John Arrillaga

John Arrillaga (April 3, 1937 – January 24, 2022) was an American billionaire real estate developer and philanthropist who was one of the largest landowners in Silicon Valley. He was also a college basketball player when he attended Stanford University. Early life and education Arrillaga was born on April 3, 1937, in Inglewood, California, one of five children in a lower-middle-class home with his mother, Freida, and father, Gabriel, who traced his roots to the Basque region. His mother was a former nurse who worked laundry to support the family, while his father worked at a produce market. He attended Morningside High School in Inglewood, and graduated in 1955. He attended Stanford University on a basketball scholarship, and was a first-team all-conference selection in the Athletic Association of Western Universities in 1960. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta, and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in geography. Career Arrillaga started his career selling insurance before buying his first property—a run-down commercial building, which he fixed and let for rent to buy a second building. Arrillaga established his career as a real estate developer starting in the 1960s, partnering with Richard Peery in acquiring California farmland which they converted into office space. Their partnership took off with the growth of the semiconductor industry and other high-tech businesses, such as Intel, in what became known as Silicon Valley. Arrillaga and Peery converted thousands of acres of farmland into office space in cities such as Mountain View, San Jose, and Sunnyvale to meet the industry's needs. Over a period of 50 years, their partnership, Peery Arrillaga, built over 20 million square feet of commercial real estate, becoming one of Silicon Valley's biggest commercial landlords. In 2006, he sold over five million square feet of his real estate holdings for roughly $1.1 billion to the real estate division of Deutsche Bank. In 2020 Arrillaga ranked No. 339 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. In October 2020, his net worth was $2.5 billion.