The Truth Bar

On September 5, 1985, Ted Waitt and Mike Hammond used a $10,000 loan Ted Waitt got from his grandmother and created Gateway 2000, a computer hardware company. They used Waitt’s father’s cattle ranch in Sioux City, Iowa as the company’s first headquarters before moving to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa and then to North Sioux City, South Dakota.

Born Theodore Waitt on January 18, 1963, Ted Waitt developed Gateway into a well-known company through creative advertising and direct marketing. The computer hardware firm was also popularized for using cow-spotted boxes in shipping their products.

In 1998, the company moved to La Jolla, California and the following year, Waitt stepped aside and passed his chief executive officer (CEO) role to Jeffrey Weitzen. However, he reclaimed his post in 2001 after Gateway’s sales and revenues dipped.

Now based in Irvine, California, Gateway, Inc. was acquired by Acer, Inc. in 2007. Waitt has remained a key personality for the company as its co-founder but he now spends most of his time working on the wholly-owned private investment company, Avalon Capital Group and the Waitt Family Foundation. The foundation supports projects related to domestic violence prevention, community development, and stronger families and societies.

Waitt is a constant presence in various Forbes Magazine lists. He is one of the country’s most generous philanthropists and is a Ten Outstanding Young Americans (TOYA) awardee.