Ryan Graves (born 1983) is an American

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

, a former CEO and member of the board of directors of

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

, and a current member of the board of directors of Charity: Water, Pachama, and

Metromile Metromile, Inc. was a San Francisco-based technology startup that offers pay-per-mile car insurance, licenses a digital insurance platform to insurance companies around the world, and provides a digitally native offering featuring smart driving f ...

. He is also the CEO of Saltwater, his

family office A family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with at least $50-$100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer w ...

Early life and education

Graves was born in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California and grew up near the beach. He attended Horizon Christian Academy, where he competed for the high school surf team. In 2006, he graduated with an economics degree from

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the 10 ...

in Ohio, where he was a member of the

water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...

club team and the

Beta Theta Pi Beta Theta Pi (), commonly known as Beta, is a North American social fraternity that was founded in 1839 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. One of North America's oldest fraternities, as of 2022 it consists of 144 active chapters in the Unite ...

fraternity A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...

Career

Graves worked for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

. He eventually got an

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

Foursquare Four square is a ball game. Four square may also refer to: Internet and entertainment * Foursquare City Guide, a local search and discovery app * ''4 Square'' (game show), a British game show * ''4 Square'' (TV series), a Canadian children's s ...

by pretending to work for them after they turned him down for a job. In February 2010, Graves became the first employee of Uber, receiving the job by responding "here's a tip. email me :)" to a post by

Travis Kalanick Travis Cordell Kalanick (; born August 6, 1976) is an American businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of Uber. Previously he worked for Scour, a peer-to-peer file sharing application company, and was th ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Graves started out as general manager and was named

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

shortly after the launch. In December 2010, Kalanick succeeded Graves as CEO and Graves became

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

(COO). By 2019, Graves owned 31.9 million shares in Uber. That year, he resigned from the board of directors of Uber. In 2018, Graves founded Saltwater, his

, focused on investments in technology businesses. In February 2021, Graves made a $50 million investment in and became a member of the board of directors of

, a pay-per-mile auto insurer.

Personal life

Graves is married to Molly Graves, his college sweetheart and a kindergarten teacher. They have four children, all sons, and live on the island of

Kaua'i Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. He is a supporter of the

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penna ...

baseball team. Graves serves on the board of directors of Charity: Water and has pledged at least 1% of his net worth to the charity, which focuses on delivering clean water solutions to people in

developing nations A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, Ryan 1983 births 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American philanthropists American billionaires Beta Theta Pi Directors of Uber Living people Miami University alumni People from San Diego