John Arrillaga

John Arrillaga is one of five children born into a lower-middle-class home with his mother, Freida, and father, Gabriel, who traced his roots to the Basque region.[2][3] He attended Morningside High School in Inglewood, California, and graduated in 1955. He attended Stanford University on a basketball scholarship, and was a first-team All-AAWU selection in 1960. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta, and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in geography .[1]

In the 1960s, Arrillaga and business partner Richard Peery bought California farmland and converted it into office space.[1] They became two of Silicon Valley's biggest commercial landlords with more than 12,000,000 square feet (1,100,000 m²).[4]

In 2006, he sold 5,300,000 sq ft (490,000 m²) of his real estate holdings for roughly $1.1 billion.[1]

In 2020, he ranked No. 339 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. In October 2020, his net worth was $2.5 billion.[5]

Arrillaga is known for his support of Stanford University.[6] The alumni center, the Frances C. Arrillaga Building, is named in memory of his first wife, and other athletic facilities carry his surname. In May 2006, Arrillaga gave $100 million to Stanford.[7]

In June 2013, he donated $151 million to Stanford, the largest individual donation from a living donor in the university's history.[8][1]

In 1968, Arrillaga married Frances Marion Cook Arrillaga, a teacher and librarian.[9] She died on October 13, 1995, in her Palo Alto home of lung cancer at age 54.[9] They had two children together, John Jr. and Laura.[9] Their daughter Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is married to Marc Andreessen, who co-authored the Mosaic and Netscape web browsers, and is co-founder of several web technology enterprises. His son John Arrillaga, Jr. is married to Justine Stamen Arrillaga, founder of the TEAK Fellowship.[10]

After the death of his first wife, Arrillaga later married Gioia Fasi, a former lawyer from Honolulu, Hawaii. They reside in Portola Valley, California.[2][1]