Ross Perot Mentors NeXT

Ross Perot was an American entrepreneur who founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962 — and became a billionaire after he sold it to General Motors in 1984. Looking for places to invest (and famously pissed off that he missed out on an opportunity to invest in Microsoft early on), he decided to bet on NeXT and Steve Jobs, reportedly after seeing a TV documentary about it. He purchased $20 million's worth of shares in 1986, which gave him a 16% stake and a chair on the company's board. Perot left NeXT in 1991 after six uninterrupted years of seeing it lose money.