Ted Waitt

Theodore William "Ted" Waitt (born January 18, 1963) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Waitt is a co-founder of Gateway, Inc. Career On September 5, 1985, Waitt, his brother Norm Jr., and Mike Hammond started Gateway 2000 with a $10,000 loan secured by Waitt's grandmother. The company began on Waitt's father's cattle ranch in Sioux City, Iowa, moved to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa and later to North Sioux City, South Dakota, where they continued to develop their "down-home" branding, complete with computer boxes printed in a black and white Holstein cow pattern. Waitt led a move of the company's headquarters from South Dakota to Poway, California in 1998. Waitt relinquished his post as CEO of Gateway in late 1999 to Jeffrey Weitzen, but returned to the post in January 2001. In 2004, after the acquisition of eMachines, Waitt turned over day-to-day operations of Gateway and the title of CEO to Wayne Inouye, the former CEO of eMachines. In May 2005, he resigned as chairman of the company, ending a near 20-year run with the company he co-founded.