Background and career
David Arthur Duffield (born 21 September 1940) is an American billionaire businessman in the software industry. He is the co-founder and former chairman of PeopleSoft, and co-founder and CEO emeritus of Workday, Inc.. In addition, he is founder and Chairman of Ridgeline, Inc. Duffield has donated more than $500 million to his alma mater Cornell University, including a series of donations in the 2020s totaling over $400 million. As a result, the university renamed its College of Engineering after him. He has also given $303 million to companion animal welfare causes and organizations, over $100 million to expand other educational institutions close to him and his family, $13 million to local first responders and community organizations, and $2.1 million to veterans affairs. His philanthropic interests are managed by the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation. One of their main projects is the planned Liberty Dogs, a 27-acre service dog training campus in Reno, Nevada, that will match and train disabled military veterans and canine companions. As of 2026, Duffield's net worth is $10.1B.
Duffield was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. His mother, Mary Duffield, was an elementary school teacher, and his father, Al Duffield, was an engineer without a college degree. In 1954, he graduated from Ho-Ho-Kus elementary school, where his mother taught and his brother, Al Jr., attended. In 1958, David graduated from Ridgewood High School in nearby Ridgewood, New Jersey, where he was co-captain of the baseball team. He attended Cornell University, where he played in a band and was a pitcher on the baseball team. He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from Cornell University. He is the benefactor behind Cornell's Duffield Hall, a nanoscale science (or nanotechnology) and engineering facility at Cornell. While at Cornell, Duffield was a member of Beta Theta Pi.
In 1964, Duffield began his career as a marketing representative and systems engineer at IBM. He left IBM to found Information Associates, which developed university exam scheduling software. In 1972, he left to start Integral Systems, a human resources management systems vendor for higher education clients, including Stanford. In 1979, he started another venture, Business Software Corporation, which provided real-time human resources and payroll applications for commercial enterprises. In 1987, Duffield resigned from Integral Systems.
Duffield founded PeopleSoft in 1987 and was the CEO and chairman. PeopleSoft grew to be the world's second-largest application software company before being acquired by Oracle in January 2005 for $10.7 billion cash.
In March 2005, Duffield and former PeopleSoft vice chair and head of product strategy Aneel Bhusri started Workday, Inc., a company that provides financial management, human capital management, and planning software delivered in the form of a software as a service (SaaS) model. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, and employs more than 17,500 people today. Duffield was known as the company's chief customer and employee advocate. He relinquished the co-CEO role in May 2014 and became chairman of the board. He resigned as chairman in April 2021 and was appointed chairman emeritus and ultimately CEO emeritus by Workday's board.
Duffield founded his sixth and current company, Ridgeline, in 2017. Headquartered in Incline Village, Nevada, Ridgeline is an industry cloud software platform for investment management. The early-stage company currently employs approximately 650 people in offices in Incline Village, Reno, New York City, and San Ramon, California. Duffield was Chief Executive Officer of Ridgeline until May 2024, when Dave Blair was announced as CEO. Duffield continues as chairman.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
