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John Witchel | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Stanford University (BA) |
| Occupation | Co-founder and CEO of King Energy |
John Witchel is an American entrepreneur, NCAA and Pac-10 swimming champion (both as a team member and individually), two-timePan American Games gold medal winner, and two-timeGoodwill Games gold medal winner.[1] He was the co-founder and CTO ofProsper Marketplace, America's first peer-to-peer lending marketplace, and the co-creatorflash mob computing. He is the co-founder and current CEO of King Energy.
John Witchel was born inNew York City. He attendedColumbia Grammar & Preparatory School, and graduated fromStuyvesant High School in 1986. He earned a B.A. in Political Science fromStanford University in 1990, and an M.S. in Computer Science fromUniversity of San Francisco in 2004.
An accomplished competitive swimmer, Witchel was a member of the U.S. National Swimming Team from 1985 through 1990, competing for the United States in theGoodwill Games (1986), thePan American Games (1987), and thePan Pacific Swimming Championships (1989).[2] He won the Pac-10 Swimming Championships 200 Freestyle three times as an individual.[3] He was a member of the Stanford University1987 NCAA Swimming Championship team and won the 500 Freestyle in 1988 at theNCAA Division I Championships.[3]
Witchel competed at the1989 Maccabiah Games in Israel, winning a silver medal in the 200 m freestyle.[4]
Witchel founded XCom Corp in September 1994 as an early web development shop in San Francisco, California. XCom was acquired byUSWeb in 1996 prior to going public in 1997.[5]
Witchel co-foundedProsper Marketplace in 2004 withChris Larsen. He was the Chief Technology Officer and lead architect of the system. Prosper was the first peer-to-peer lending marketplace which allowed individuals to lend and borrow money directly from each other using a Dutch auction-like system. Witchel left the company prior to the 2008 SEC cease and desist order against Prosper.
In 2014, Witchel co-founded Common Assets as the Chief Technology Officer; it was acquired bySolarCity.[6] Common Assets was the underlying infrastructure for SolarCity's Solar Bond program. SolarCity's Solar Bonds were the first such product to be nationally registered. After theTesla acquisition of SolarCity, Tesla discharged most of its solar bonds ahead of the maturity date, paying back all the principal with interest for the life of the bond.[7]
Witchel helped launchGitPrime, an early software engineering analytics company, acquired byPluralsight in 2019.[8] Initially as the first investor and board member, and then as president, Witchel was responsible for strategy and product design.
Witchel was a board member and early investor in Shopatron from 2010 to 2015 (acquired byVista Equity Partners) and UserTesting from 2012 to 2019. He is currently a board member of Wunder Capital, aBoulder, Colorado-based commercial solar financier, and La Plata Electric Association,[9] a member-owned, not-for-profit, electric distribution cooperative in Southwest Colorado. He was previously an advisor toCredit Karma[10] and CrowdStreet.[11]