Stephan J. Paternot was born in San Francisco, California USA on 21 March 1974, of French, Swiss, and American ancestry, and is probably best known as the co-founder of theglobe.com, worth nearly $200 million and one of the top sites during the Dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
A respected businessman and film financier, how rich is Stephan Paternot? Sources estimate that Stephan’s net worth is over $20 million, accumulated largely during the popularity of his internet business during the late 90s. His assets include major stakes in numerous companies, such as Actarus Funds, Palm Star Entertainment, and Slated Inc.
Stephan Paternot Net Worth $20 million
Stephan Paternot was born to parents Yves Paternot, an entrepreneur, and Mia Heineman, a housewife. He grew up in San Francisco but the family moved to Switzerland for his father’s work. His father co-founded Adia, which eventually became one of the largest (temp) employment agencies worldwide. Stephan studied in Mont Olivet, a Catholic school in Lausanne run by nuns, however, his parents divorced after 11 years of marriage, and Stephan moved to London with his mother. He finished his elementary and high school there in Kensington, and while at the American School in London, he discovered computer science and there his love for computers began. He started with computer games such as “Chopper Command”, then moved towards advanced programming in the Pascal language. Going against the wishes of his father, Stephan went to Ithaca, New York to study in Cornell University so that he could focus more on computers.
While at Cornell, Stephan met fellow student Todd Krizelman, and they became fascinated with the concept of chatrooms while on their university’s computer network. They found most chatrooms unimpressive, and wanted to create a social networking service of their own. Stephan and Todd launched theGlobe.com in 1995, and it attracted over 44,000 visits within its first month alone, so they co-opted other students from their computer science department to work as their employees. Due to their increasing popularity, by the time of their record breaking IPO in 1998, they were worth around $100 million each; this was where Stephan established most of his net worth and assets. However, the Dotcom bubble took a heavy toll on theGlobe.com and its market capitalization shrank by more than 95%. theGlobe.com branched to subsidiary companies and ventures, but they all ceased operations due to mismanagement and class action lawsuits.
Although theGlobe.com was his most popular, Stephan’s net worth can also be credited to many other sources. He is a businessman and internet entrepreneur, founding Actarus Funds, Palm Star Entertainment, as well as the film financing project Slated. Stephan is also an author, who published “A Very Public Offering”, an autobiography of his experience as a millionaire in the Dotcom bubble. He also has played short roles in three movies, “Shutter”, “Wholey Moses”, and “Time Enough at Last”, as well as having five producer credits under his belt. As of early 2017, he is currently working on financing more films through his crowd-sourcing project Slated.
In his personal life, Stephan keeps to himself and is not known to publicly disclose facts about his private life. He is involved as a board member in various foundations, such as the Heineman Foundation, and the Independent Filmmaker Project IFP.org.
