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Four Founders of Hot Startups With Links To Southern California

Anyone who has been in the technology industry for awhile has heard that oft repeated myth, that most startup founders in Silicon Valley are from Stanford. There's also a similar argument, that if Southern California could only attract more of the students who go to school in the region's many top universities, we'd have more of our share of the next generation of technology startups. Here are four startup founders, who are among the hottest companies in the technology world, who got their start in Southern California.


Aaron Levie

CEO and co-founder of Box

Aaron Levie is CEO and co-founder of Box, which was originally created as a college business project at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, bootstrapping it from his dorm room. He eventually took a leave of absence from his MBA to pursue the startup, which is now a $200M+ cloud storage provider, on the verge of an IPO filing.


Travis Klanick

CEO and founder of Uber

Travis Kalanick is the founder and CEO of Uber, one of the most disruptive companies in the market today, which has been upending the transportation industry and taking the world by storm via its mobile apps. Kalanick went to the University of California, Los Angeles, and dropped out of UCLA to join his first startup, Scour, and eventually went on to found Uber. Photo of Kalanick via JDLasica.


Nick Woodman

CEO and Founder, GoPro

Nick Woodman founded GoPro, which was inspired by his surfing days at the University of San Diego as a student, and is now worth around $1.3 billion as the company heads towards its IPO. Photo of Woodman via Robert Scoble.


David Gilboa

Co-founder and co-CEO, Warby Parker

David Gilboa is the co-founder and co-CEO of hot eyewear startup Warby Parker, which is revolutioning the way people buy glasses. Gilboa--who grew up in San Diego--founded Warby Parker with classmates Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt, and Jeffrey Raider after heading off to Wharton. He had worked at such local companies as TriZetto and Crescendo Bioscience.


Are we missing another hot startup founder who has their roots here? Comment below!