The Covid Billionaire Who Wants To Put Undocumented Immigrants In America’s Finest Colleges

Jack Schuler got rich betting on new technologies including one that can track Covid-19 in the air. His next bet is on undocumented students.

It’s early December and Chicago is suffering through one of its worst stretches of the pandemic. Jack Schuler takes a pause during a phone call to put on a mask for the short walk from his office in the suburb of Lake Forest to his car. Then he launches right back into retelling one of the most pivotal moments in his three-plus-decade career in the biotech industry.

“I was fired by Abbott in August 1989, and then we founded Stericycle and Ventana,” he says, recounting the moment he left healthcare giant Abbott Labs and began a series of investments that helped make him a billionaire 32 years later. “I concluded that I was going to have more fun dealing with startups than going back to a big company.”

The president and chief operating officer of Abbott before being pushed out,…