John C. Malone Biography

John C. Malone (born March 7, 1941) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He served as chief executive officer of cable and media giant, Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), for twenty-four years from 1973"1996. Malone is now chairman of Liberty Media  and Liberty Global and CEO of Discovery Holding Company. He was the interim CEO of Liberty Media until succeeded by former Oracle CFO Greg Maffei. , Malone surpassed Ted Turner as the largest individual private landowner in the United States, owning of land, most of which is in Maine. His international real estate holdings include Humewood Castle in Ireland.

Early life

Malone was born in Milford, Connecticut. His father was Daniel L. Malone, an engineer.

In 1959, Malone graduated from Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1963, he graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Electrical Engineering and Economics, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa and National Merit scholar. In 1964, Malone graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a M.S. in Industrial Management. He also received a M.S in Electrical Engineering from an NYU program at Bell Labs in 1965 before receiving his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Johns Hopkins in 1967.

Career

In 1963, Malone began his business career at Bell Telephone Laboratories of AT&T, working in economic planning and research and development. In 1968, he joined McKinsey & Company, and in 1970, became Group Vice President at General Instrument Corporation (GI). He was later named President of Jerrold Electronics, a GI subsidiary.

For twenty-four years, from 1973 to 1996, Malone served as President and CEO of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI).

Malone serves on the Boards of Directors for the Bank of New York, and the Cato Institute, Expedia.com. Additionally, Malone is Chairman Emeritus of the Board for Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. and Chairman of Liberty Global, Inc., and the DirecTV Group. He served as Director of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) from 1974 to 1977 and again from 1980 to 1993. During the 1977-1978 term, Malone was the NCTA's Treasurer.

In May 2011, Malone began an effort to acquire the bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, also notable for its eReader, the Nook.

Personal life

Malone reportedly shuns the limelight and glamorous lifestyle and takes his family vacations alongside long time friend Gary Biskup, in a recreational vehicle. However, in business dealings he has been dubbed "Darth Vader", a nickname allegedly given to him by Al Gore when Malone was the head of TCI, where he demanded equity positions in cable programming services in return for carriage, and attempted to defeat the must-carry rules which protected broadcasters, a battle which the cable industry eventually lost in 1997 in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1994, Wired portrayed Malone on their cover as "Mad Max" from The Road Warrior, with an interview describing his battles with the FCC.

Philanthropy

In 2000, Malone gave $24 million for the construction of Yale's Daniel L. Malone Engineering Center, named in honor of his father. In 2011, Malone gave the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering's largest gift ever of $30 million for a new building on Homewood Campus. The building will be named Malone Hall. In the same year, he gave the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science's largest gift ever of $50 million. Malone has also given $60 million to Hopkins School to fund the construction of two new buildings, Malone Science Center, named for his father, as well as Heath Commons, named after his favorite Hopkins teacher.

Malone Scholars Program

In 1997, he established the Malone Family Foundation, which operates the Malone Scholars Program that provides scholarship endowments to select private schools throughout the United States after a rigorous research process of top schools, including Hopkins School, Waynflete School, and thirty-six others as of 2011.

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