Marc Tarpenning

Last updated
Marc Tarpenning
Born (1964-06-01) June 1, 1964 (age 60)
Sacramento, California, U.S.
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley (BA)
OccupationCo-founder of Tesla
Website https://marctarpenning.com/

Marc Tarpenning (born June 1, 1964) is an American engineer and technology entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla Inc. with Martin Eberhard in 2003. [1] [2] [3] [4] Tarpenning served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Vice President of Engineering of Tesla. [5]

Contents

Early life

Marc Tarpenning was born in Sacramento, California, on June 1, 1964. [6] He attended the University of California, Berkeley, and obtained a B.A. degree in computer science in 1985. [7]

Career

After graduating from Berkeley, Tarpenning spent several years working for Textron in Saudi Arabia. [7] [5] [8] Tarpenning then developed software and firmware products for several companies, including Seagate Technology and Bechtel, and later served as vice president of engineering at Packet Design, a network technology company. [6] In 1997, Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard founded NuvoMedia, a company that built an early e-book reader, the RocketBook, in 1998. [7] In 2000, Gemstar–TV Guide International acquired NuvoMedia for $187 million. [7] [9] [6] [8]

In 2003, Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard collaborated again and founded Tesla Motors (now Tesla Inc.). The two co-founders funded the company until early 2004, when Elon Musk led the company's $6.5 million Series A financing round in February 2004 and became the chairman of the board. [10] Tarpenning continued to serve as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the Vice President of Electrical Engineering in Tesla until 2008. [5] [11]

After leaving Tesla, Tarpenning began to serve as an adviser or member of advisory board of several companies, including his alma mater (Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) and SkyDeck, UC Berkeley) [7] [12] [13] and Spero Ventures, a VC firm. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Berkeley</span> Public university in Berkeley, California

The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and is the founding campus of the University of California system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AC Propulsion</span> Automobile manufacturer in US

AC Propulsion is a San Dimas, California, USA company founded in 1992 by Alan Cocconi, Wally Rippel, and Paul Carosa, that specializes in alternating current-based drivetrain systems for electric vehicles. It offers AC-induction traction motors. The company produces electric vehicle drive systems featuring high performance, high efficiency induction motors and integrated high power battery charging. Previously, they built an electric sports car, the tzero and the eBox, an electric conversion based on the Scion XB. They also develop prototype electric vehicles for OEM customers.

The Walter A. Haas School of Business is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a public university in the United States.

The University of California, Berkeley College of Engineering is the public engineering school of the University of California, Berkeley. Established in 1931, the college occupies fourteen buildings on the northeast side of the main campus and also operates the 150-acre (61-hectare) Richmond Field Station. It is considered to be highly selective and is consistently ranked among the top engineering schools in both the nation and the world.

Nancy Regina Heinen of Portola Valley, California, is an American corporate lawyer, business executive, and philanthropist. Heinen is known for being the General Counsel, Senior Vice President, and Secretary for Apple Computer, Inc. between September 1997 and May 2006. Heinen is currently a member of the board of VERB and the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund. She also serves on the board of directors and advisory boards for several other companies and philanthropic organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sehat Sutardja</span> Co-founder of Marvell

Sehat Sutardja is the co-founder of Marvell Technology Group; formerly chief executive officer and a director. Marvell is involved with industry segments including data storage, mobile and smart TVs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weili Dai</span> Chinese-born American businesswoman

Weili Dai is a Chinese-born American businesswoman. She is the co-founder, former director and former president of Marvell Technology Group. Dai is a successful entrepreneur, and the only female co-founder of a major semiconductor company. In 2015, she was listed as the 95th richest woman in the world by Forbes. Her estimated net worth is US$1.3 billion, as of June 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tesla, Inc.</span> American electric vehicle and clean energy company

Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Eberhard</span> American engineer and business executive (born 1960)

Martin Eberhard is an American engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla, Inc. with Marc Tarpenning in 2003, where Eberhard was its original CEO serving until late 2007. In 2015, he was inducted into the University of Illinois Engineering Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. B. Straubel</span> American businessman

Jeffrey Brian Straubel is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He spent 15 years at Tesla, as chief technical officer until moving to an advisory role in July 2019. In 2023, he was elected to the company's board of directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyndon Rive</span> South African businessman (born 1977)

Lyndon Rive is a South African businessman known as the co-founder of SolarCity, and its CEO until 2016. SolarCity is a provider of photovoltaic systems and related services. Rive co-founded SolarCity with his brother Peter in 2006.

The Rocket eBook is an early commercial handheld e-reader that was produced by NuvoMedia in late 1998; it uses a LCD screen and can store up to ten e-books. E-books are loaded on the device by connecting it to a computer, the device has two page turn buttons. Rocket-compatible e-books were sold online at Barnes & Noble and Powell's Bookstore. It had a retail price of $499.

Tesla, Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer and clean energy company founded in San Carlos, California in 2003 by American entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. The company is named after Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturer, and, as of the end of 2021, Tesla's cumulative global vehicle sales totaled 2.3 million units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clearpath Robotics</span> Company

Clearpath Robotics, Inc. was founded in 2009 by a group of four University of Waterloo graduates, and remains headquartered in Waterloo Region, Canada. The original goal of Clearpath was to streamline field robotics research for universities and private corporations, but the company has since expanded and is now also manufacturing and selling the OTTO line of self-driving vehicles for industrial environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deepak Ahuja</span> Financial executive at Ford and Tesla

Deepak Prabhu Ahuja is an Indian-American financial executive working in the life sciences industry who previously worked in the automotive manufacturing industry. He is best known for being the former CFO of Tesla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mar Hershenson</span> American electrical engineer and entrepreneur

Mar Hershenson is a Spanish-American venture capitalist, electrical engineer, professor, and business executive in the electronic design automation industry. She is the co-founder and managing partner at Pear VC. In 2021, she ranked #29 on Forbes' Midas List.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Herr</span> American professor of Bioengineering

Amy Elizabeth Herr is an American professor. She is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is attached to the Department of Bioengineering. At Berkeley she was also the founding executive director of the Bakar Bioenginuity Hub. Herr is a Chan Zuckerberg BioHub Investigator and the Chief Technology Officer of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, a fellow of both the National Academy of Inventors and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, as well as a co-founder of Zephyrus Biosciences, a biotechnology company that was acquired by Bio-Techne.

References

  1. ↑ "CNBC Interview with Tesla Founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Trapanning". CNBC .
  2. ↑ "Marc Tarpenning – Engineer, Entrepreneur and Investor". Marc Tarpenning. Retrieved 2020-10-19.
  3. ↑ "A Founder's Night: Hap Klopp & Marc Tarpenning – UC Berkeley Sutardja Center". UC Berkeley Sutardja Center. 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  4. ↑ "Tesla Co-Founder Marc Tarpenning Tells Definitive Story Of Company's Beginnings | CleanTechnica". cleantechnica.com . 23 June 2017. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  5. 1 2 3 "The Making Of Tesla: Invention, Betrayal, And The Birth Of The Roadster". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  6. 1 2 3 "Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning | American entrepreneurs". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Co-Founder Marc Tarpenning '85 Shows Off Tesla's "Baby Pictures" | Innovators". innovators.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  8. 1 2 "Co-Founder of Tesla, Marc Tarpenning". Internet History Podcast. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  9. ↑ "Tesla's original team, where are they now?". Electrek. 2015-05-16. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  10. ↑ Kumparak, Greg. "A brief history of Tesla". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  11. ↑ "Berkeley Innovators Series: Marc Tarpenning, Co-Founder of Tesla Motors". CITRIS Foundry. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
  12. ↑ "SCET | Advisors". scet.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
  13. ↑ "SkyDeck | Advisors". skydeck.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-13.
  14. ↑ Kolodny, Lora (2019-10-03). "Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning joins Pierre Omidyar's Spero Ventures". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.