About Brad Gerstner

Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital. Brad has worked in the technology industry for over 25 years as a lawyer, investor, and four-time founder. He has made over 100 VC investments including early investments in Zillow, Snowflake, Mongo, Bytedance and DBT Labs. He has also participated in dozens of IPOs as a sponsor, anchor and investor. He is an active philanthropist and public speaker. @altcap Brad Gerstner was born on May 4, 1971, in Goshen, a city in Elkhart County, Indiana. His father was Thomas Gerstner and his mother was Martha Burt. Brad Gerstner attended Wabash College from 1989 to 1993 and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science. He also studied abroad at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 1992. From 1993 to 1996, Gerstner attended Indiana University Maurer School of Law and obtained a Juris Doctor degree. He did day trading to help pay for his law school fees. After graduation he practiced securities law as a lawyer at Ice Miller LLP and served a term as Deputy Secretary of State of Indiana. In 1999, Gerstner returned to school and attended Harvard Business School where he graduated in 2000 with a Master of Business Administration degree. After graduating, Gerstner was a founding principal of General Catalyst, worked at several travel website startups and then worked as a Portfolio Manager for PAR Capital from 2005 to 2008. In 2008, Brad Gerstner founded Altimeter capital, which has $18 billion in assets under management as of April 2022. The firm's highlight investments in the past two years include Airbyte, Discord, Benchling, Cerebras, Chainalysis, Checkout, OpenSea, Hopin and Plaid among others. Gerstner led a Series C investment into Snowflake, which went public in 2020 and was dubbed the largest software IPO at the time. Its market cap was about $65 billion in April 2022. The founder, who day-traded to pay for law school, has participated in 100 IPOs as an anchor, sponsor and investor. Other notable bets by Gerstner include Gusto, Cockroach Labs, Okta and Bytedance.