The Richest in Real Estate Top 100
The Basics
Location: San Francisco | Net Worth: $2.10 B
Location: San Francisco | Net Worth: $2.10 B
One of five siblings, money was scarce for John Arrillaga growing up in Inglewood, CA. Thanks to a basketball scholarship and a lot of hard work juggling odd jobs, he was able to attend Stanford.
He played pro basketball in Spain for a year before starting at a commercial real estate firm. Beginning with just $2,000 cash, John and partner Richard Peery bought up farmland throughout Silicon Valley in the ‘60s and turned it into office parks housing Intel, HP, Apple and Google. The team has erected over 12M SF of office space, and sold or leased billions in property.
In 2006, Peery-Arrillaga sold close to one-half of its commercial real estate portfolio for $1.1B. John’s known for his philanthropy and his millions of dollars donated to Stanford, where his name adorns several buildings.
