Patrick McGovern Net Worth, Career & Personal Life

Patrick McGovern Net Worth  $6 Billion

Patrick McGovern, an American businessman who was best associated with the International Data Group, was known to be the Chairman of the Board of the company, which he also founded himself.

The group’s portfolio includes event management, technology publishing, research, promotion, and venture capital. Patrick Joseph McGovern, born in 1937, completed his degree in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959.

He had four children and lived in Hollis, New Hampshire, and Atherton, California. It was in the year 1964 that he used a startup capital of $5000 to establish the International Data Group after doing a number of different jobs in order to be able to save up that amount.

Before his demise, after many years of working hard and putting things together and in order in his business, Mr. McGovern owned 84 percent of the company which publishes 200 magazines like CIO and PC World, manages 460 websites, and produces 700 events worldwide.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born Patrick Joseph McGovern Jr. on August 11, 1937, in the United States of America. According to Forbes, he earned a college scholarship in the 1950s by designing an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program.

He worked at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology student newspaper “The Tech” during his sophomore year. In 1959, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in course 7, or biology/life sciences.

Although born in Queens, New York, he moved with his family to Philadelphia when he was a child, and worked as a newspaper delivery boy at the age of eight.

Professional Life: Entrepreneurial Career

After graduating from the university, Patrick’s first job was writing for the first computer-related magazine, Edmund C. Berkeley’s Computers & Automation.

A few years later, using some money he had saved from working with his first employer, the ambitious Patrick McGovern founded his own company named International Data Group.

This company produced a computer-industry database and issued the newsletter EDP Industry & Market Report.

After three years the International Data Group was losing money and Patrick contemplated liquidating it until he hit on the idea of evolving the newsletter into a weekly newspaper titled Computerworld in 1967.

He then started the magazine PC World after failing to wrest control of the “Computer and Automation” brand from his friend and mentor, Ed Berkeley.

In 1980 he established one of the first American-Chinese joint ventures, and seventeen years afterward, Forbes estimated that McGovern had more readers in Mainland China than the People’s Daily did.

In 1991, Patrick’s company published “DOS For Dummies”, the first of the popular “For Dummies” series of publications explaining various subjects to novices and common people.

As of 2020, according to Bloomberg News, Patrick’s company, The International Data Group, has more than 280 million regular readers of its publications, and revenues of over 4 billion dollars annually.

He also served on the board of trustees for the Society for Science & the Public and was also a trustee of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Personal Life: Wife, Children, Death

Patrick McGovern was divorced once. He had two children and two stepchildren and shuffled his time between Hillsborough, California, and Hollis, New Hampshire.

He and his second wife donated 350 million dollars to The Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

In May 2012, the businessman had open-heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. He died two years later, aged 76.

Surviving family members at the time of his death included his wife, Lore Harp McGovern, a daughter Elizabeth McGovern, son Patrick McGovern, stepdaughters Dina Jackson and Michelle Harp Bethel, and nine grandchildren.

After his death, the ownership of his company The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was transferred to the McGovern Foundation.

Patrick McGovern Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Assets

As the founder and former chairman of the International Data Group, Mr. Patrick McGovern’s net worth was more than 6 billion dollars at the time of his death.

His company has many assets of business including; venture capital, technology publishing, and event management, among other things. He appeared on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans for the first time in 2012.

He lived as a likable philanthropist whose numerous donations to various causes in the fields of medicine and education were well received.

It was back in the year 1964 that he used capital of 5,000 dollars to create his first business, the International Data Group after doing several jobs and working for other entrepreneurs in order to be able to save up money to launch his own business.

Prior to his death, Mr. McGovern owned 84 percent of the company which publishes 200 magazines like CIO and PC World, manages 460 websites, and produces 700 events worldwide.