Tech's Newest Billionaire Is Making A Bet On The Internet Of Things

CHET PIPKIN MIGHT be next to you already. Or at least his products probably are. His company, Belkin, makes a clutter of gadgets and accessories--things like Linksys wireless routers, chargers, tablet keyboards, computer cords, docking stations and iPhone cases.

It adds up to a lot more than just a tangled mess. FORBES estimates Belkin pulls in $1.5 billion in annual sales. The company has been getting a boost since 2013, when it acquired Cisco’s Home Business Networking group including the Linksys brand. After buying back 10% of the firm in July from the venture capitalists at Summit Partners, Pipkin owns virtually all of the business--enough for a $1.1 billion fortune. Summit had invested 13 years ago, and he worried it might pressure him to go public. He didn't want that. "Our vision is always really long term. We've never wanted to try to create some short-term value," he says.

A machinist's son, Pipkin, 55, grew up with a slight stutter in a working-class southern California neighborhood. As a kid, he worked odd jobs such as washing dishes in the school cafeteria and selling homemade candles; he even once created street-fair games children paid to play. (It’s been said that Pipkin’s great-aunt Myra was the basis for Ma Joad in John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath.”) He dropped out of UCLA after less than a year to cash in on the personal-computing revolution. He didn't study engineering, but that didn't stop him from inventing. “I was continually thinking about things to create and build,” Pipkin says. “I would take things apart and put them back together." One of his first devices: a cable to hook an Apple II to any parallel printer. He created prototypes on his parents' dining room table, then expanded to the garage. He peddled the cables to local stores; sales reached $178,000 by the end of the first year in 1983. After his first national ad in Computer Dealer magazine in 1985, orders poured in from around the country. As he expanded his product line to make more accessories and cords, Pipkin set up shop in L.A.'s Compton neighborhood to take advantage of cheap rent.

Now operating from glass-bedecked headquarters in high-rent Playa Vista--a.k.a. Silicon Beach--Belkin is moving to profit from the Internet of Things. It's concentrating on its new WeMo mobile app, a hub to control smart coffee makers, Crock-Pots and sprinkler systems. It now counts 26 products in 150 countries, but it’s still a risky bet with a crowded list of competitors and technological barriers seemingly at every junction. There’s just 1 million homes so far using the products. Pipkin is betting it’s the next tech frontier, and is hoping that WeMo becomes a leader in the growing market, which Strategy Analytics estimates will reach $24 billion by next year. "We have to be reinventing ourselves on a continual basis," Pipkin says.