Chris Larsen

Early Life and Education

Chris Larsen was born in San Francisco, California, in 1960. He earned a B.S. in International Business and Accounting from San Francisco State University in 1984 and later received an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1991. Before his entrepreneurial ventures, he worked in finance with Chevron Corporation.

Rise to Success

Larsen's career includes co-founding several successful Silicon Valley startups. In 1996, he co-founded E-Loan, an online mortgage lender, which was the first company to offer consumers free access to their FICO credit scores. In 2005, he co-founded Prosper Marketplace, a peer-to-peer lending platform. In 2012, Larsen co-founded Ripple Labs, Inc., now known as Ripple, which developed software to facilitate instant money transfers using the digital asset XRP.

Key Business Strategies

Larsen's key business strategy has been to identify inefficiencies in the financial system and leverage technology to create solutions. His focus on financial privacy and consumer advocacy has been a recurring theme throughout his career. At Ripple, he focused on building relationships with financial institutions to facilitate international payments.

Philanthropy

Larsen and Ripple each donated $1 million to five San Francisco food banks for COVID-19 relief efforts in 2020. In 2019, Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam, donated $25 million in cryptocurrency to San Francisco State University, which renamed its business school the Lam Family College of Business.