Joseph N. Sanberg (born July 12, 1979) is an American entrepreneur. He is co-founder of

Aspiration, Inc. Aspiration is a sustainability-as-a-service company with global operations based in Los Angeles, California. History Aspiration was founded in 2013 by Andrei Cherny and Joseph Sanberg. It opened for business in February 2015. As of May 2020, A ...

, an online banking and investing firm, and an early investor in meal delivery service Blue Apron. He is also the founder of CalEITC4Me, a California outreach program that helps low-income families claim the state and federal earned income tax credits.

Life

Born and raised in Southern California, Sanberg went to

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

Servite High School Servite High School is a private, Catholic, all-male college preparatory high school operated by the Order of Friar Servants of Mary on a campus in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area in Anaheim, California, US. It was founded by the Servites in ...

and studied at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Sanberg lives in Los Angeles with his fiancée Nicole Lapin, an author and former

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

anchor. In 2021, they publicly discussed experiencing a miscarriage in an effort to encourage companies to offer paid

early pregnancy loss Miscarriage, also known in medical terms as a spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently. Miscarriage before 6 weeks of gestation is defined by ESHRE as biochemical lo ...

leave.

Career

Sanberg has described that, after college, he went to work on Wall Street and earned enough to feel monetarily secure. However, he has said he was uneasy working in an industry that he said “totally divorced service from profit,” and shifted to investing in start-ups, including the meal delivery outfit Blue Apron and Aspiration.com. Sanberg co-founded

, an online financial company, with

Andrei Cherny Andrei Hugo Cherny (born August 4, 1975) is an American lawyer, author, former government official, and the founder and President of '' Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.'' Cherny serves as the CEO of Aspiration, Inc., a financial firm based in Ma ...

in 2013. Aspiration enables customers to choose their own fee levels on checking and investment accounts, and offers managed funds that are 100% fossil-fuel free. Sanberg is a founding investor in Blue Apron, a home meal delivery service and IVY.com, a "social university". Sanberg serves on the Board of Governors at the Jefferson Awards Foundation, an organization that engages over a million youth in volunteer programs and public service annually. Sanberg was called "the spark" for his leadership in 2015 toward California launching an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). To support the California EITC, he founded a statewide outreach program called CalEITC4Me that is administered by Golden State Opportunity Foundation, which conducts research, analysis, public information and education programs with the aim of creating economic security for Californians. CalEITC4Me helps working families claim the state and federal earned income tax credits (EITC) and helps families get free tax preparation services.

Political speculation

It was reported in 2018 that Sanberg was considering a run for president in 2020 on an anti-poverty platform. Sanberg stated that he would support whoever the Democratic nominee is if he did not run. Sanberg began traveling to

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

in April 2019 to test the possibility of a presidential run. Ultimately, on June 1, 2019, at the California Democrats State Convention, Sanberg announced that he would not campaign for the presidency. With the possibility rising of a 2021 recall election to remove

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...

, Sanberg attacked the recall as "anti-democratic" but prompted speculation that he might run in such an election. Sanberg is leading an initiative in the

2022 California elections The 2022 California elections took place on November 8, 2022. The statewide direct primary election was held on June 7, 2022. California voters elected all of California's seats to the United States House of Representatives, one seat to the U ...

to raise the minimum wage to $18/hour, and organizers have purportedly received more than 1 million signatures. Sanberg has said that the idea is "wildly popular," with over 60% support.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanberg, Joseph 1979 births 21st-century American businesspeople American investors Businesspeople from Los Angeles California Democrats Harvard University alumni Living people