The self-made billionaire got his start in the real estate industry by buying properties in San Francisco after he was discharged from the military back in the 1940s. It was a sound investment; at one point, he owned around a quarter of all of the office space in the city. Today, he has some 29 …

Sobrato’s Cupertino-based development firm specializes in residential and commercial real estate. His company’s holdings include 7.6 million square feet of commercial office space, 7,500 apartments and 250 vacant acres in Silicon Valley. He is a philanthropist in the Bay area, and, together with his family, he created the Sobrato Family Foundation.

Berg, chairman and CEO of Mission West Properties, bought the real estate investment trust in 1997, which now manages 8 million square feet across 100 properties. He unsuccessfully tried to sell in 2007 for $1.8 billion before the real estate market collapsed. He is also a venture capitalist, one of the billionaire principals of Berg …

This Silicon Valley real estate mogul and his partner Richard Peery turned farmland into office spaces in the ‘60s, the current site of cities like Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Today, their firm oversees just less than 3 million square feet of office space, with high-powered tenants like Google. He is also one of his alma mater …