Ryan Smith

About Ryan Smith

Ryan Smith is the owner of the Utah Jazz and the cofounder of Utah-based cloud computing company Qualtrics.

He cofounded Qualtrics, known for its feedback surveys of customers and staff, in 2002 with his brother, Jared, and father, Scott.

Three days before its scheduled IPO in January 2019, Qualtrics was acquired by German software firm SAP for $8 billion in cash.

SAP spun out Qualtrics as a stand alone public company in 2021. It was taken bought by private equity giant Silver Lake in 2023.

In 2020, news broke that Smith was leading a group to buy the Utah Jazz NBA team for $1.66 billion. The deal closed in December 2020.