Garrett Camp (born October 4, 1978) is a Canadian-French businessman, investor, and software engineer. He helped build the search engine

StumbleUpon StumbleUpon was a website, browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine. Users were able to ...

and is a co-founder of

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...

. He lives in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Early life and education

Camp was born and raised in

Calgary, Alberta Calgary () is a major city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a Metropolitan area, metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the List of ...

, Canada. His father was an economist, and his mother an artist; both later became home builders. In 2001 he graduated from the

University of Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

with a bachelor's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. Later he earned a master's degree in software engineering with a focus on collaborative systems,

evolutionary algorithm Evolutionary algorithms (EA) reproduce essential elements of the biological evolution in a computer algorithm in order to solve "difficult" problems, at least Approximation, approximately, for which no exact or satisfactory solution methods are k ...

s, and

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the task of identifying and retrieving information system resources that are relevant to an Information needs, information need. The information need can be specified in the form ...

Career

In 2002, Camp co-founded

. It was the first personalized

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

platform. In 2007, StumbleUpon was acquired by

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

and in 2009 StumbleUpon was spun-out. Following its spin-off, Camp worked to expand its services and grow the company. In 2012, Camp left StumbleUpon. In 2014, Camp founded Expa Labs with the goal of growing new companies. In 2015, Camp reacquired StumbleUpon. It operated until 2018, when it transitioned to Mix, a venture built in part through Expa Labs.

Uber

In 2009, Camp founded

as UberCab In 2011, the company continued to expand across the United States and abroad. In 2020, Camp left Uber's board of directors but remained a board observer. In 2022, Camp was portrayed by actor Jon Bass in ''Super Pumped'', a drama series based on Uber.

Investments

In the past, Camp has invested in Prism Skylabs; and BlackJet, an on-demand private aviation service.

Awards and honors

In 2007, Camp was named to the List of Top Innovators under the age of 35 at Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. In 2008, Camp was named by ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

'' as one of Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs. In 2013, Camp was honored at the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards for his accomplishments at both StumbleUpon and Uber.

Wealth

In 2015, Camp 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 ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

''.Forbes' 29th Annual World's Billionaires Issue
''Forbes'', March 2, 2015 As of February 2024, Camp's net worth is calculated at US$6.18 billion, making him the fifteenth-richest Canadian, according to the

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

Billionaires Index. In 2017, Camp joined

The Giving Pledge The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority (i.e. more than 50%) of their wealth to philanthropic causes. , the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 ...

, a commitment to give away half of his wealth to charity. In June 2019, after Camp purchased a mansion in Trousdale Estates of

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...

for $72.5 million, Uber drivers struggling for higher pay and better working conditions picketed his home.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Camp, Garrett 1978 births Living people 21st-century Canadian businesspeople Businesspeople from Calgary Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Businesspeople in software Canadian billionaires Canadian chief executives Canadian computer businesspeople Canadian chairpersons of corporations Canadian expatriates in the United States Canadian investors Canadian transportation businesspeople Canadian technology chief executives Canadian technology company founders Directors of Uber University of Calgary alumni