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Who

Langone is the billionaire investor who co-founded Home Depot. He may be just as well known for having served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange during the Dick Grasso compensation scandal, and for memorably sparring with former attorney general Eliot Spitzer.

Backstory

The son of a plumber and a cafeteria worker, Queens-born Langone worked as a ditch digger while a student at Bucknell and later earned an MBA attending NYU part-time. He made his first fortune when he teamed up with Ross Perot and helped take the Texas mogul's Electronic Data Systems public in 1968. He went on to found a firm called Invemed Associates, which invested in companies in the health care industry. But his greatest success came when he met Bernard Marcus, who at the time was the CEO of a home improvement chain called Handy Dan. Langone helped Marcus and partner Arthur Blank head off on their own, assembling the financing required to start up Home Depot in 1978 and shepherding the company through its initial public offering eight years later. In the years since, Langone has continued to guide Home Depot as a director, he's been an active investor in a slew of other ventures, and he's served on the board of directors of a handful of companies including GE, Choicepoint, and YUM! Brands.

Keeping score

Forbes estimates Langone's net worth at $1.2 billion.

Scandal

Langone was a defendant in the Eliot Spitzer-initiated lawsuit over former NYSE chief Richard Grasso's exorbitant pay package. The one-time chair of the exchange's compensation committee, Langone defiantly refused to settle the case and has remained unrepentant about his role in the saga. His nasty encounter with Spitzer explains why Langone has been one of the former governor's most vocal enemies in recent years. In 2006, he was a prominent backer of Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive who ran against Spitzer in the race for governor. Langone was also one of the few who very publicly reveled in Spitzer's political downfall in 2008. "We all have our own private hells. I hope his private hell is hotter than anybody else's," Langone told a reporter from CNBC shortly after the news broke.

Pet causes

Langone is one of NYU's most active donors. In 1999, he made an anonymous donation of $100 million to the NYU Medical Center. He followed up with another (non-anonymous) $100 million gift in 2008, which makes him the most generous donor to NYU in its history and led the school to rename the medical center in his honor. (He credits Marty Lipton, his longtime attorney, for inspiring the donations.) Langone sits on the board of trustees of the university; he's also chairman of the board of NYU's medical school and hospital center, and serves as vice chair of NYU's business school. Other boards Langone sits on: the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Children's Oncology Society, Harlem Children's Zone, and the finance-heavy Robin Hood Foundation, along with Lloyd Blankfein, Glenn Dubin, Paul Tudor Jones, Dick Fuld and Dan Och.

Personal

Langone and his wife Elaine have been married for more than 50 years. The couple has three children and lives in the village of Sands Point, on Long Island. They also have a home in Palm Beach.