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Who is Jared Isaacman? A New Jersey high school dropout turned tech billionaire will conduct the first private spacewalk in history
1:32 CAT | 12 Sep 2024
FILE - Jared Isaacman is set to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk as part his latest voyage into space. [File photo: Polaris Program/John Kraus /SWNS]
Jared Isaacman was just a high school dropout living in his parents’ basement in New Jersey before he became a tech billionaire and now a space tourist set to take the first private spacewalk in history.
Isaacman, 41, who blasted off Tuesday on his latest record-breaking venture into space, always seemed to have his head in the clouds while attending Ridge High School, often dreaming of bigger things instead of focusing on his classes.
“I was a horrible student,” Isaacman admitted in the Netflix documentary series “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space.” “And I wasn’t happy in school either.”
Instead of feeling miserable, Isaacman chose to take a risk and dropped out of high school at age 16 in 1999 to found Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company, while living in his parents’ basement in Far Hills.
The computer genius said he got the idea for the company when he was 15 and working for a local payment processing firm, where he learned how complicated it was back then for businesses to obtain and set up credit card readers. According to Forbes.
Isaacman’s company, originally called United Bank Card, sought to make the process simpler and more affordable for businesses looking to enter the 21st century.
Though Isaacman lamented in the Netflix documentary that he worked from 7:30 a.m. to 3 a.m. behind a keyboard, his payment processing company eventually flourished and became a favorite among restaurants and hotels across the country.
Today, Shift4 manages more than $260 billion in payments each year for its more than 200,000 customers in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe.
Isaacman became a billionaire after taking Shift4 public in 2020, and his 38% stake in the company boosted his net worth to $2.3 billion, according to Forbes.
But Isaacman’s money didn’t come solely from the success of his payment processing company. In 2011, he founded Draken International, a defense company that trains U.S. Air Force pilots.
Over time, the company grew to have the largest private fleet of military aircraft in the world.
The adventure grew out of Isaacman’s love of flying; the busy tech CEO found a break in the early 2000s to attend flight school.
Although initially limited to flying propeller planes, Isaacman eventually moved on to jet aircraft and in 2009 completed the fastest trip around the world in a light aircraft, taking off and returning to Morristown, New Jersey, in 61 hours and 51 minutes.
His record was more than a third, or about 21 hours, faster than the previous one, set in 1991. According to Aviation International News.
The flight, and the failed one before it, raised more than $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, something that would become a pattern for the billionaire, who pledged to give away half of his wealth as part of Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge.
While preparing for Shift4’s IPO, Isaacman would eventually sell a majority stake in Draken to Blackstone in 2019 for a nine-figure sum.
In the midst of his high-flying adventures, Isaacman married his wife, Monica, who grew up in the same town. The couple still lives in New Jersey with their two daughters.
After achieving billionaire status, Isaacman sought to take his air travel even further by funding and leading the first civilian mission to space aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
The three-day trip to space was Florida Today estimates the cost was up to $200 millionwith Isaacman setting a record by being the first space tourist to orbit the Earth without a professional astronaut on board.
Isaacman has since purchased a total of three trips back into space from Elon Musk, with the first set to take off Tuesday morning.
During the five-day voyage, Isaacman and three crew members will fly past the International Space Station, which orbits at an altitude of 870 miles, surpassing the record for closest approach to Earth set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966.
Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the Moon have ventured farther into space.
Isaacman will then become the first person to conduct a private spacewalk, as he is scheduled to emerge from the Dragon capsule for a two-hour mission, which will also test SpaceX’s latest suits.
The billionaire daredevil said he was excited about the trip ahead of the launch as he hopes to help pioneer a new era of human space exploration.
“I wasn’t alive when humans walked on the moon. I would certainly like my children to see humans walking on the moon and Mars and venturing out to explore our solar system,” Isaccman said.
By Taylor Romine
Watch Dragon’s first spacewalk with the @PolarisProgram’s Polaris Dawn crew https://t.co/svdJRkGN7K
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
Polaris Dawn’s Mission Commander @rookisaacman has completed his suit mobility tests and is now back inside Dragon pic.twitter.com/oyEvjEKfRo
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
Good L-8 hour weather brief: The Polaris Dawn crew is ready to step into suit-up and launch operations for liftoff early tomorrow morning https://t.co/8LYMWe4Gm8 pic.twitter.com/lW2gFenPbH
— Polaris (@PolarisProgram) September 10, 2024
Many know about the incredible @inspiration4x launch, the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit. What’s not as well known is that that mission raised over $250 million dollars for @StJude @elonmusk @rookisaacman @PolarisProgram @theXtakeover pic.twitter.com/zoqXTv8SjY
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) September 6, 2024
Source: CNN
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