Garrett Camp

Garrett Camp (born October 4, 1978) is a Canadian billionaire entrepreneur.[2][3] He has helped build a series of companies, including founding StumbleUpon, a web-discovery tool, co-founding Uber,[4] and founding Expa, a startup studio.[5] Camp is chairman of Mix, the successor to StumbleUpon, and is on the board of directors of Uber.

Garrett Camp
Camp in 2018
Born (1978-10-04) October 4, 1978
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Alma materUniversity of Calgary (BSc, MSc)
OccupationFounder, Expa
Co-founder & board member, Uber
Founder & chairman, StumbleUpon
Net worthUS$4.1 billion (November 2020)[1]
Websitegarrettcamp.com

Early life and education

Camp was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.[6] His father was an economist, and his mother an artist, and both later became home builders.[7] He graduated from the University of Calgary with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 2001, and later earned a master's degree in software engineering, researching collaborative systems, evolutionary algorithms and information retrieval.[6]

Career

StumbleUpon
Camp at the 2008 The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam

Camp co-founded StumbleUpon in 2002. It was the first web-discovery platform[8][9][10][11] and personalized recommendation engine.[12][13] The service enabled users to discover web content with a single click, during the Web 2.0 era.[14] In 2006, StumbleUpon relocated to San Francisco, after receiving its first round of funding from Silicon Valley angel investors. In 2007, StumbleUpon was included on the Time magazine's "50 Best Websites" list,[15] and on its 2013 "50 Must-Have iPad Apps" list.[16]

StumbleUpon was acquired by eBay for $75M[17][18] in 2007 and spun-out in 2009,[19][20][21][22] becoming an independent company again.[23][24] Following its spin-off, Camp worked to expand its offerings to include mobile phone app discovery and social networking.[22] He grew the company to over one hundred employees and over 25 million registered users[25] as its founding CEO before stepping down in mid 2012 to work on other ventures.[26] In August 2015,he acquired it again, after resetting all previous shareholders at $0/share.[27] Theplatform continued to have standalone web and mobile apps until mid 2018, when its users were transitioned to the Mix.com, a venture built in part through Camp's studio startup company, Expa.[28][29]

Uber

Camp founded Uber as UberCab[30][31] in early 2009 while he was CEO of StumbleUpon, and self-funded the seed round of $250K.

Uber launched in San Francisco in mid 2010 with just a few cars on the road and, in late 2010, raised $1.25M in venture capital.[32] In 2011, the company continued to expand across the United States and abroad, including major markets such as New York City and Paris.[33][34] Uber's motto is "Everyone's Private Driver"[35] and, in mid-2012, launched UberX[36][37] and Uber SUV[38] to offer customers low cost options and more vehicle choices. In late 2012, Uber launched UberTAXI,[39][40] allowing taxi drivers to use the application with taxi-like fares for customers, and, in early 2013, CEO Kalanick announced that Uber would begin offering a ride-sharing service,[41][42][43] allowing community drivers to use the application.

Uber was listed in Forbes's Top 10 Companies of 2012,[44] and was ranked number 6 in Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2013.[45] Uber is based in San Francisco, and has expanded in the US and abroad, offering service in over 600 cities worldwide.[46] Camp currently serves on Uber's Board of Directors.[47]

Expa

Camp formed Expa in 2013,[48][49] integrating his ten years of start-up experience into a system for building new companies. Expa is a startup studio to create and launch new companies by providing early-stage startups with starting capital, a workspace, and technical advice.[50][51] Companies that partner with Expa work from offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver or, most recently, London.[52]

In March 2014, Expa raised its first $50 million from investors[53][54] to fund the design and development of new companies. In March 2016, Expa raised an additional $100 million to fund the creation of new startups. Expa has helped to build and launch a number of companies, including Mix.com, Haus.com and Cmd.com, among others.[55][56][57]

on April 29, 2020, Expa announced that David Clark will join the company as its European partner to set up a new headquarters in London.[58][59]

Eco

Camp is currently working on a cryptocurrency he calls Eco. Camp is striving to make it a digital global currency that facilitates daily transactions between business as a form of payment in order to improve commonly occurring issues with digital currencies.[60] Eco also aims to be the most energy efficient currency in terms of transaction verification and token generation.[60]

Investments

Previously, Camp invested in Prism Skylabs,[61] a video analytics platform founded by Stephen Russell; SoundTracking,[62] a music sharing application co-founded by Steve Jang of Schematic Labs; WillCall a live music ticket-buying application; and PSDept, a personal shopping application and BlackJet, an on-demand private aviation service.[63] Camp was also a Series-A investor in Behance, a social media platform,[64] prior to its acquisition by Adobe in 2012.[65]

Awards and honors

Camp was named to the TR35 List of Top Innovators[66] under the age of 35 at Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT in 2007.[67] In 2008 Camp was named by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs.[68] Camp was honored at the 2013 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards for his accomplishments at both StumbleUpon and Uber.[69]

Wealth

In 2015, he was the 283rd-richest person in the world and the third-richest Canadian, with an estimated wealth of US$5.3 billion according to Forbes.[70] As of March 2019, Camp's net worth is calculated at US$4.6 billion according to Forbes.[71]

Allegations of exploitation

In June 2019, Camp bought a newly built, 11,000-square-foot mansion in Trousdale Estates of Beverly Hills for $72.5 million.[72] Camp's purchase drew the ire of activists and Uber drivers, who protested the firm's labor practices and advocated for better working conditions for drivers. Karim Bayumi, a Los Angeles Uber driver and labor organizer, said "this guy is buying lavish houses with our money, our hard-earned money that they are unjustly taking from us."[73]

Philanthropy

Camp has joined The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away half of his wealth to charity. In a personal blog post announcing his plans, Camp spoke of recent travels to Kenya, where he connected with people living without access to basic services like clean water, food and electricity.[74] In 2018 Camp established the Camp Foundation, a non-profit research organization to support research into infrastructure, sustainability, and conservation projects that will have a significant global impact.[75]

Personal life

Camp lives in San Francisco.[7]

References
  1. "Garrett Camp". Forbes. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  2. McCullough, Michael (21 September 2011). "Stumbling upon success". Canadian Business. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  3. Camp, Garrett (2011-10-22). "The Start-Up Advantage". The New York Times.
  4. "Uber". CrunchBase Profile.
  5. "Garrett Camp". Crunchbase. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  6. Plana, Vincent. "17 Facts You Didn't Know About Uber Co-Founder's $68 Billion Fortune". www.narcity.com. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  7. "Bloomberg profile: Garrett Camp". Bloomberg LP. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  8. Helft, Miguel (2007-10-07). "A Way to Find Your Corner of the Internet Sky". The New York Times.
  9. "Garrett Camp: "one-size-fits-all in search is history"". The Next Web.
  10. "Interview with Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon Co-Founder". CenterNetworks. Archived from the original on 2012-05-20.
  11. "SoMa-Based StumbleUpon Provides a "Forward Button" for Discovery on the Internet". 7x7SF.
  12. "Q&A With Garrett Camp, Founder & Chief Architect, StumbleUpon". Search Engine Land.
  13. "The Serendipity Of StumbleUpon - an interview with Garrett Camp, Chief Architect". ReadWriteWeb.
  14. Waters, Darren (29 March 2007). "Web 2.0 wonders: StumbleUpon". BBC News. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  15. "StumbleUpon: 50 Best Websites 2007". Time. 2007-07-08.
  16. "StumbleUpon: 50 Must-Have iPad Apps". Time. 2013-04-15. Archived from the original on 2013-04-19.
  17. "eBay's StumbleUpon Acquisition: Confirmed at $75 Million". TechCrunch.
  18. Fost, Dan (2007-06-24). "Company Stumbles its Way to 75 Million". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  19. "StumbleUpon Beats Skype In Escaping EBay's Clutches". TechCrunch.
  20. "StumbleUpon's Garrett Camp Speaks (About Being a Born-Again Start-up)!". AllThingsD.
  21. Joyner, April (July 2011). "Garrett Camp: Buying Back the Company". Inc.
  22. Mangalindan, JP (29 February 2012). "How StumbleUpon saved itself". Fortune. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  23. Borzo, Jeanette (November 15, 2010). "Interview with Garrett Camp: The Perils of Being the Little Fish". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
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  25. Ha, Anthony (April 26, 2012). "StumbleUpon Reaches 25M Registered Users, Plans For Global Expansion And API". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
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  29. Carson, Biz (August 1, 2018). "Uber Cofounder Garrett Camp Is Back To An Old Problem: Finding Interesting Things On The Internet". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
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  31. "A Peek Under the Hood at Uber". 7x7SF.
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  33. Jeffries, Adrianne (26 April 2013). "After long battle, Uber becomes first taxi app to get approved in New York City". The Verge. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
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  37. "A Status Symbol Moves Down Market: The Context for Uber's Lower-Priced Launch". AllThingsD.
  38. "SF, You Now Have the Freedom to Choose". Uber Blog.
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  40. "Uber wins in NYC lawsuit filed by limo lobby, clearing the way for city to test e-hail apps". The Verge.
  41. "Uber Moves Deeper Into Ride Sharing, Promises To Roll Out Services Where Regulators Have Given 'Tacit Approval'". TechCrunch.
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  43. "Uber will 'aggressively' pursue carpooling model, but only when lawmakers say it's okay". The Verge.
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  46. Dara Kerr and Marrian Zhou, "Uber to acquire Middle East competitor Careem for $3.1B," CNET, March 26, 2019.
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  50. "Inside Expa Labs, Uber co-founder's take on the startup accelerator". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
  51. Yeung, Ken (30 March 2016). "Expa raises $100 million to build more companies, launches startup accelerator". VentureBeat. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
  52. Williams, Hannah (2020-04-29). "Expa Launches UK Office For European Startups". Computerworld. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
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  55. Crook, Jordan (1 August 2017). "Garrett Camp's latest Expa project, Mix, aims to curate the web". TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
  56. Crook, Jordan (28 July 2016). "Uber co-founder launches new real estate venture for Expa called Haus". TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
  57. Sawers, Paul (26 February 2019). "GV leads $15 million investment in stealth Canadian cybersecurity startup Cmd". TechCrunch. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
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  64. "Behance". CrunchBase Profile.
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  70. Forbes' 29th Annual World's Billionaires Issue, Forbes, March 2, 2015
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  73. Levin, Sam (2 Jul 2019) "Uber co-founder buys record-breaking LA mansion for $72.5m as drivers fight for wages." The Guardian. (Retrieved September 3, 2019.)
  74. Kolodny, Lora (2017-11-22). "Uber and Infosys co-founders are latest billionaires to join The Giving Pledge". CNBC. Retrieved 2017-12-16.
  75. "The Camp Foundation".
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