Thomas M. Siebel (born November 20, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman, technologist, and author. He was the founder of enterprise software company Siebel Systems and is the founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai, an artificial intelligence software platform and applications company. He is the chairman of First Virtual Group, a diversified holding company with interests in investment management, commercial real estate, agribusiness, and philanthropy.

Early life and education

Siebel was born in Chicago, one of seven children of Arthur Francis Siebel, a Harvard-educated lawyer, and Ruth A. (née Schmid) Siebel. Siebel is a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he received a BA in history, an MBA, an MS in computer science, and an honorary doctorate of engineering.

Business career

Between 1984 and 1990, Siebel was an executive at Oracle Corporation, where he held a number of management positions. Siebel served as chief executive officer of Gain Technology, a multimedia software company that merged with Sybase in December 1992. Siebel was the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Siebel Systems, which was acquired by Oracle in January 2006. Siebel is the chairman of First Virtual Group, a diversified holding company.

Siebel Systems

Siebel Systems was a software company primarily engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications. As an executive at Oracle Corporation, Siebel proposed the idea of creating enterprise software applications tailored for marketing, sales, and customer service functions. Oracle management declined his proposal. In 1993, Siebel left Oracle and found Siebel Systems to pursue that opportunity. In 1999, Siebel Systems became the fastest-growing technology company in the United States. Siebel Systems grew to over 8,000 employees in 32 countries, more than 4,500 corporate customers, and annual revenue greater than $2 billion before merging with Oracle in January 2006.

Management philosophy

In 2019, Siebel initiated a program at C3.ai that pays 100 percent of the costs for employees to complete an online master's degree of computer science (MCS) program from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Employees who complete the MCS degree receive a salary increase of 15 percent, a cash bonus of $25‚000, and additional stock options.

Honors and awards

Siebel serves on the Board of Advisors of the Stanford University College of Engineering, the University of Illinois College of Engineering, and the University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering. He is a Director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and is the Chairman of the Board for the American Agora Foundation. He was a member of the Trustees of Princeton University from 2008 to 2011. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Montana Meth Project and the Siebel Scholars Foundation, and Chairman of the Siebel Foundation. He was ranked #5 and #3 of the world's top 25 philanthropists by Barron's Magazine in 2009 and 2010, respectively. In 2007 and 2008, he was named one of The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists by BusinessWeek.

Philanthropy

In 2001, Siebel donated $32 million to his alma mater, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to build the Siebel Center for Computer Science, opened in spring 2004. In 2006, Siebel donated $4 million to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to establish two endowed full professorships, the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science and the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science. Siebel pledged an additional $100 million gift to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007. In 2015, the Siebel Foundation launched the Siebel Energy Institute to research the data management of energy infrastructure monitoring data. In 2016, Siebel donated $25 million to build the Siebel Center for Design at the University of Illinois, a 60,000-square-foot multidisciplinary hub designed by architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and was completed in 2020. In 2024, Siebel donated $50 million to the University of Illinois to establish the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science

Political involvement

In February 2022, Siebel donated $90,000 to the Canada convoy protest in Ottawa, that also blocked border crossings between Canada and the U.S. to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions. In 2024, Siebel donated $500,000 to Donald Trump.

Personal life

He is married to Stacey Siebel. They have four children and live in Woodside, California. Siebel is the second cousin once removed of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the First Partner of California and wife of Governor Gavin Newsom. Siebel currently has the highest personal emissions from private jet use of any American, as of 2022.

Elephant incident

On the morning of August 1, 2009, he and a guide were in Tanzania, observing a group of elephants from 200 yards away, when an elephant charged Siebel's guide and then turned on Siebel, breaking several ribs, goring him in the left leg, and crushing the right. They radioed for help, but it was three hours before he received any medical treatment. He was flown to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, where they cleaned his wounds and stabilized his leg. He was then flown back to the United States on a 20-hour flight with only 10 hours of morphine and 15 hours of fluids. He had lost half of his fluids and was put in the intensive care unit. He was moved to Stanford Hospital where, over the next six months, they performed 11 surgeries, fixed his ribs and shoulder, and saved his left leg. In September 2010, a year after the attack, Siebel had undergone 16 surgeries and an Ilizarov apparatus external fixator to mend, lengthen, and reshape the tibia of his right leg. After 19 reconstructive surgeries over two and a half years, Siebel has now made a full recovery. In 2013, National Geographic included Siebel's account in its TV series Dead or Alive: Trampled on Safari.

Books and articles