What is Robert Friedland's Net Worth?
Robert Friedland is an American businessman and financier who has a net worth of $3 billion. Robert Friedland specializes in securing funds for the development and exploration of energy and mineral resources. His company, Ivanhoe Capital Corporation, focuses mainly on managing global capital markets of emerging industries. He is also the founder of Ivanhoe Mines, a public company listed both in Toronto and New York. As we explain later in this article, Robert has an interesting connection to the late Apple founder, Steve Jobs, and was directly influential in how Apple got its name.
Early Life
Robert Martin Friedland was born on August 18, 1950, in Chicago. His parents were both holocaust survivors who spent several years at Auschwitz.
LSD Arrest
In 1970, when he was a student at Bowdoin College, Robert was arrested for possessing 25,000 hits of LSD. The drugs had a street value of $125,000, which is the same as around $1 million today after adjusting for inflation. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison and served two. He voluntarily left Bowdoin to serve his time.
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Reed College & Steve Jobs Friendship
After his prison sentence was completed, Robert spent some time living in India, studying under a guru at a commune. He then returned to the US, where he enrolled at Reed College in Oregon.
During his time at Reed, he was the student body president, AND he befriended future Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs. According to legend, the first time the two met, Jobs walked into Friedland's dorm room looking for someone to buy his typewriter. Friedland was mid-coitus with his girlfriend and, instead of getting mad, told Steve to hang out in the dorm while he finished and they could talk after. The two became fast friends primarily because of their shared interest in Eastern philosophy.
Upon graduating from Reed, Robert moved to his uncle's 220-acre farm not far from campus. He became the farm's caretaker and soon began converting the property into a commune he called "All One Farm." Members of the commune worked, lived, meditated, and took psychedelics to expand their consciousness. All One Farm's primary crop was… Apples. Steve, who at the time was briefly living off an all-fruit diet, was a frequent visitor and partaker at the commune.
Another former Reed student, Daniel Kottke, who would go on to become Apple employee #12, would later explain:
"Robert was very much an outgoing, charismatic guy, a real salesman. When I first met Steve, he was shy and self-effacing, a very private guy. I think Robert taught him a lot about selling, about coming out of his shell, of opening up and taking charge of a situation."
Robert's influence is said to have been instrumental in Jobs forming his famous "reality distortion field," which, for better or worse, gave Steve an extraordinary ability to convince people of almost anything… a combination of charisma, charm, and sheer force of will that allowed him to bend reality to his vision.
Steve dropped out of Reed after just one semester, but he continued living on campus and auditing classes. In 1976, when he and Steve Wozniak were brainstorming names for their new computer company, Jobs suggested "Apple Computer Company." As he later recalled, Jobs thought the name "sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating… plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book." It has been said that Steve's idea for naming the company "Apple Computers" was directly inspired by his time at Robert Friedland's All One Farm commune.
Business Career
In the early 1980s, Rober settled in Singapore to operate his company, Ivanhoe Capital. This company focuses mainly on emerging Asian markets such as Singapore, India, and China. Furthermore, he founded the Ivanhoe Mines in Canada. This company was founded in 1994 and then it was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1996. He chairs and actively participates as a board member in more than eight corporate companies. This includes Sunwing Holding, Ivanplants Limited, Potash One Inc, and much more.
Friedland's most significant achievement is the discovery and development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia.
This project, undertaken through his company Ivanhoe Mines, became one of the world's largest copper and gold deposits.
Beyond mining, Friedland has ventured into other sectors. He's involved in technology, with a focus on controlled-energy technology through his company I-Pulse. He's also made forays into entertainment, co-founding Ivanhoe Pictures, known for producing the film "Crazy Rich Asians."
Real Estate
Robert Friedland owns or has owned a number of very significant properties around the world, but primarily in California. In 1995 he paid $5.5 million for an incredible and historic mansion called Locksley Hall located in Belvedere, California, in Marin County. With sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay, Robert spent over $30 million renovating the home. During the renovation process, Robert successfully lobbied to have the mansion be deemed historically significant. That allowed him and all future owners to save significantly on property taxes. Robert sold the home in 2007 for $65 million, which set a record in Northern California at the time.
In Beverly Hills, he owns side-by-side mansions, both of which were purchased in 2021 for $26 million. In 2020, he paid $16 million for Zsa Zsa Gabor's longtime Bel Air mansion, and proceeded to demolish the structure.
In February 2024, Robert paid $47 million for an oceanfront home in Carpinteria, California, AND a $32 million mansion in nearby Montecito. The sellers in the later sale were Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. In a funny twist, just a few months later, Robert agreed to sell the Montecito mansion back to Ellen and Portia for $32 million while also agreeing to buy their 10-acre blufftop estate for $96 million (they bought the estate two years earlier for $70 million).
