James Park (entrepreneur)

Last updated
James Park
James Park (Fitbit).jpg
Park in 2015
Born1976or1977(age 46–47) [1]
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Harvard College (dropped out)
OccupationBusinessman
Known forCo-founder and CEO, Fitbit

James Park (born 1976/1977) is a South Korean-American technology entrepreneur. He co-founded Fitbit and has been its CEO and president since September 2007. [2] He was named in 2015 among Fortune magazine's 40 Under 40, an annual ranking of the most influential young people in business. [3] With a net worth of $660 million estimated by Forbes , he was ranked #29 in the magazine's America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 in 2015. [4] James Park announced that Fitbit became part of Google on January 14, 2021. [5]

Contents

Early life

Park is of Korean descent. [6]

He attended high school at the all-boys University School in Cleveland, Ohio. [7] His parents, who emigrated from South Korea, owned a wig shop in downtown Cleveland, [8] among other shops, such as an ice cream parlor, a fish market, a dry-cleaning business, and a clothing store. Park spent a lot of time in his parents' shops and even sold products for them, and his own work ethic was influenced by their example. [9]

He studied computer science as an undergraduate at Harvard College but dropped out his junior year to pursue his own business. [8] Before creating the company that would become Fitbit, Park created a startup B2B infrastructure software firm called Epesi Technologies, which is now defunct. Park considers Epesi Technologies his "greatest failure" and described the experience as "particularly painful". [9]

Park met Eric Friedman (a computer science Yale graduate) [10] at Epsei, but after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 [11] and Epesi closed its doors, both Park and Friedman went to work as engineers for a company called Dun & Bradstreet. [12]

Career

After Epesi folded, Park's next venture was an early concept for a photo editing and sharing platform. [12] The company was called Heypix. After Heypix's first ever press release, it caught the attention of CNET, who offered the company $4 million. [12] [13]

Park co-founded Fitbit with Eric Friedman on March 26, 2007, after "realizing the potential of sensors on the Wii remote such as accelerometers paired with smaller and smaller devices". [14] The co-founders started with an initial investment of $400,000 contributed by them and others but realized one year after starting that more funds would be needed for a product launch. They were able to get additional funding from SoftTech VC and True Ventures. Park found the initial stages of developing the product to be tough, especially in finding a hardware manufacturer. He recalled the search for the right supplier and organizing the production line in Asia left the company "pretty close to being dead". [15] In a 2019 interview, Park said, "Going public is good for investors and employees. Ours was the largest consumer electronics IPO in US history." [16]

Google purchased Fitbit in 2019 for $2.1 billion. [12]

Personal life

Forbes estimated that Park and Friedman each made $150 million before taxes when Fitbit was acquired by Google in 2019. [17] Park describes himself as an introvert who is capable of being an extrovert. In his spare time he enjoys art. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Friedman</span> American Investor

Nathaniel Dourif Friedman is an American technology executive and investor. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of GitHub, and former Chairman of the GNOME Foundation. Friedman is currently a board member at the Arc Institute, and an advisor of Midjourney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Pincus</span> American Internet entrepreneur

Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masayoshi Son</span> Japanese entrepreneur (born 1957)

Masayoshi Son is a Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. A third-generation Zainichi Korean, he naturalized as a Japanese citizen in 1990. He is the founder, representative director, corporate officer, chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG), a strategic technology-focused investment holding company, as well as chairman of UK-based Arm Holdings.

Fitbit, Inc. is an American consumer electronics and fitness company. It produces wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate, quality of sleep and stairs climbed as well as related software. The company was acquired by Google in January 2021.

Joshua Kushner is an American businessman, heir, and investor. He is the founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, co-founder of Oscar Health, and the son of real estate developer Charles Kushner. He is the brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and former senior advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump. He is a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies.

Brad Keywell is an American entrepreneur. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus Labs, co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, Mediaocean, DRIVIN, and Lightbank. He is the founder of WNDR Museum and Chicago Ideas. As of December 2021, his net worth was estimated at US$2.7 billion. Keywell is the recipient of the 2019 EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year award, after receiving the overall USA EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brit Morin</span> CEO, entrepreneur (b. 1985)

Brittany "Brit" Morin is an American venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and technologist. She is the co-founder of and managing partner at Offline Ventures, an early stage venture fund and studio, founder and CEO of Brit + Co, a media and digital education company based in San Francisco, the founder of Selfmade, an education and community platform for female entrepreneurs, and the founder of BFF, an open-access community for women and nonbinary people in Web3.

Binny Bansal is an Indian billionaire Internet entrepreneur. As of February 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$1.4 billion.

Sapphire Ventures is a venture capital firm with offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Austin, and London. The firm is considered one of the world's premier venture capital firms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vijay Shekhar Sharma</span> Founder and CEO of Paytm

Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an Indian technology entrepreneur and multimillionaire business magnate. He is the founder chairman, managing director of One97 Communications founded in 1997 and its consumer brand Paytm which he started in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan Williams (entrepreneur)</span> Technology entrepreneur

Ryan Williams is a technology entrepreneur best known as the CEO and founder of Cadre, a New York-based technology company. He was named to Fortune's "40 under 40" list for 2019, Forbes' "30 under 30" list for 2018, "Crain’s 40 under 40" list for 2017, is one of Commercial Observer’s "30 under 30" and has been profiled in Forbes, Ivy, technology and real estate trade publications. In February 2019 he was profiled and on the cover of Forbes Magazine in the "FinTech 50" issue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Neumann</span> Israeli-American businessman (born 1979)

Adam Neumann is an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and investor. In 2010, he co-founded WeWork with Miguel McKelvey, where he was CEO from 2010 to 2019. In 2019, he co-founded a family office dubbed 166 2nd Financial Services with his wife, Rebekah Neumann, to manage their personal wealth, investing over a billion dollars in real estate and venture startups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Hartz</span>

Julia Hartz is an American entrepreneur, investor, and the co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, a global ticketing and event technology platform. She is known for her leadership of Eventbrite during the COVID-19 pandemic and empowering women in the technology industry. Hartz was selected as one of Fortune magazine's most powerful women entrepreneurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan Cohen</span> Canadian entrepreneur and investor

Ryan Cohen is a Canadian entrepreneur and activist investor. He founded e-commerce company Chewy in 2011, and was the company's chief executive office (CEO) until 2018. Cohen is the chairman and CEO of GameStop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baiju Bhatt</span> American entrepreneur

Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt is an American entrepreneur of Indian descent. He is the chief creative officer and co-founder, along with Vladimir Tenev, of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ritesh Agarwal</span> Indian billionaire

Ritesh Agarwal is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms. He has also appeared in Shark Tank India since 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bom Kim</span> Korean-American businessman

Kim Beomseok, known professionally in the West as Bom Kim, is a Korean-American businessman and entrepreneur who is the founder and chief executive officer of Coupang, the largest e-commerce company in South Korea. In 2018, when SoftBank Vision Fund invested US$2 billion in Coupang, valuating the company at US$9 billion, Kim became the newest and second-youngest billionaire in South Korea at the age of 40. As of March 2023, Kim has a net worth of US$2.7 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melanie Perkins</span> Australian entrepreneur

Melanie Perkins is an Australian billionaire technology entrepreneur, who is the CEO and co-founder of Canva and owns 18% of the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eren Bali</span> Kurdish engineer and technology entrepreneur

Eren Bali is a Turkish engineer and technology entrepreneur based in the United States. He was the founding CEO of Udemy, a platform and marketplace for massive open online courses (MOOCs), and he is now the founder and CEO of Carbon Health, a primary healthcare franchise based in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillaume Pousaz</span> Swiss entrepreneur

Guillaume Pousaz is a Dubai-based Swiss-born billionaire entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is the CEO and founder of payment platform Checkout.com. As of April 2023, he has an estimated net worth of US$7.2 billion according to Forbes magazine.

References

  1. ↑ "Fitbit co-founder sprints to success after start-up setbacks". Irish Times. 2 September 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  2. ↑ "James Park: Executive Profile & Biography". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  3. ↑ "40 Under 40". Fortune.
  4. ↑ "#29 James Park". Forbes. November 18, 2015.
  5. ↑ Park, James (January 14, 2021). "Fitbit Joins Google". blog.fitbit.com. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  6. ↑ Moon, Gwang-Lip (January 23, 2014). "Fitbit's launch in Korea a big step for company". Korea JoongAng Daily.
  7. ↑ "Welcome Alumni". www.us.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  8. 1 2 Guy Raz (April 27, 2020). "Fitbit: James Park". How I Built This with Guy Raz (Podcast). NPR. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  9. 1 2 Stieg, Cory (August 3, 2021). "Fitbit CEO and co-founder James Park on his own fitness routine and selling to Google for $2.1 billion". cnbc.com. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  10. ↑ Weir, William (2016-10-25). "Fitbit founder and upcoming tech summit speaker Eric Friedman is an 'eternally optimistic' entrepreneur". YaleNews. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  11. ↑ "The Late 1990s Dot-Com Bubble Implodes in 2000". Goldman Sachs. Retrieved October 11, 2023.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "How A Game He Liked Inspired Him To Start A $2.1 Million Company. The Success Story Of Fitbit Co-Founder James Park". Sybershel. 2023-01-23. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  13. ↑ "CNET buys photo-sharing Web site HeyPix". CIOL. 2005-04-05. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  14. ↑ "Fitbit, Inc. - IR Overview - Investor FAQ". investor.fitbit.com. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
  15. ↑ Hof, Robert (February 4, 2014). "How Fitbit Survived As A Hardware Startup". Forbes.
  16. ↑ "Interviews with the world's best entrepreneurs". British GQ. 2019-02-13. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  17. ↑ Tognini, Giacomo. "Here's How Much Money The Fitbit Founders Will Get From Google's Acquisition". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-07-21.
  18. ↑ Stieg, Cory (2021-08-03). "Fitbit CEO and co-founder James Park on his own fitness routine and selling to Google for $2.1 billion". CNBC. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
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.