Tech-giant honchos aren't known for their spendthrift lifestyle: take Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who's spent hundreds of millions of dollars on properties all over god's green earth, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who's so rich he's got a private island lying around, and even, on a much smaller level, Facebook boy genius Mark Zuckerberg, who dropped $7M on a new place last year, and the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who had, at the time of his death, plans to build a nearly $9M new manse. Despite this, of course, Jobs had the reputation for living modestly—at least for this crowd—and it's that tradition that his successor upholds: Tim Cook lives in a 2,400-square-foot house in Palo Alto, Calif.: "I like to be reminded of where I came from, and putting myself in modest surroundings helps me do that. Money is not a motivator for me," Cook (who makes $1.4M a year and has a $378M, 10-year stock grant from Apple) tells Forbes of the house he bought for $1.9M in 2010. Technically the place is a condo because it shares land with another, smaller apartment out back. And what earthling dwells there? Bill Maris, the 36-year-old managing partner of Google Ventures. As Gawker puts it, "Who knows, maybe the men get on famously, grilling hot dogs and drinking beers together, collecting one another's packages, trading Excel anecdotes, and not hacking into each other's broadband hookups." Or perhaps a West Side Story for the digital age?
· Tim Cook Sleeps Near the Enemy [Gawker]
· Tim Cook's Modest Home [Forbes]
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