Jim Goodnight

Goodnight was born on January 6, 1943, in Salisbury, North Carolina. At North Carolina State University he earned a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics, a master’s degree in statistics and a doctorate in statistics, and he was a member of the university’s faculty from 1972 to 1976.⁠[1]

At North Carolina State University a program funded by the USDA and the NIH, called the Statistical Analysis System, was led by faculty members Goodnight and Jim Barr. The SAS software was first built by Goodnight and colleagues at the university to analyze agricultural research data.⁠[2][1]

Goodnight and Barr left North Carolina State University to start their own company, which was incorporated as SAS Institute Inc. on July 1, 1976. The original team consisted of Goodnight, John Sall, Jane Helwig and Jim Barr, and the company’s early office was on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, next to the campus.⁠[2]

Goodnight has served as SAS’s chief executive officer since the company’s founding.⁠[1]

By 1978 SAS had 21 employees and more than 600 customer sites, and in 1979 it granted its first international software license, to Databank of New Zealand. By the end of the decade SAS had bought land in Cary, North Carolina, later the site of its global headquarters, and had begun building its original Building A.⁠[2]

In 1985 Goodnight issued a memo “redefining the company’s organizational chart with SAS users at the top.” That year SAS opened a recreation and fitness center and a health care center in Cary.⁠[3]

In 1997 Goodnight co-founded Cary Academy, an independent college-preparatory day school for grades 6 through 12. Education is also the focus of SAS’s philanthropy, and he has endowed several professorships at North Carolina State University.⁠[1]

Goodnight is a founding partner of North Carolina State University’s Institute for Advanced Analytics, which launched the nation’s first Master of Science in Analytics in 2007.⁠[1]

In 2012 Goodnight demonstrated SAS Visual Analytics at the United Nations.⁠[3]

In 2021 SAS announced its intention to be ready for an initial public offering (IPO) by 2024, an effort led by co-founders Goodnight and John Sall. The company said its 2020 revenue was approximately $3 billion, marking its 45th consecutive year of profitability, and that revenue grew 8.4 percent in the first half of 2021.⁠[4]

In the announcement Goodnight said, “By moving toward IPO readiness, we can open up new opportunities for SAS employees.”⁠[4]

In a 2023 interview with Techzine, Goodnight said that 2025 remained the target date for SAS’s IPO. In May 2025 SAS chief operating officer Gavin Day said, “There is not a target for me,” adding that Goodnight would decide when the time was right and that the company’s priority was to be ready for that moment.⁠[5]

Goodnight has put a large share of revenue into research and development. SAS’s approach to employee performance was featured in Harvard Business Review, and he co-authored “Managing for Creativity” with Richard Florida, which argues that companies benefit from making full use of their creative capital and states that “software is a product of the mind.”⁠[1]

He led a national Business Roundtable report urging business leaders to support early learning and third-grade reading proficiency, and in North Carolina he recruited chief executives to the cause, which helped increase funding for prekindergarten. He is an active participant in the Business Roundtable and the Business Council.⁠[1]

Goodnight has been recognized by Harvard Business School as a Great American Business Leader and named by Inc. magazine one of America’s 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs. In 2019 he received the CEO Great Place to Work For All Leadership Award; in 2022 he received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor; and in February 2026 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry named him to its Forbes 250 list of America’s greatest innovators.⁠[1][3]

As of October 26, 2026, Forbes estimated Goodnight’s net worth at $11.4 billion, with software as the source of his self-made wealth. Forbes also notes that he and John Sall co-own a country club and a hotel, that SAS products are used by more than 80,800 organizations worldwide, and that SAS’s 2022 revenue exceeded $3 billion.⁠[6]

SAS Institute: Official website: https://www.sas.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-goodnight/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]