There’s No Shortage of O.C. Millionaires

Thanks to Wall Street’s seemingly endless love affair with all things digital, some local technology executives have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

Chip-maker Broadcom and its two co-founders are local media darlings for this wave of the geek nouveau riche. When the stock price recently broke through the $200 mark, Chief Executive Henry T. Nicholas III and Chief Technology Officer Henry Samueli watched their personal worth break $4 billion each.

And thanks to a generous employee stock option program, Broadcom has created at least 500 millionaires--engineers and other top executives, all of whom are enjoying the fruits of their success.

Of course, the number of tech-wealthy folks in Southern California pales in comparison to the plethora of billionaires running around Silicon Valley. But Broadcom is not alone in this flush local pool.

Take Irvine-based Quest Software Inc., makers of database software that helps companies electronically gather and distribute data through their computer systems and the Internet. Since its initial public offering in August, the company’s stock has jumped from $14 a share to Friday’s close of $111.38.

The result? As of the close of Friday’s market, Vinny Smith, Quest’s 35-year-old chairman and chief executive, is worth more than $2 billion, thanks to the 18.3 million Quest shares he owns. And Dave Doyle, the 39-year-old founder and president, holds 7.4 million shares--worth $824 million. Eyal Arnoff, the 36-year-old vice president of development, owns 2.9 million shares worth a mere $323 million.

Or look at the top guys at Costa Mesa-based QLogic Corp. and Emulex Corp. Both companies make high-performance equipment that links computer systems and their accessories. Both have enjoyed enormous stock gains this year. And that’s paid off handsomely for their executives.

As of Friday, Emulex’s chairman, 65-year-old Fred B. Cox, was worth $88 million; CEO Paul F. Folino, 54, was worth nearly $64 million. And QLogic’s H.K. Desai, the 53-year-old CEO, had almost $48 million in stock.

But everyone on this list knows that the market could turn tomorrow. Investors are fickle. And the wealth could disappear.

“It’s like the weather. You never know what’s coming, and you make the best of what you get,” said Quest’s Smith, whose company has turned 150 of its employees into millionaires. “When the price is up, you use [the stock] to buy stuff. When it goes down, you give it out in the form of stock options. Either way, you spend it.”