James Howard Goodnight (born January 6, 1943) is an American billionaire businessman and software developer. He has been the CEO of SAS since 1976, which he co-founded that year with other faculty members of North Carolina State University.[1] As of April 2023, his net worth was estimated at US$7.4 billion, making him the richest person in North Carolina.[2]
Goodnight was born to Albert Goodnight and Dorothy Patterson in Salisbury, North Carolina, on January 6, 1943.[3] He lived in Greensboro until he was 12, when his family moved to Wilmington. As a kid he worked at his father's hardware store.[4][5]
Goodnight's career with computers began with a computer course at North Carolina State University. One summer he got a job writing software programs for the agricultural economics department.[6] Goodnight was a member of the Beta-Beta chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon at NC State, and contributed to the construction of a new fraternity house for the chapter in 2002.[7]
Goodnight received a master's degree in statistics in 1968.[4] He also worked at a company building electronic equipment for the ground stations that communicated with the Apollo space capsules.[8][9] While working on the Apollo program, Goodnight experienced a work environment with a high turnover rate and this shaped his views on corporate culture.[9][10] Goodnight returned to North Carolina State University after working on the Apollo project, where he earned a PhD in statistics and was a faculty member from 1972 to 1976.[6]
Goodnight joined another faculty member at North Carolina State in a research project to create a general purpose statistical analysis system (the original meaning of the name SAS) for analyzing agricultural data.[11] The project was operated by a consortium of eight land-grant universities and funded primarily by the USDA. Goodnight along with fellow faculty member Anthony James Barr became project leaders for the development of the early version of SAS.[12] When the software had 100 customers in 1976, Goodnight and three others from the University left the college to form SAS Institute[13][14] in an office across the street.[6]
Goodnight has remained CEO of SAS Institute for more than 45 years as the company grew from $138,000 its first year in business, to $420 million in 1993 and $3.2 billion in 2022.[15] Under his leadership, the company experienced continuous growth,[16] becoming one of the one of the largest privately held software providers in the world.[17] Goodnight became known for creating and promoting SAS' corporate culture,[18] often described by the media as "utopian."[10][19] He rejected acquisition offers and chose not to take SAS public to protect the company's work environment.[3] Goodnight has maintained a flat and flexible organizational structure at the company.[20][21]
HSM Global described Goodnight's leadership style in a framework of three pillars: "help employees do their best work by keeping them intellectually challenged and by removing distractions; Make managers responsible for sparking creativity; eliminate arbitrary distinctions between 'suits' and 'creatives'; Engage customers as creative partners to help deliver superior products."[22]
In 1997, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[25] In 2004, he was named a Great American Business Leader by Harvard Business School.[26][27] That same year he was named one of America's 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.[28] He has also been a frequent speaker and participant at the World Economic Forum.[6] In March 2020, Jim Goodnight was awarded a CEO Great Place to Work For All Leadership Award by Great Place to Work.[29]
Goodnight has an interest in rock collecting. As a child, Goodnight would collect quartzes and arrowheads in the Greensboro area. He rediscovered his interest in geology in adulthood and began collecting rare rocks and other natural objects. In addition to minerals, he has also collected fossilized wood, dinosaur eggs and arrowheads from the Archaic period in North Carolina (dating between 8,000 BC and 1,000 BC). His collection includes hundreds of pieces, coming from over 40 countries.[31] Goodnight has described rocks and minerals as a genre of art.[32]
Parts of the collection are exhibited on the SAS campus in Cary, North Carolina. The display has been described as "a testament to his love of unique pieces of earth, from petrified dinosaur eggs, to impressive, mosaic chunks of native granite, to large, glassy meteorites."[33] Goodnight has loaned pieces from his collection to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for the enjoyment of the public. A selection of pieces are displayed in the Betsy M. Bennett Bridge to Discovery, which links the museum to its Nature Research Center.[34]
Goodnight has an interest in improving the state of education, particularly elementary and secondary education.[36] He has advocated for increased funding for STEM education in the United States to prevent brain-drain and the outsourcing of research and technology jobs to other countries.[37] In 1996, Goodnight and his wife, along with his business partner, John Sall and his wife Ginger, founded an independent prep school Cary Academy.[38] He has advocated for restructuring preschool funding in North Carolina to extend access to more children in the state.[39]
The Goodnights have engaged in various philanthropic activities related to North Carolina State University. They created the Goodnight Scholarships, including the Goodnight Scholars Program and the Goodnight Transfer Scholars Program, which provides full tuition scholarships and development programs to students in STEM.[40] Their endowments have also created the Goodnight Doctoral Fellowship, 28 named faculty positions, and a deanship at North Carolina State.[41]
The Goodnights also founded the Goodnight Educational Foundation in 2005.[42] The foundation has supported the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities' Science of Reading Initiative.[43] In 2023, the Goodnight Distinguished Professorship in Early Literacy at Western Carolina University was established with a $1.5 million endowment from the foundation.[44] Goodnight has also contributed to the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.[45]
Both of the Goodnights are also involved in the local Cary, North Carolina, community. He has invested heavily in real estate in Cary, which - in addition to tax revenue generated by SAS and the attraction of thousands of employees - has contributed to the town's growth since the 1970s. He has also invested in the development of the neighboring community of Chatham Park.[50][51] He owns Prestonwood Country Club and The Umstead Hotel and Spa situated on the edge of the SAS campus.[52][53][54]
