Robert F. Smith (investor)
Robert Frederick Smith (born December 1, 1962) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. He graduated from Cornell University with a chemical engineering degree and from Columbia Business School with an MBA, before working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. In 2019, while delivering the  commencement speech at Morehouse College, Smith pledged to pay off the entire $34 million of student loan debt of all of  the members of the 2019 graduating class.