Marc Tarpenning

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]

Marc Tarpenning
Born	(1964-06-01) June 1, 1964 (age 61) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Education	University of California, Berkeley (BA)
Occupation	Co-founder of Tesla
Website	https://marctarpenning.com/

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]