John Sall

John P. Sall (born 1948) is an American billionaire and software programmer who co-founded SAS Institute and created JMP statistical software.

 Early life and education 
John Sall was born in Rockford, Illinois in 1948, and was interested in science as a child.

He got a bachelor's degree in history from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin and then went to Northern Illinois University (NIU), where he got a master's degree in economics. While he was studying at NIU, Sall became interested in statistics and computer science. He went to study statistics at North Carolina State University, where he was given an honorary doctorate in 2003. He received an honorary doctorate from NIU in 2014.

 Career 

John Sall worked with programmer James Goodnight at North Carolina State University. In 1976, they founded the company SAS Institute with Anthony James Barr and Jane Helwig, in founding SAS Institute. The company develops SAS software, which is used for machine learning, data analytics, data management and artificial intelligence. Sall created many parts of the SAS language, including procedures for working with time series, econometrics, categorical data and matrix algebraic manipulations.

 JMP 

Sall started creating JMP, which originally stood for "John's Macintosh Project", in the 1980s, and it was released in October 1989. He is still JMP's chief architect. He co-wrote the book JMP Start Statistics with Ann Lehman and Lee Creighton.

 Personal life 
Sall lives in Cary, North Carolina. He is married and has four children. Sall and his wife work in charity and conservation through the Sall Family Foundation. Sall was on the board of The Nature Conservancy from 2002 to 2011, and is a member of the board for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Sall and his wife also work with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), CARE, Pan American Health Organization, and other non-profits. They contributed to the founding of Cary Academy, a college prep school.

Sall is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1998 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the North Carolina State University board of trustees.

Sall owns about one-third of SAS Institute, while Goodnight owns the rest of the company.  According to Forbes, Sall's net worth was about $4.2 billion in 2016, making him the 392nd richest person in the United States at the time.

 References 

Category:American billionaires
Category:People from North Carolina
Category:American computer scientists
Category:1948 births
Category:Living people