the world.
The son of a Texarkana, Texas, cotton broker,
Perot (b. 1930) got his start selling Christmas cards, garden seeds and
newspapers. Then he tried bronco busting and broke his nose (twice). He was an
Eagle Scout before he went to the U.S. Naval Academy, then spent four years
manning communications systems at sea. The Navy prepared him, in 1957, to join
IBM as a salesman. He was so good as selling data processing systems and
services that one year he met his annual sales quota by January 19.
IBM wouldn’t give him more equipment to sell,
so he got to thinking: How about instead of just selling hardware, we also
provide services like customized software and technical support. IBM rejected
Perot's idea, so—as the legend goes—he picked up a copy of Reader's
Digest, went out for a haircut, and came across a quote from Henry
Thoreau’s Walden that changed his life: “Most men lead lives of quiet
desperation.”
Not this guy. He quit IBM, and in 1962, with a
check from his wife for $1,000, Perot founded Electronic Data Systems. “That’s
all the money I ever put into my first company. We bootstrapped it from there,”
he told Forbesin 2013. He later displayed that check
prominently in his office. Perot set out to pursue his rejected strategy for
IBM. And his timing couldn’t have been better, as President Lyndon Johnson
(another legendary Texan) was ramping up his Great Society programs and needed
all the computing power Perot could muster to administer Medicare and Medicaid.
EDS also revolutionized the claims-handling process for insurers Blue
Cross/Blue Shield and worked with NASA and the Pentagon. Perot recalled
sneaking his son into Cape Canaveral to see the 1969 Apollo 11 launch only to
find him later chatting with rocket scientist Werner von Braun. That same year
Perot took EDS public and became a billionaire.
In 1971 the leftist magazine Ramparts tagged
Perot as “America’s first welfare billionaire,” for the juicy margins on his
government contracts. His billions grew. By 1984 EDS was processing healthcare
claims and running government IT networks. General Motors needed some of that
data-processing magic, and so it bought EDS for $2.1 billion. Perot’s take came
to more than $800 million in cash and G.M. shares that he later sold for $700
million. In 1986 he was a key investor in Steve Jobs’ NeXT Computer. In 1988,
on the day his G.M. noncompete was up, Perot did it all over again, founding
Perot Systems with $20 million of his own money, staffing it with former EDS
employees, and tapping son Ross Jr. to run it. Fast forward to 2009 and Dell
bought out Perot Systems for $3.9 billion—the Perots cleared $1 billion on that
one.
In the mid 1980s, Perot launched what turned
into a third billion-dollar fortune, in real estate. With son Ross Jr. he
founded Hillwood Development and acquired 30,000 acres of ranchland outside
Fort Worth, which they have transformed over the years into AllianceTexas, one
of the nation’s biggest inland ports, with rail, truck and air access. Always
keeping up with information technology, the Hillwood in recent years has become
a specialist in constructing distribution centers for the likes of Amazon and
data centers for Facebook. After railing against NAFTA when running for
president, Perot utilized AllianceTexas to benefit from it. Hillwood recently
led a $250 million, taxpayer-financed expansion of the airport there, which is
a FedEx Hub. Hillwood is even working with Uber and Bell helicopters on Uber
Air. Forbes estimates the fortune of Ross Jr., tied to his ownership of
Hillwood, at $2.3 billion.
“The world wants
things done, not excuses. One thing done well is worth a million good excuses.”
Ross Perot
When Perot ran for president in 1992 and 1996,
he favored balancing the federal budget, creating “electronic town halls"
for citizens to take part in. He was against gun control and free-trade
agreements like NAFTA, which he believed sent American jobs overseas. He spent
millions of his own money to buy prime-time TV spots where he explained
economic realities to America, with the tagline, "It's just that
simple." And yet his beliefs were nuanced. In a debate against Bill
Clinton and George H.W. Bush, he explained himself to be no Constitutional
constructivist: “Keep in mind our Constitution predates the industrial
revolution. Our founders did not know about electricity, the train, telephones,
radio, television, automobiles, airplanes, rockets, nuclear weapons,
satellites, or space exploration. There’s a lot they didn't know about. It
would be interesting to see what kind of document they'd draft today. Just
keeping it frozen in time won’t hack it.” After leading the polls in June 1992,
he ultimately lost the 1992 race with 19% of the popular vote but no electoral
votes—thus handing victory to Bill Clinton and costing George H.W. Bush a
second term. He spent some $60 million of his own money on the effort.
Perot had since the Vietnam War era given tens
of millions of dollars in support of POW/MIA recovery efforts and had made
numerous trips to Vietnam in person. He spearheaded the installation in
Washington, D.C., of the Air Force memorial, as well as the addition to the
Vietnam War memorial of a haunting bronze sculpture of three brothers in arms.
At Perot’s office (where he kept “all the stuff that my wife won’t
let me keep at home”) an entire hallway was dedicated to Perot’s
rescue from an Iranian prison of two EDS employees arrested in 1978. Perot, as
recounted in Ken Follett’s thriller On Wings of Eagles, assembled a
crack team of vets to sneak into Iran and get his people out. “My father had a
huge amount of courage,” Ross Jr. told Forbes. In honor of the work
he has done in support of veterans, several years ago a U.S. Special Forces
team presented Perot with a walking stick. Recovered from Tora Bora,
Afghanistan after 9/11, it is said to have belonged to Osama bin Laden.
Perot is survived by wife Margot, sister
Bette, son Ross Jr., daughters Nancy and Suzanne, Carolyn, Katherine, and their
families.
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