Chris Sacca

Christopher Sacca (born May 12, 1975) is an American venture investor, company advisor, entrepreneur, and lawyer. investments that resulted in his placement as No. 2 on Forbes' Midas List: Top Tech Investors for 2017. Sacca is of Irish and Italian descent, with family originating from Calabria, Italy. Sacca's parents exposed him to a variety of interests, and he recalls being pulled out of school to attend science museums and book-readings. He graduated in 1997 cum laude with a B.S. in foreign service and was an Edmund Evans Memorial Scholar as well as a Weeks Family Foundation Scholar. He was a member of The Tax Lawyer law review and was honored as the school's Philip A. Ryan and Ralph J. Gilbert Memorial Scholar. obtaining class notes by throwing an annual keg party where entry required classmates to dump their notes in a bin. He graduated from Georgetown University with a Juris Doctor cum laude in law and technology in 2000.

Career

Stocks and Fenwick & West Sacca used his student loans to start a company during law school, and when the venture proved unsuccessful he used the remaining funds to start trading on the stock market. By leveraging trades for significant amounts (discovering a flaw in the software of online trading brokers in 1998) he managed to turn $10–20 thousand into $12 million by 2000. Eventually, when the market crashed, Sacca found himself in debt with a four million dollar negative balance. in May 2002.

Google positions In November 2003 Sacca was hired at Google as Corporate Counsel, where he reported to General Counsel David Drummond. As part of the legal and business development team, His second investment was in Twitter. to surreptitiously buy as many Twitter shares as possible. Without the corporate backup funding available to many venture capitalists, Sacca became very involved in his portfolio companies on a personal level. He attended meetings at Twitter and Uber, and he negotiated the rights for Uber.com from Universal Music Group when the company changed its name from Uber Taxi. raising the value of Sacca's investment in the company to around $1 billion.

Sacca brought in Matt Mazzeo to Lowercase Capital as a partner in 2013, with Mazzeo heading a new early-stage fund, Lowercase Stampede, out of Los Angeles. Mazzeo had worked at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), an entertainment and sports agency. Sacca had a 4% stake in Uber by March 2015, and Lowercase was "sitting on" investments in Stripe, Lookout and WordPress parent Automattic. Forbes estimated that Sacca was personally worth $1.2 billion. By that time the value of his first Twitter fund, Lowercase Industry, had reached 1,500% of its original value, That April, Sacca announced that he was retiring from venture investing and along with it his role on Shark Tank, but would not take on any new investments or raise more money from investors. The firm had invested in ~50 companies as of August 2021, many of which were startups focused on removing carbon dioxide from the air.

Shark Tank and media Sacca regularly speaks about venture capital and investing in media. He has been characterized as an expert by Business Week, Fortune magazine, CNBC, the BBC, CNN, Fox and NPR. Sacca's interview in the first season of Gimlet Media's StartUp podcast inspired the pilot episode of the ABC television version of Start Up starring Zach Braff with Sacca playing himself. He played himself in the "Overton Window" episode of Billions.

He has also appeared on other television shows. Subsequently, appearing in three other season 7 episodes, Sacca invested in HatchBaby, Bee Free Honee, Rent Like a Champion, and Brightwheel. Sacca continued to appear as a guest shark in five episodes of season 8. and on February 17, 2017 in episode 168, Sacca along with guest Lori Greiner invested $600,000 for 5% of ToyMail, a plush toy which connects to a messaging app. Sacca has a role in the ABC sitcom Alex, Inc., where he plays himself and reenacts his interactions with Alex Blumberg.

Recognition Since 2011 he has been listed on Forbes' Midas List: Top Tech Investors. BusinessWeek named him one of the top 10 angel investors, and Vanity Fair has named Sacca to its "New Establishment" list. and has authored books such as The Essential Scratch and Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert: Take a Whiff of That and The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-It-All: Know Your Booze Before you Choose. The couple live in Jackson, Wyoming and Big Sky, Montana, Sacca completed an Ironman in 2008, and in 2009 rode his bicycle from Santa Barbara, California to Charleston, South Carolina over 40 days for charity. In 2017 the New York Times reported that a woman had accused Sacca of touching her face at a Las Vegas gathering in 2009 without consent, making her uncomfortable. Sacca denied the allegation, but did apologize for contributing to a business atmosphere that was "inhospitable" for women in technology and venture capital.

Philanthropy Sacca is involved with charity: water, a nonprofit seeking to bring clean drinking water to every person on the planet. He is also involved with The Tony Hawk Foundation. Sacca has served as an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University and as an MIT Enterprise Forum Global Trustee. He is also a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

Political involvement Sacca worked for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign as a Telecommunications, Media, and Technology advisor and campaign surrogate, as well as a field office volunteer. Following Obama's victory, Sacca served as co-chair of finance for the Presidential Inaugural Committee. During Obama's successful 2012 reelection campaign, Sacca served as a member of the campaign's National Finance Committee member and as co-chair of the "Tech for Obama" group. appearing in various fundraisers around the country. He spoke against Trump, Sacca donated to the Lincoln Project, a Republican-led super PAC opposing the re-election of Donald Trump and Republican Senators who supported him.