Business He founded
BMC Software in
Texas in 1980, and was the lead venture capital financier for
Peregrine Systems in California starting in 1981, as well as
ServiceNow, another California corporation founded in 2005. He served as a director of Peregrine from March 1989 to March 2003 and as chairman of the board from March 1990 through July 2000 and from May 2002 through March 2003, during which he cashed out between US$600 and US$630 million in Peregrine stock. He resigned as Peregrine chairman in February 2003 as part of the company's Chapter 11 reorganization. He also founded JMI Equity. In 1994, Moores purchased the
San Diego Padres professional baseball team from
Tom Werner. In 2009, he began the process of incrementally selling the Padres to a group of twelve investors, headed by
Jeff Moorad (former sports agent and CEO of the
Arizona Diamondbacks) for about $500 million. The deal fell through in 2012, and Moores instead sold the team for $800 million to a group led by
Ron Fowler. Moores was voted into the
Padres Hall of Fame in 2023. He continues to operate in the IT service management market with continued investments through his
venture capital firm JMI Equity.
Philanthropy and activism Organizations that Moores has supported include the
ACLU, the
San Diego Zoo,
San Diego State University, the
San Diego Symphony, San Diego Center for Children, the Boys and Girls Clubs, St. Vincent de Paul Villages, the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society and
Scripps Research, where Moores sits on the board. His 1991 contribution of US$51 million to the
University of Houston was the largest in U.S. history to a public university. He served on the
University of Houston System Board of Regents from 1991 to 1994. Among many other philanthropic efforts, John and Becky Moores donated US$21 million to establish the
John and Rebecca Moores Cancer Center at the
University of California, San Diego, and over US$20 million to
San Diego State University. In 1999, he was appointed Regent of the
University of California by Governor
Gray Davis until he resigned for unknown reasons in 2007. As UC regent, he worked to make sure
Proposition 209 (passed in 1996) was implemented. In 2005, he was elected chair of the
Carter Center at
Emory University, succeeding
Jimmy Carter. Most recently, Moores is a member of the board of trustees for the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the
University of California, Berkeley. The center is focused on finding solutions to address the crisis of
extreme poverty and disease in the developing world. Moores is also the founder of the River Blindness Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to research and treatment of
Onchocerciasis, the second most common cause of infectious blindness. In 2016, Moores began negotiations to buy English soccer club
Nottingham Forest, with a view to buying between 80% and 100% of the shares from Kuwaiti owner
Fawaz Al-Hasawi for a reported $61.87 million. However, the deal unexpectedly collapsed at the eleventh hour, with no clear reason given by either party. ==Personal life ==