[jasongullickson]

Elon Musk seems to be someone who really knows how to do cool things with the spoils of a successful software company. Are there any other good examples of people like this that have taken one big win and parlayed it into investing in seriously futuristic technology?

[biotech]

It's interesting how common this is in New Space:

Jeff Bezos - From Amazon.com to Blue Origin

Richard Branson - From Virgin Records to Virgin Galactic

Robert Bigelow - From Budget Suites to Bigelow Aerospace

Elon Musk - From PayPal to SpaceX

I'm hoping that this is just the beginning of a trend of successful businesspeople investing in humanities' future in space.

[arctangent]

Richard Branson is a good example of an "adventure capitalist".

Here is his Wikipedia profile:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson

Here is the Wikipedia page for his space tourism company:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic

Also worthy of a mention is Mark Shuttleworth, who was the world's second space tourist (and also the founder of the Ubuntu Foundation):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

[hugh3]

Perhaps the ur-example would be Howard Hughes. Got rich selling drill bits, plunged it all into much more interesting ventures like aeroplanes and motion pictures.

[iwwr]

Don't forget Anousheh Ansari:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anousheh_Ansari

[benologist]

And Richard Garriot aka Lord British - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott

[arctangent]

Everyone on the list of space tourists has an interesting past:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tourism#List_of_flown_spa...

[IDisposableHero]

Don't forget John Carmack - from Doom at Id softare to Armadillo Aerospace

[3kMarlin]

Robert Bigelow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bigelow

His space station company:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace