Risk-taking Silicon Valley Developer Scores Tech Tenants, Emerges As Billionaire

This story appears in the December 29, 2014 issue of Forbes

Although his buildings serve as homes for world-famous companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google, Jay Paul is virtually unknown. Over the past 40 years the publicity-shy San Francisco-based builder has quietly amassed an estimated $1.5 billion net worth by satiating the desire for high-end office space among Silicon Valley’s top tech firms.

Google GOOGL +0.54%, which already leases 1.2 million square feet from his privately held Jay Paul Co., recently signed on for another 1.9 million square feet at Moffett Place, a Sunnyvale development in progress. Paul’s first project in San Francisco proper, which broke ground in November, will reshape the city’s skyline with the 56-story 181 Fremont, the tallest mixed-use tower west of the Mississippi.

Now 67, Paul grew up in Rhode Island and followed his father into the savings-and-loan business before getting into real estate. He started building offices in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s with partners. These days he builds alone; his firm owns nearly 4 million square feet of office space, plus a smattering of retail, with an equal amount under development.  Paul and his company declined to comment on his net worth.

The firm’s current portfolio includes more than 15 office towers in Sunnyvale, three buildings in Palo Alto occupied by AOL AOL +%, a mixed-use office and retail property in Santa Cruz, and offices leased to Nokia and Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.00% in San Diego. He’s also developing office buildings at Moffett Gateway in Sunnyvale, Harbor View Place in Redwood City and Summit Rancho Bernardo in San Diego.

“He’s had very good market timing. He’s taken risks that others wouldn’t take, but he’s by no means foolhardy,” says Phil Mahoney, Paul’s longtime broker at Newmark Cornish & Carey. “He’s as keen an investor as I’ve seen in 30-plus years in Silicon Valley.”

Paul, who is divorced and has no children, lives in San Francisco’s affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood and owns two yachts. He also has a stake in a private jet.

Despite his success, he’s shunned public attention.

“He’s just a private person who doesn’t want a lot of fanfare,” Mahoney says. “He doesn’t want to waste a lot of time on anything that’s not productive.”

With Google alone looking to add several thousand new workers per year in the Bay Area, Paul seems well positioned for further growth — and the spotlight will surely get harder to evade.