Back in the early 1920s, J.R. Simplot started a business in Declo, Idaho -- he raised hogs. He was 14-years old. Ultimately, he went on to create the Simplot Company, which is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise.

Yesterday, Simplot died of natural causes; he was 99.

He lived his life to the fullest and it seemed he had limitless energy. During World War II, the Simplot Company was the largest seller of potatoes in the U.S. and, of course, a major supplier to the troops.

Simplot also was incredibly innovative. For example, when there was a fertilizer shortage in WW II, he created his own facility to deal with the problem. Then, by the late 1940s, he helped to invent frozen french fries and would help usher in the fast-food revolution. By 1967, he made a hand-shake deal with Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), to supply french fries.

Even though he retired in the early 1970s, Simplot remained busy. He provided startup capital to computer chip maker Micron Technology (NYSE: MU). The company now has a market value of $6.2 billion.

Despite all the success, Simplot remained humble and thrifty – just like another billionaire, Warren Buffett. Simplot would fly commercial, had an ordinary car and wore the same pair of glasses for thirty years. And of course, his favorite restaurant was McDonald's.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

The Associated Press reports that 99 year old billionaire J. R. Simplot died of natural causes after a life shunning cigarettes and alcohol. Although much of his $3.2 billion estimated net worth came from a deal he struck with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) to supply potatoes for its french fries, he also made some money in semiconductors -- providing $1 million in capital for a 40% stake in Micron Technologies (NYSE: MU).

That Micron stake connects me -- however distantly -- to Simplot. That's because on June 22, 2006, Micron acquired Lexar Media, a maker of flash memory chips, for $850 million. I was an advisory board member of Lexar and received cash for my stake. Micron, which generates most of its revenues from Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chips, thought that Lexar's flash memory would help boost its margins by expanding Micron's then-developing memory card business. Unfortunately, Micron's stock has lost 22% of its value since the deal.

But Micron was not the biggest part of Simplot's fortune. He left home in 1923 with $20 worth of gold coins from his mother and traded up. His businesses, still family owned, manufacture agriculture, horticulture and turf fertilizers; animal feed and seeds; food products such as fruits, potatoes and other vegetables; and industrial chemicals and irrigation products. He all but invented the first commercially viable frozen french fries in the world.