Mark Shuttleworth Gave His Domestic Worker and Gardener R1 Million Each After Selling Thawte
- SA tech billionaire Mark Shuttleworth sold his company Thawte to VeriSign for R3.5 billion at age 26
- Shuttleworth handed every one of his 57 employees a R1 million bonus, including cleaners and gardeners
- The Cape Town-born entrepreneur went on to become the first African to travel to space in 2002
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Mark Shuttleworth, the Cape Town-raised tech entrepreneur, did something remarkable when he sold his internet security company Thawte to American giant VeriSign in 1999. He made sure every single person who helped build it walked away with life-changing money, including the domestic workers and gardeners on his staff.
Shuttleworth was just 26 years old when he closed the deal for $575 million, equivalent to R3.5 billion at the time. Rather than pocketing the windfall entirely, he distributed R1 million Christmas bonuses to all 57 of his employees, regardless of their role or position.
From a garage in Cape Town to a global deal
Thawte Consulting had humble beginnings. Shuttleworth started the company in 1995 from his parents' garage while studying finance and information systems at the University of Cape Town. The business focused on digital certificates and internet security, eventually becoming the first organisation outside the United States to develop a fully secure e-commerce web server. Four years later, that garage-born startup became one of the most talked-about tech sales in the world.
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The mass bonus payout was unprecedented. Administrative staff, office cleaners, and gardeners received the same R1 million as senior employees, fundamentally changing the financial futures of people who would otherwise never have seen that kind of money.
Space, software and social good
Shuttleworth did not slow down after the sale. In April 2002, he paid roughly $20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz mission, spending seven months training in Star City before travelling to the International Space Station. He became the first African to reach space, conducting stem cell and HIV protein crystallisation experiments during the mission.
In 2004, he founded Canonical and launched Ubuntu, a free Linux-based operating system that grew into one of the most widely used open-source platforms in the world, powering everything from personal computers to cloud servers and IoT devices globally.
He also established the Shuttleworth Foundation to support educational innovation across Africa, and Here Be Dragons, a venture capital fund for early-stage tech startups. Today, he holds dual British and South African citizenship and continues to invest in environmental conservation and sustainable tourism alongside his work at Canonical.
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More stories on domestic workers
- Briefly News recently reported on a Malawian domestic worker of seven years who allegedly fled with R1 million in jewellery and Kruger coins.
- In another story, entrepreneur Mario Labuschagne built a payroll platform called MyHelper to make paying domestic workers easier for South African employers.
- Malcolm Wentzel's warm friendship with domestic worker Thembi Ubisi went viral again after she pulled a cheeky prank on him at lunch, leaving him in stitches.
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Source: Briefly News
