John Arrillaga (April 3, 1937 – January 24, 2022) was an American billionaire real estate developer and philanthropist who was one of the largest landowners in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. He was also a

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player when he attended

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Early life and education

Arrillaga was born on April 3, 1937 in

Inglewood, California Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 107,762. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. The city is in the South Bay ...

, one of five children in a lower-middle-class home with his mother, Freida, and father, Gabriel, who traced his roots to the Basque region. His mother was a former nurse who worked laundry to support the family, while his father worked at a produce market. He attended

Morningside High School Morningside High School is a public high school in Inglewood, California. It is the second largest high school after Inglewood High School in the city. History In 1951, the first two classes of students came to the Morningside Park area of Ingl ...

in Inglewood, and graduated in 1955. He attended

on a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

scholarship, and was a first-team all-conference selection in the

Athletic Association of Western Universities The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...

in 1960. He was a member of

Delta Tau Delta Delta Tau Delta () is a United States-based international Greek letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, (now West Virginia) in 1858. The fraternity currently has around 130 collegiate chapters ...

, and graduated in 1960 with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

Career

Arrillaga started his career selling insurance before buying his first property—a run-down commercial building, which he fixed and let for rent to buy a second building. Arrillaga established his career as a real estate developer starting in the 1960s, partnering with Richard Peery in acquiring California farmland which they converted into office space. Their partnership took off with the growth of the semiconductor industry and other high-tech businesses, such as

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, in what became known as

. Arrillaga and Peery converted thousands of acres of farmland into office space in cities such as Mountain View, San Jose, and

Sunnyvale Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north ...

to meet the industry's needs. Over a period of 50 years, their partnership, Peery Arrillaga, built over 20 million square feet of commercial real estate, becoming one of Silicon Valley's biggest commercial landlords. In 2006, he sold over five million square feet of his real estate holdings for roughly $1.1 billion to the real estate division of

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

. In 2020 Arrillaga ranked No. 339 on the

Forbes 400 The ''Forbes'' 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by ''Forbes'' magazine of the wealthiest 400 American citizens who own assets in the U.S., ranked by net worth. The 400 was started by Malcolm Forbes in 1982 and the list is publ ...

list of the richest people in America. In October 2020, his net worth was $2.5 billion.

Philanthropy

Arrillaga was known for his support of his alma mater, Stanford University. The Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center is named in memory of his first wife. The Stanford Department of Athletics is housed in the Arrillaga Family Sports Center. Many other athletic facilities carry his surname, in addition to some that helped to renovate or rebuild. Altogether he built, or made the major donation to, 200 Stanford projects. He also endowed 57 full scholarships, 38 of them athletic scholarships; notable recipients included

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

, Katie Ledecky, and

Christian McCaffrey Christian Jackson McCaffrey (born June 7, 1996) is an American football running back for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Stanford and was drafted by the Carolina Panthers eighth overa ...

. He personally supervised the major renovation of

Stanford Stadium Stanford Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium on the west coast of the United States, located on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. It is the home of the Stanford Cardinal and hosts the university's commencemen ...

in 20052006 with an insistence that it be completed in nine months, so as not to cause any disruption to the football season. In May 2006, Arrillaga gave $100 million to Stanford University and followed it with a $151 million donation in 2013, the largest individual donation from a living donor in the university's history. The university awarded him the 'Degree of Uncommon Man' in 2009 for his contributions to the university.

Personal life and death

In 1968, Arrillaga married Frances Marion Cook, a teacher and librarian. She died on October 13, 1995, in their

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

home of lung cancer at age 54. They had two children together, John Jr. and Laura. Their daughter

Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen (born 1969/1970) is an American philanthropist, educator and author. She is the founder and president of the Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Foundation, a private operating foundation that describes itself as a philanthropi ...

is married to

Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and general partner of Silicon ...

, who helped to create the

Mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

web browser and co-founded

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

; he is co-founder of several other web technology enterprises. Their son John Arrillaga Jr. is married to Justine Stamen Arrillaga, founder of the TEAK Fellowship. After the death of his first wife, Arrillaga married Gioia Fasi, a former lawyer from

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, Hawaii. Arrillaga died in

Portola Valley Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Val ...

on January 24, 2022, at the age of 84.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arrillaga, John 1937 births 2022 deaths American billionaires American men's basketball players American people of Basque descent American philanthropists American real estate businesspeople Arrillaga family Basketball players from Inglewood, California Businesspeople from California Morningside High School alumni People from Portola Valley, California Stanford Cardinal men's basketball players Stanford University alumni