Brad Garlinghouse Net Worth: How Rich Is the Ripple CEO in 2025?

Bradley Kent Garlinghouse, better known as Brad, is the CEO of Ripple Labs, a financial technology firm specializing in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Before he landed a leadership role at Ripple Labs, he served as chairman and CEO of Hightail and held executive roles at Yahoo! and AOL. As of 2025, Brad Garlinghouse’s net worth is estimated at $10 billion.

In this post, we will explore how Garlinghouse built his fortune, breaking down his earnings from Ripple and other ventures.

Breaking Down Brad Garlinghouse’s Net Worth in 2025

Due to the recent surge in the price of XRP, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s wealth has grown dramatically. According to Fox reporter Charles Gasparino’s X post from March 2025, Garlinghouse’s net worth reached around $10 billion. In his post, which you can see below, he raised questions about Ripple’s practices and its lack of financial disclosures.

https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1902710612649542052

The exact amount of XRP Garlinghouse personally holds remains undisclosed, so the figures below are estimates. His holdings are most likely substantial given his role as CEO of Ripple, especially because Ripple’s leadership has historically been compensated with XRP tokens in addition to salary.

Before joining Ripple, Garlinghouse likely earned significantly from his many leadership roles in major tech companies like Yahoo!. However, specific salary details from his positions at these companies, including AOL and Yahoo!, have not been publicly disclosed. It is clear that his career before Ripple involved substantial compensation, primarily through stock options and other incentives.

Let’s see a breakdown of Garlinghouse’s net worth these days:

Brad Garlinghouse Net Worth: Early Life and Education

Bradley Kent Garlinghouse was born on February 6, 1971, in Topeka, Kansas. His early interest in technology was sparked when his father brought home a TRS-80 computer.

During his studies at Topeka High School, Garlinghouse was active in student leadership. He served as editor of the school newspaper, The World, and as president of the Student Council. He graduated from high school in 1989.

After high school, Garlinghouse studied at the University of Kansas, where he obtained his Bachelor’s degree in economics. He later enrolled at Harvard Business School to study for his MBA.

Garlinghouse maintains a highly private personal life, and there is currently no publicly available information regarding his marital status or children.

Brad Garlinghouse’s Leadership Roles Over the Years

Brad Garlinghouse’s leadership roles started long before he joined Ripple. Before taking the helm as Ripple’s CEO, he worked in major tech companies. His career spans a range of roles in product management, venture capital, and corporate strategy. Let’s see what he did before Ripple.

Early Career

Garlinghouse’s early career began at @Home Network. At the company, he worked in business development and product management. Home Network was an early broadband internet service provider in the late 1990s, which aimed to deliver high-speed internet via cable TV infrastructure.

After Home Network, Brad Garlinghouse spent a short time working as General Partner at @Ventures, a venture capital firm that focused on early-stage technology investments.

Leadership Roles at Major Companies

In 2000, Garlinghouse’s leadership was taken to a new level when he became CEO of Dialpad. Dialpad was a Voice over IP (VoIP) company that provided internet-based phone services. In 2005, Yahoo acquired key assets of Dialpad, and its technology became part of Yahoo! Voice. However, Garlinghouse left the company much earlier, in 2001.

Between 2003 and 2008, Brad Garlinghouse worked at Yahoo! as their Senior Vice President, running the company’s Homepage, Yahoo! Messenger, Flickr, and Yahoo! Mail divisions. One of Garlinghouse’s most notable contributions at Yahoo was writing the famous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” an internal memo that criticized the company’s lack of focus and strategic direction.

In his memo, Garlinghouse argued that Yahoo was spreading its resources too thin – like peanut butter on bread – instead of concentrating on its biggest strengths. His actions urged leadership to cut underperforming projects and prioritize innovation in key areas, sparking further internal debates about the company’s future direction.

After Yahoo!, Garlinghouse became Senior Advisor at Silver Lake Partners. He didn’t remain there for long, though, since he went on to become President of Consumer Applications at AOL in 2009. He remained with AOL until 2011.

In April 2012, Garlinghouse joined Animoto’s board of directors. Animoto is a cloud-based video creation platform that enables users to create professional-quality videos from photos, video clips, and music. He then joined Hightail, where he served as the CEO until September 2014. He left the company after a disagreement with the board of directors.

Garlinghouse Becomes Ripple CEO

In April 2015, Garlinghouse joined Ripple as its COO. At the time, he reported to the Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, who was the CEO of the company at the time. In this role, Garlinghouse was responsible for overseeing the company’s operations and scaling its global remittance platform. His background in leadership made him a natural fit for the role, which is what led him to a major promotion only a year later.

In December 2016, he was promoted to CEO, succeeding Chris Larsen, who in turn transitioned to the role of Executive Chairman. Under Garlinghouse’s leadership, the Ripple platform began to gain significant traction, with the company partnering with major financial institutions and banks worldwide.

Before long, Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency was positioned not only as a digital asset but also as a liquidity solution for banks and remittance companies.

In December 2019, Garlinghouse announced a major milestone in Ripple’s growth. He secured a $200 million Series C funding round from Tetragon, SBI Ventures, and Route 66 Ventures.

By 2020, Garlinghouse shared that Ripple was growing rapidly, but it was heavily dependent on the revenue generated from XRP sales to stay financially viable. Under his leadership, Ripple expanded its partnerships to include over 300 financial institutions, including Santander, American Express, and PNC.

In the below interview with Chris Vasques in 2024, Garlinghouse covered his journey of scaling the business:

https://twitter.com/imchrisvasquez/status/1788921058533269973

Garlinghouse’s Stake in Ripple

As the CEO of Ripple Labs, Garlinghouse holds a 6.3% stake in the company. Ripple controls impressive 61.3 billion XRP tokens worth nearly $100 billion, but its venture capitalists value the company at only $410 million, according to Forbes. This would put Garlinghouse’s stake at $6.3 million – likely a small fraction of his net worth.

Garlinghouse is so wealthy because of his personal stash of XRP tokens, which, thanks to the recent bull market, have skyrocketed his net worth to around $10 billion. With a market capitalization of $130 billion, XRP is worth significantly more than the company that created it.

Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse aren’t the only Ripple executives to earn massive fortunes through their XRP holdings. Jed McCaleb, another Ripple cofounder, retains 5.3 billion XRP as of February 2016. This would be worth well over $10 billion, but McCaleb signed an agreement with Ripple to limit his sales to a certain percentage of the token’s daily trading volume.

The exact number of XRP tokens held by Garlinghouse has not been publicly disclosed. However, in 2020, he noted that a substantial portion of XRP’s 55 billion token supply was held by the company, its CEO, and its founders.

Ripple’s Controversies Under Garlinghouse’s Leadership

Ripple has faced multiple massive legal challenges during Garlinghouse’s tenure. In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, claiming that XRP was an unregistered security. The lawsuit raised questions about the future of both Ripple Labs and XRP.

As its CEO, Garlinghouse defended Ripple’s position, arguing that XRP was a digital asset and not a security. Despite the ongoing legal challenges, he maintained confidence in the company’s mission to modernize cross-border payments and continued to advocate for regulatory clarity in the crypto industry.

After several court proceedings, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres issued a rather nuanced summary judgment in the case. She ruled that Ripple Labs’ sales of XRP to institutional investors (totaling ~$728 million) indeed constituted unregistered securities offerings but that its sales to retail investors did not. In late 2023, the SEC dropped all charges against Garlinghouse and Larsen.

“For nearly three years, Chris and I have been the subject of baseless allegations from a rogue regulator with a political agenda,” – Garlinghouse shared in a press release after the SEC commissioner dismissed the charges. “Instead of looking for the criminals stealing customer funds on offshore exchanges that were courting political favor, the SEC went after the good guy.”

Despite the legal victory, the SEC hasn’t backed down entirely. In October 2023, the regulator announced its intention to appeal the district court’s ruling on XRP. In response, Garlinghouse reaffirmed his commitment to fighting the SEC in court, stating the following:

https://twitter.com/bgarlinghouse/status/1841597085264839113

The legal dispute between Ripple and SEC reached a resolution over the sale of unregistered securities to institutions in March 2025, when Ripple agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying a reduced fine of $50 million, down from the originally imposed $125 million.

The settlement concludes one of the SEC’s most prominent cryptocurrency cases, reflecting a shift toward a more lenient regulatory approach. Ripple didn’t admit to any wrongdoing as part of this agreement. Furthermore, the SEC has dropped its appeal concerning the court’s ruling that XRP tokens sold on public exchanges do not qualify as securities.

https://twitter.com/bgarlinghouse/status/1902345706636992720

In the following video, Garlinghouse reflects on the conclusion of the SEC case against Ripple, sharing insights on the company’s trajectory and the outlook for the broader crypto industry:

Garlinghouse’s Crypto Stance and Holdings

Brad Garlinghouse has strategically invested in different cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology initiatives. He reportedly holds several cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Bitcoin, and Ethereum.

In response to regulatory challenges, Garlinghouse co-founded Fairshake, a political action committee advocating for favorable regulations in the cryptocurrency world. Ripple contributed $25 million to Fairshake in December 2023, and it has become one of the largest and most influential PACs in the country. It managed to raise a whopping $260 million in the 2023-2024 election cycle, sometimes spending millions of dollars to unseat a single crypto skeptic from the government.

Lessons to Learn from Garlinghouse’s Success as a Leader

Garlinghouse’s ability to embrace emerging technologies is one of his defining traits. From his time at Yahoo! and AOL to his current role at Ripple, he has adapted continuously to changes in business, as well as technology. For aspiring leaders, this ability to drive change is crucial to success.

One of Garlinghouse’s most impressive qualities is his clear strategic vision for Ripple and its role in the global financial system. Garlinghouse’s vision for Ripple extends far beyond just cryptocurrency. It seeks to reshape the global financial system as it is, positioning Ripple as a bridge between traditional financial institutions and the blockchain-based economy.

On top of that, Garlinghouse’s leadership at Ripple has focused on transforming various finance industries, from banking and payments to remittances and beyond.

Garlinghouse’s leadership was tested time and time again throughout Ripple’s seemingly endless legal battles. Despite these challenges, he maintained confidence in the company’s mission and successfully defended it (for the most part). This ability to stay strong under pressure is another key takeaway for those facing obstacles in their professional careers.

FAQ