Patrick Joseph McGovern, Jr. (born August 11, 1937) is the chairman and founder of International Data Group (IDG), a company that includes subsidiaries in technology publishing, research, event management and venture capital.
He was listed on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans in 2007 as having a net worth of $4.7 billion. In 2011, his net worth was $3.3 billion, a decline of 30% from 2007.[1]
Forbes magazine claims he earned a scholarship by designing an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program (now a trivial programming task, but no mean feat in the 1950s). He worked at the MIT student newspaper The Tech on the features staff during his sophomore year. He has been observed to have a remarkable memory and apparently demonstrated it while an undergraduate, according to people who knew him at MIT. McGovern received a degree in course 7, or biology/life sciences, from MIT, in 1959.[2]
For a time, he was an editor of Computers & Automation magazine, the first computer magazine in the world, founded, published and edited by Edmund C. Berkeley. He started International Data Corporation (IDC) with a friend, Fred Kirch, in 1964, which produced a computer industry data base and published a newsletter, EDP Industry & Market Report. He started the weekly newspaper Computerworld in 1967.
He has been divorced once, has four children, and lives in Atherton, California and Hollis, New Hampshire. He and his second wife Lore Harp gave MIT $350 million to found the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He is a trustee of MIT. He also serves on Society for Science & the Public's board of trustees.