Hasso Plattner
Based on Wikipedia: Hasso Plattner
The Billionaire Who Bet Everything on Software—Then Gave Most of It Away
In January 1944, as Allied bombers darkened the skies over Berlin in the final months of World War Two, a boy was born who would eventually help revolutionize how the world's largest companies operate. Hasso Plattner arrived into a Germany that was collapsing, yet he would grow up to co-found a company that now touches the business operations of roughly 77 percent of the world's transaction revenue.
That company is SAP, and if you've never heard of it, you've almost certainly been affected by it. Every time you buy a product from a major retailer, book a flight, receive a paycheck from a large corporation, or interact with a government agency, there's a good chance SAP software is running silently in the background, coordinating the complex dance of inventory, logistics, finance, and human resources that makes modern commerce possible.
But this isn't really a story about enterprise software. It's a story about what happens when someone accumulates nearly eighteen billion dollars and decides that money is merely a tool for reshaping the world according to his passions—art, education, science, fighting disease, and yes, competitive sailing.
From IBM Rebel to Software Emperor
Plattner grew up in Bavaria, that southern region of Germany known for its mountains, beer halls, and a certain cultural seriousness. His father, Horst Plattner, was an ophthalmologist—a doctor of the eyes—which perhaps instilled in his son an appreciation for vision, both literal and metaphorical.
The young Plattner studied communications engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, graduating in 1968. Communications engineering sits at the intersection of electrical engineering and computer science, focusing on how information moves from one place to another. In the late 1960s, this was cutting-edge territory. Computers were room-sized machines operated by specialists in white coats. The idea that businesses might run on software was still revolutionary.
After university, Plattner landed at IBM, then the dominant force in computing. IBM was to technology what General Motors was to automobiles—a towering corporate giant that seemed unassailable. But like many talented people working inside large bureaucracies, Plattner grew frustrated.
In 1972, he and four colleagues made a decision that would reshape the technology landscape. They quit IBM and founded their own company.
The name they chose was SAP, which stands for Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing. In German, it's "Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung." The name sounds dry and technical because that's exactly what enterprise software is—dry, technical, and absolutely essential to running any organization of significant size.
What SAP Actually Does
To understand Plattner's achievement, you need to understand the problem SAP solves.
Imagine you run a large manufacturing company. You need to track thousands of parts from hundreds of suppliers. You need to schedule production across multiple factories. You need to manage the finances—accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll for thousands of employees. You need to handle sales, marketing, human resources, regulatory compliance, and a hundred other functions.
Before software like SAP existed, each department typically had its own systems, often incompatible with each other. The finance department might use one system, manufacturing another, sales a third. Getting a simple answer—like "how profitable was this product line last quarter?"—might require weeks of manual data reconciliation.
SAP's innovation was the integrated enterprise system. One massive software platform that handles everything, with all the data flowing together. When a customer places an order, the sales system knows immediately. The manufacturing system adjusts its schedules. The finance system updates its projections. The supply chain system orders more parts. Everything happens automatically, in real time.
This might sound mundane, but it was revolutionary. And it made SAP one of the most valuable software companies in the world.
The Transition to Elder Statesman
Plattner served as co-chief executive of SAP from 1998 to 2003, sharing the role with Henning Kagermann. Running a major technology company at the turn of the millennium was no small feat—this was the era of the dot-com boom and bust, when fortunes were made and lost overnight and the rules of business seemed to be rewriting themselves daily.
At age sixty, Plattner stepped back from day-to-day operations. But he didn't disappear.
For the next two decades, from 2003 to 2024, he chaired SAP's supervisory board. This is a distinctly German corporate structure worth understanding. German companies have two boards: a management board that runs the company day-to-day, and a supervisory board that oversees the management board and represents shareholders and, often, employees. The supervisory board chairman is something like a very active chairman of the board in American corporate governance—not running operations, but wielding significant influence over strategy and leadership.
Plattner used this influence. In 2019, he orchestrated the hiring of co-CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein. Morgan was the first American woman to lead a major German company—a significant milestone in the traditionally conservative world of German business.
Throughout these years, Plattner gradually reduced his ownership stake in SAP, but as of 2020, he still held nearly six percent of the company, making him the largest individual shareholder. Six percent of SAP is worth many billions of dollars.
The Venture Capitalist
In 2005, Plattner did something many successful entrepreneurs do: he started investing in other entrepreneurs. He founded Hasso Plattner Ventures with more than twenty-five million euros.
Venture capital is the practice of investing money in young companies that might fail completely but might also become enormously valuable. It's high-risk, high-reward investing. Most venture-backed companies fail. But the ones that succeed can return ten, fifty, or even a hundred times the original investment.
By 2009, the fund had grown to manage one hundred fifty million euros and had invested in seventeen companies, including Dreamlines, an online cruise booking platform. Plattner also launched an affiliate fund in Cape Town, South Africa, with twenty-nine million euros—a reflection of his deep personal connection to the country.
In 2010, the fund invested six million dollars in Panaya, an Israeli software company. Israel has become a global hub for technology startups, earning it the nickname "Startup Nation." Plattner was tapping into this ecosystem.
Life on the Water
Plattner is not the kind of billionaire who sits in an office counting his money. He races yachts.
In 2005, his maxi yacht maxZ86 set a record at the Transpacific Yacht Race, one of the most grueling ocean races in the world. The race covers roughly 2,225 miles from Los Angeles to Honolulu, crossing some of the most challenging waters on the planet.
The maxZ86 finished in six days, sixteen hours, four minutes, and eleven seconds, winning the "Barn Door" trophy—a slab of carved koa wood (a Hawaiian hardwood) that goes to the monohull with the fastest elapsed time. A monohull is a yacht with a single hull, as opposed to catamarans or trimarans which have multiple hulls and can generally sail faster but are considered by some to lack the pure seamanship challenge of a traditional boat.
In 2013, Plattner won the German Dragon Championship as part of a three-person crew. Dragon boats are a classic one-design racing class—meaning all the boats are identical, so the race is purely about skill and tactics rather than who can afford the fanciest equipment. His crewmate was Hamish Pepper, a New Zealand sailor who has competed in multiple Olympic Games.
There's something telling about a billionaire who chooses to compete in one-design racing. In a world where money can buy almost any advantage, Plattner sought out a venue where his wealth couldn't help him—only his ability and his crew's teamwork mattered.
The Golf Magnate
In 1994, Plattner acquired Fancourt Hotel and Country Club in South Africa. Fancourt is no ordinary golf resort—it features three championship courses designed by Gary Player, the legendary South African golfer who is one of only five players to have won all four major championships during his career.
The Links of Fancourt, the resort's signature course, hosted the 2003 Presidents Cup, a biennial golf competition between a team from the United States and an international team representing everywhere else except Europe (which has its own competition, the Ryder Cup, against America). Gary Player himself captained the international team that year.
Plattner also owns CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin, California, about forty miles south of San Jose. Golf courses are not typically great investments—they require enormous amounts of land and constant maintenance—but for certain wealthy individuals, they represent something more: a chance to shape the landscape, to create places of beauty and competition.
From Hockey Rink to Boardroom
Plattner's American business interests extend beyond golf courses. He is an investor in San Jose Sports and Entertainment Enterprises, the company that owns the San Jose Sharks ice hockey team and manages the SAP Center at San Jose—yes, the arena is named after his company.
In 2013, Plattner bought out two of his partners in the ownership group and began serving as the Sharks' representative on the National Hockey League's board of governors. The NHL's board of governors is where the league's thirty-two owners (or their representatives) gather to make decisions about the sport—everything from expansion teams to television contracts to rule changes.
Plattner reportedly takes a hands-off approach to hockey operations, leaving the team's general manager and staff to make decisions about players and strategy. This is notable because sports ownership is littered with examples of wealthy people who couldn't resist meddling in areas where their business expertise didn't translate. Knowing what you don't know is its own form of wisdom.
The Educator
In 1998, the same year he became co-CEO of SAP, Plattner founded the Hasso Plattner Institute for software systems engineering in Potsdam, Germany. Potsdam sits just southwest of Berlin and was once the residence of Prussian kings and German emperors. After World War Two, it ended up in East Germany, separated from the West by the Berlin Wall until 1989.
The HPI, as it's known, is affiliated with the University of Potsdam and focuses on training software engineers. But this is no ordinary donation-funded university program. Plattner committed fifty million euros over twenty years, and since then, his total contribution has quadrupled to over two hundred million euros. The institute's sole source of funding is Plattner's own foundation.
Plattner doesn't just write checks. He teaches there, holding the title of Chair of Enterprise Platform and Integration Concepts and Professor of Enterprise Systems. The idea of a billionaire teaching college students is unusual enough, but Plattner apparently takes it seriously.
In 2005, Plattner exported his educational vision to America. With a thirty-five million dollar donation, he founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University—better known as the d.school.
The d.school represents a different philosophy than traditional engineering education. It practices what's called design thinking, an approach to problem-solving that emphasizes understanding users' needs, rapid prototyping, and iterative improvement. Students from across Stanford's schools—engineering, business, medicine, law, humanities—come together to work on real-world problems.
Design thinking has become hugely influential in Silicon Valley and beyond. Companies from Apple to Airbnb credit it as foundational to their approach. By funding the d.school, Plattner helped legitimize and spread a methodology that has shaped how an entire generation thinks about innovation.
Fighting AIDS in Africa
Plattner's connection to South Africa runs deeper than golf courses and venture capital funds. He has been deeply involved in fighting the AIDS epidemic that has devastated the country.
South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. At the peak of the epidemic in the early 2000s, the disease was killing hundreds of thousands of South Africans annually. The crisis was exacerbated by government denial and conspiracy theories about the virus.
Plattner donated six million euros to the Isombululo programme for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, announced at the 2003 Presidents Cup golf tournament. This single donation reportedly helped 360,000 people—roughly the population of a city the size of Cleveland or Florence.
In spring 2005, Plattner personally covered the costs of the 46664 benefit concert held at The Links of Fancourt. The concert's name came from Nelson Mandela's prison number during his decades of incarceration on Robben Island. The event was broadcast globally, with proceeds going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Global Fund is an international financing organization that has become one of the most effective mechanisms for fighting these three diseases worldwide. Co-founded by Mandela himself, it operates by pooling resources from governments, corporations, and private donors, then directing money to programs in affected countries. By some estimates, the Global Fund has saved tens of millions of lives.
Plattner also supports AIDS research at the universities of KwaZulu Natal and Cape Town, and spends significant time living in South Africa while participating in charitable work.
Rebuilding History
Potsdam's Stadtschloss—City Palace—had stood since the seventeenth century when Prussian rulers made the city their summer residence. The palace was damaged during World War Two and then, in 1959, demolished by the East German government. Communist authorities viewed such buildings as symbols of feudalism and militarism; across East Germany, numerous historic structures were destroyed for ideological reasons.
After German reunification in 1990, debates began about whether to rebuild the palace. Plattner contributed more than twenty million euros toward reconstructing its historic exterior. At the time, this was the largest donation ever given in Germany by a single individual.
The rebuilt palace now houses the Brandenburg state parliament. It's a curious thing, rebuilding a royal residence to serve democratic government, but it speaks to a certain German sensibility about continuity and heritage. The past cannot be undone, but perhaps it can be reclaimed and repurposed.
The Art Collector
In 2015, Plattner established the Hasso Plattner Foundation, headquartered at Villa Wunderkind in Potsdam. The villa previously belonged to Wolfgang Joop, the German fashion designer who founded the Joop! brand. The foundation supports education, art and culture, and conservation.
Plattner's art collection is substantial enough to fill museums—literally. In Potsdam, he helped establish the Museum Barberini, which houses his holdings of modern and Impressionist art, as well as works by artists who were active in the former East Germany.
The museum's collection includes serious firepower. In 2019, Plattner purchased one of Claude Monet's Meules paintings—depicting haystacks—at Sotheby's auction for $110.7 million, making it the most expensive Impressionist work ever sold at auction at that time.
Monet painted his haystack series in 1890 and 1891, capturing the same subjects in different lights and seasons. The series represented a radical idea: that the subject of a painting matters less than how the artist sees it. A haystack is mundane; Monet's vision of a haystack at sunset, suffused with orange and purple light, is transcendent.
In 2022, Plattner opened a second museum in Potsdam called Das Minsk, focusing on East German artists who were active after the fall of the Berlin Wall. East German art occupies a complicated place in the cultural landscape—some of it was pure propaganda, but much of it reflected genuine artistic vision shaped by the unique circumstances of life under communism and its aftermath.
In 2016, Plattner partnered with Guy Wildenstein, one of the world's most prominent art dealers, to form the Wildenstein Plattner Institute. The foundation works to advance art historical scholarship by digitizing and cataloguing primary sources—the raw materials of art history research.
The Pledge
In February 2013, Plattner signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in which billionaires commit to giving away the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
The Giving Pledge is not legally binding—it's a moral commitment, a public statement of intention. Critics have pointed out that it allows the wealthy to direct resources according to their own priorities rather than democratic processes. Supporters counter that it mobilizes private wealth for public good in ways that government cannot or will not.
For Plattner, the pledge appears to reflect genuine conviction. His philanthropy is not limited to writing checks from a distance. He teaches at his institute. He personally covered the costs of benefit concerts. He rebuilt historic buildings. He funds research into diseases that will never affect him.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, speaking at Plattner's sixtieth birthday celebration in 2004, said: "We need more Hasso Plattners and more SAPs in order to get Germany moving again economically." This was in the early 2000s, when Germany was struggling with high unemployment and slow growth—the "sick man of Europe" as some called it. Schröder was praising Plattner as proof that German companies could compete at the highest levels of global technology.
Management consultant Roland Berger, in a 2004 interview, named Plattner as one of the five Germans who had made the greatest impression on him. Berger described how Plattner "founded, built up and adapted SAP to a changing market" as a "master achievement."
Honors and Recognition
Plattner's contributions have been recognized with multiple honorary degrees and awards. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Potsdam in 2002 and an honorary professorship in 2004. Saarland University granted him an honorary doctorate in 1990 and named him an honorary senator in 1998.
In 2014, he received the Leonardo European Corporate Learning Award in the "Thought Leadership" category. In 2015, the German American Business Association presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2016, the Jewish Museum Berlin gave him the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance. And in 2017, he received the Werner von Siemens Ring, one of Germany's most prestigious awards for technical and scientific achievement.
The Werner von Siemens Ring is named after the founder of the Siemens corporation and is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and technology. Past recipients have included rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun and Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the engine that bears his name.
Private Life
Plattner is married to Sabine Plattner, a former teacher. They have two daughters who grew up in Heidelberg, a beautiful university town on the Neckar River known for its castle ruins and its ancient university—one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1386.
Since retiring from SAP, Plattner has made San Jose, California his primary home, calling it his "adopted home." Reports suggest he hasn't visited Germany since stepping back from the company. The family also maintains residences in Potsdam's Babelsberg district—the historic center of German film production—as well as on Sylt, a resort island in the North Sea popular with wealthy Germans, and Yzerfontein, a small town on South Africa's west coast.
There's something poignant about a man who helped build one of Germany's greatest companies choosing to spend his later years in California. Silicon Valley draws talent from around the world, and evidently, it can hold onto even those who built their empires elsewhere.
The Four Who Stayed Behind
When Plattner left IBM in 1972, he departed with four colleagues who would become his co-founders at SAP. Their names were Dietmar Hopp, Claus Wellenreuther, Klaus Tschira, and Hans-Werner Hector. Each would become enormously wealthy from SAP's success, and each would pursue his own path of philanthropy and business thereafter.
Hopp has become known for sports ownership—he is the majority owner of TSG Hoffenheim, a German football club. Tschira, before his death in 2015, founded a foundation focused on education in mathematics, computer science, and natural sciences. The five friends who walked out of IBM together ended up redirecting billions of dollars according to their individual visions of what the world needs.
It's worth reflecting on that moment in 1972. Five colleagues, frustrated with bureaucracy, betting their careers on an idea. The global enterprise software market is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It might be one of the most consequential resignations in business history.
Legacy
Hasso Plattner turned eighty in January 2024. He has accumulated nearly eighteen billion dollars and given away substantial portions of it. He has taught thousands of students, funded research that has advanced technology and fought disease, and assembled an art collection that will outlast him by centuries.
He stepped down as chairman of SAP's supervisory board in 2024, ending a connection to the company he co-founded that stretched over fifty years. Companies, like people, eventually move beyond their founders. The code Plattner and his colleagues wrote in 1972 has been rewritten countless times, but the company they built endures.
What remains is harder to measure. How do you quantify the impact of an educational institution? The lives saved by AIDS treatment? The inspiration provided by art? The innovations sparked by design thinking?
Perhaps the truest measure of a life is what it leaves behind when the money and the titles are stripped away. By that measure, Hasso Plattner has built well.