Ross Perot was a disruptor long before Silicon Valley made the word annoying. Most people remember him as the guy with the charts and the squeaky voice who ran for President in 1992, but if you look at the Ross Perot organizations founded over his lifetime, you see a much weirder, more aggressive blueprint for how to build things. He didn’t just start companies. He built cults of personality, rescue squads, and political movements that actually forced the two-party system to sweat.
He started with $1,000. That’s it.
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Honestly, the story of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) is probably the best example of his "brute force" style of entrepreneurship. Back in 1962, IBM was selling massive mainframe computers, but they weren’t selling the service to actually run them. Perot saw that gap. He wasn't a tech genius; he was a salesman who understood that companies were drowning in data they didn't know how to use. He founded EDS on his birthday, and for the first few years, it was a slog. He was rejected seventy-seven times before he landed his first contract. Think about that. Seventy-seven "nos" before he got one "yes."
The Big Ones: EDS and the Birth of Outsourcing
When you talk about Ross Perot organizations founded in a business context, EDS is the undisputed heavyweight. It basically invented the IT outsourcing industry. Perot hired former military guys—specifically because he liked their discipline—and enforced a strict dress code. White shirts only. No facial hair. It was corporate America's version of the Marines.
By the mid-60s, the U.S. government was rolling out Medicare and Medicaid. They had no way to process the mountain of claims. EDS stepped in and handled the paperwork. This was the rocket fuel for the company. By 1968, Perot was a paper billionaire.
Eventually, he sold EDS to General Motors in 1984 for $2.5 billion. It was a disaster. Perot hated the GM bureaucracy, calling it "teaching an elephant to tap dance." He was so vocal about how much he hated GM's leadership that they eventually paid him $700 million just to go away and stop criticizing them.
Perot Systems: The Second Act
Most people would have retired. Perot didn't. In 1988, he started Perot Systems. It was basically EDS 2.0, but leaner. He took many of his loyalists with him, which actually led to a massive legal battle with GM over "non-compete" agreements.
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Perot Systems grew rapidly by focusing on the same thing: efficiency. They took over the tech stacks for hospitals and energy companies. What’s interesting here is that while EDS was built on government contracts, Perot Systems was built on the realization that the private sector was becoming even more tech-dependent. Dell eventually bought the company in 2009 for $3.9 billion.
The Political Machines: United We Stand America and the Reform Party
Ross Perot’s influence isn't just a business story. In 1992, he did something that shouldn't have been possible. He founded United We Stand America (UWSA). This wasn't a political party at first; it was a non-profit "watchdog" group designed to lobby the government on the national debt.
It was essentially a massive mailing list before the internet made mailing lists easy.
- He used "infomercials" to talk about the deficit.
- He bought 30-minute slots on prime-time TV.
- People actually watched them. Millions of them.
When he decided to run for President, the UWSA morphed into the Reform Party of the United States in 1995. This is one of the most significant Ross Perot organizations founded because it gave a platform to people like Jesse Ventura, who became Governor of Minnesota, and—ironically—Donald Trump, who explored a run under the Reform Party banner in 2000.
Perot's political organizations were built on the idea that the "owners" of the country (the taxpayers) were being ignored by the "hired help" (Washington). He didn't use focus groups. He used his own money. At his peak in 1992, he was polling higher than both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The Perot Foundation and Philanthropy
Behind the scenes, the Perot family foundation has quietly poured hundreds of millions into Dallas. If you go to North Texas, you’ll see the name everywhere. The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is the flashy one, but the real impact is in medical research.
They’ve been massive donors to UT Southwestern Medical Center. Perot was obsessed with finding out why Gulf War veterans were getting sick, a condition eventually known as Gulf War Syndrome. When the government was dragging its feet, Perot funded his own research. He didn't care about the optics; he cared about the data.
He also founded Hillwood, a real estate development firm run by his son, Ross Jr. This is the company behind AllianceTexas, a massive "inland port" and logistics hub that basically turned a patch of dirt north of Fort Worth into a global trade powerhouse. While Ross Sr. provided the capital and the initial vision, this organization became the family's long-term legacy in physical infrastructure.
What Most People Get Wrong About Perot's Success
You'll hear people say Perot was just a "lucky" salesman. That's nonsense.
The secret sauce for every Ross Perot organization founded was a fanatical devotion to "customer service" that bordered on the extreme. In the early EDS days, if a client's system went down at 3:00 AM, Perot expected his engineers to be there in person, regardless of whether they had slept. He built a culture of "accountability" that modern corporations often claim to have but rarely actually enforce.
He also had a weirdly specific talent for crisis management. In 1979, when two of his employees were taken hostage in Iran, he didn't wait for the State Department. He hired a retired Green Beret colonel, Bull Simons, and organized a private commando raid to break them out of prison. That's not a business move; that's a movie plot. But to Perot, it was just "taking care of his people."
The Organizations in Detail
- Electronic Data Systems (1962): The pioneer of data processing.
- Perot Systems (1988): A multi-billion dollar IT services giant.
- United We Stand America (1992): The grassroots engine for his political rise.
- The Reform Party (1995): The most successful third-party movement in modern U.S. history.
- Hillwood Development: The real estate arm that built much of modern Dallas-Fort Worth.
- The Perot Foundation: The philanthropic vehicle for medical and educational funding.
Why These Organizations Still Matter Today
If you look at the current political landscape, you see the fingerprints of Perot's Reform Party everywhere. The focus on protectionism, the skepticism of free trade agreements like NAFTA (the "giant sucking sound"), and the populist appeal to the "silent majority" all started with the organizations Perot built in the 90s.
In business, the entire cloud computing and managed services industry is just an evolution of what EDS started in the 60s. We take it for granted now that a company would hire someone else to manage their servers. In 1962, that was a radical idea.
Real-World Lessons from the Perot Playbook
If you're trying to build something today, there are a few things you can actually use from the Perot method. First, ignore the middleman. Perot went straight to the public with his infomercials, bypassing the traditional media gatekeepers.
Second, hire for character, train for skill. Perot famously preferred veterans because he knew they could handle pressure. He didn't care if they knew COBOL yet; he knew they wouldn't quit when things got hard.
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Third, own the problem. Whether it was a hostage crisis in Tehran or the national debt, Perot treated every issue like a personal project. He didn't "delegate" his values.
Actionable Next Steps
To truly understand how to apply the "Perot Method" to your own ventures or research, start here:
- Study the 1992 Infomercials: Watch them on YouTube. Look at how he simplifies complex data. It’s a masterclass in communication.
- Read "On Wings of Eagles": This Ken Follett book chronicles the EDS rescue mission in Iran. It explains the "loyalty" aspect of his organizations better than any textbook.
- Analyze the AllianceTexas Model: If you're into real estate or logistics, look at how Hillwood created a self-sustaining economic ecosystem rather than just building warehouses.
- Review the 1992 Reform Party Platform: Compare it to modern populist movements. You'll be surprised how much of today's "new" rhetoric was actually written thirty years ago by a guy from Texarkana.
The legacy of Ross Perot organizations founded isn't just about the money he made. It's about the fact that he proved a single person with enough drive—and a very loud voice—could change the way the world handles data, politics, and philanthropy. He was a "kinda" prickly guy, sure. But he got things done.
If you're looking for a roadmap on how to build an organization that actually lasts, you could do a lot worse than looking at the man who turned a $1,000 check into a global empire.