Bud Brigham founded his first company, Brigham Exploration Company, in 1990, on $30,000.  Brigham Exploration pioneered 3D seismic for exploration, and working with others drilled 11 consecutive discoveries, and successfully completed 13 of his first 14 wells, on his way to taking Brigham Exploration public in 1997.  Brigham Exploration was a leading innovator in the shale revolution, including drilling the first long lateral high frac stage well in the Bakken which substantially expanded the play.  In 2011 Brigham Exploration was sold to Statoil (now Equinor) for $4.7 billion.  Bud also founded Brigham Resources in 2012 which successfully innovated with horizontal drilling and fracking in the Southern Delaware Basin, and which was sold to Diamondback in 2016 for $2.5 billion.

To date, Bud has founded seven companies, 3 of which have successfully IPO’ed, and 3 of which have had successful exits totaling $9.3 billion.  In 2017 Bud founded and serves as Executive Chairman of Atlas Energy Solutions, which went public in 2023 with a market cap of $1.8 billion.  Bud is Chairman of 3 other private companies, a new Brigham Exploration that is the leading Permian Basin non-operating company, Brigham Royalties and Langford Energy Partners.