Jeremy Stoppelman

Jeremy Stoppelman
Born	10 11, 1977
Birthplace	Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Chief Executive Officer of Yelp
Known for	Co-founding Yelp

Jeremy Stoppelman (born November 10, 1977) is an American business executive and entrepreneur who co-founded the consumer review platform Yelp in 2004 and has served as its chief executive officer since the company's inception. Born in Arlington, Virginia, Stoppelman studied computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before entering the technology industry during the late 1990s dot-com era. He worked at X.com, which later became PayPal, where he rose to the role of vice president of engineering — an experience that placed him among a cohort of former PayPal employees who went on to found or lead major technology companies, a group informally known as the "PayPal Mafia." After departing PayPal, Stoppelman enrolled at Harvard Business School, where the concept for Yelp emerged during a summer internship. Under his leadership, Yelp grew from a small San Francisco startup into a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with Stoppelman notably declining an acquisition offer from Google along the way. Stoppelman has remained at the helm of the company for over two decades, guiding it through its initial public offering in 2012 and its subsequent evolution as a major player in local business search and digital advertising.

Early Life

Jeremy Stoppelman was born on November 10, 1977, in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Stoppelman showed an early aptitude for technology and academics. He was a participant in programs at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, an organization that identifies and supports academically gifted young people.

Growing up in the Virginia suburbs near the nation's capital, Stoppelman developed an interest in computers and engineering during his formative years. This interest would eventually steer him toward a career in the technology industry during one of its most transformative periods. His early academic achievements and participation in gifted programs foreshadowed the entrepreneurial trajectory that would define his professional life.

Education

Stoppelman attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, one of the leading engineering universities in the United States, where he pursued a degree in computer engineering. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1999. The timing of his graduation coincided with the height of the dot-com bubble, a period of rapid growth and investment in internet-based companies that drew many young engineers to Silicon Valley and the broader technology sector.

After several years working in the technology industry, Stoppelman enrolled at Harvard Business School to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree. It was during his time at Harvard that the initial concept for what would become Yelp began to take shape, born out of a summer internship experience that redirected his career from the traditional MBA path toward entrepreneurship.

Career

Early Career and PayPal

Upon graduating from the University of Illinois in 1999, Stoppelman entered the technology industry by joining @Home Network, an early broadband internet service provider that was part of the first wave of major internet infrastructure companies. His tenure at @Home was brief, as he soon transitioned to a role at X.com, an online financial services company founded by Elon Musk.

X.com merged with Confinity in 2000, and the combined entity was subsequently renamed PayPal. At PayPal, Stoppelman advanced rapidly through the engineering ranks, ultimately achieving the title of vice president of engineering. This was a significant leadership position at a company that was reshaping online payments and e-commerce during a turbulent period for internet businesses.

PayPal went public in February 2002 and was subsequently acquired by eBay later that year for approximately $1.5 billion. The acquisition created substantial wealth for many PayPal employees and executives, and the alumni of the company went on to found, fund, or lead a remarkable array of technology enterprises. This group, which included figures such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, and David Sacks, became known colloquially as the "PayPal Mafia" due to their outsized influence on Silicon Valley. Stoppelman's position as a member of this influential network would prove instrumental in providing him with the connections, experience, and capital needed to launch his own venture.

Founding of Yelp

After leaving PayPal, Stoppelman enrolled at Harvard Business School. During a summer break from his MBA program, he took an internship at MRL Ventures, an incubator fund led by former PayPal colleague Max Levchin. It was during this internship that Stoppelman and others began developing concepts around local business recommendations and reviews. The core idea was to create a platform that would harness the power of user-generated reviews to help consumers find and evaluate local businesses — from restaurants and bars to dentists and plumbers.

The concept resonated strongly with Stoppelman, who decided to leave Harvard Business School to pursue the venture full-time. In 2004, Stoppelman co-founded Yelp Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California. The platform initially experimented with various approaches to gathering local business information, including an email-based referral system. However, the feature that gained the most traction was the ability for users to write and publish reviews of local businesses, which became the defining characteristic of the platform.

Under Stoppelman's leadership, Yelp distinguished itself from competitors through its emphasis on community engagement and the cultivation of an active base of reviewers. The company developed a distinctive culture around its most prolific contributors, organizing events and fostering a sense of community among users who contributed reviews. This approach helped Yelp build a substantial and engaged user base in major metropolitan areas across the United States before expanding internationally.

Declining Google's Acquisition Offer

One of the defining moments in Stoppelman's tenure as Yelp CEO came when Google approached the company with an acquisition offer. The deal, reportedly valued at approximately $500 million, would have represented a significant payday for Stoppelman and other Yelp stakeholders. However, Stoppelman made the decision to turn down the offer, choosing instead to maintain Yelp's independence and pursue the company's growth as a standalone entity.

The decision was notable in the technology industry, where many startups at that stage would have accepted such an offer. According to reports, Steve Jobs, the co-founder and then-CEO of Apple Inc., personally called Stoppelman and encouraged him not to sell the company to Google. Stoppelman has spoken about valuing Yelp's independence and his belief that the company had significant growth potential that would be better realized as an independent entity rather than as a division within Google's expanding portfolio of products and services.

This decision carried substantial risk. Remaining independent meant Yelp would need to find its own path to profitability and would face ongoing competition from Google itself, which was developing its own local business review and search capabilities. Stoppelman's choice to reject the Google offer became a frequently cited example in discussions about startup acquisition decisions and the tension between immediate financial returns and long-term strategic independence.

Yelp's IPO and Public Company Leadership

On March 2, 2012, Yelp went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol YELP. The initial public offering was a significant milestone for the company and for Stoppelman personally, validating his decision to reject Google's earlier acquisition bid and pursue an independent path. The IPO created considerable wealth for the company's early employees and investors.

In the period surrounding the IPO, Stoppelman was noted for taking a base salary of $1, a practice adopted by some high-profile technology CEOs as a symbolic gesture of alignment with shareholder interests, with the bulk of compensation coming through stock-based awards. His compensation structure was subsequently adjusted; in 2013, reports indicated changes to his salary and overall compensation package as the company matured as a public entity.

As a public company CEO, Stoppelman oversaw Yelp's expansion into new markets and service categories. The company extended its operations internationally, launching in countries including Australia in 2011 as part of its broader global expansion strategy. Under Stoppelman's leadership, Yelp also developed additional features and revenue streams, including advertising products for local businesses, reservation services, and food delivery integrations.

Stoppelman was recognized by Fast Company for his role in building Yelp into more than a typical Web 2.0 company, noting the platform's influence on local commerce and consumer behavior.

Ongoing Leadership and Stock Transactions

Stoppelman has continued to serve as CEO of Yelp into the mid-2020s, making him one of the longer-tenured founder-CEOs among publicly traded technology companies. As a public company executive, his stock transactions are disclosed in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In early 2026, a series of stock transactions by Stoppelman attracted attention from financial media outlets. In January 2026, Stoppelman sold 30,000 shares of Yelp stock. Between January 29 and February 2, 2026, Stoppelman sold a total of 90,000 shares of common stock for approximately $2.46 million. Additional sales in early February included the sale of 30,000 shares on February 4, 2026, and 6,200 shares in a separate transaction around the same period.

SEC filings from this period also disclosed that Stoppelman held 152,573 restricted stock units and 55,796 performance-based stock units, with option exercises at a price of $20.47 per share. The sales were conducted under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, a mechanism that allows corporate insiders to set up predetermined trading schedules to avoid potential accusations of insider trading. Financial analysts noted these transactions in the context of Yelp's share performance, with The Motley Fool analyzing the sales, which totaled approximately $1.7 million in one batch, amid a year of shifting executive ownership patterns. In Nigeria-focused financial reporting, Investing.com also covered a separate batch of Stoppelman's share sales totaling approximately $2.5 million.

Personal Life

Stoppelman is based in San Francisco, California, where Yelp is headquartered. He has been noted in San Francisco social and cultural circles, appearing at various events in the city.

Stoppelman has maintained a relatively public profile as a technology CEO in San Francisco. He has been profiled in several publications, including a feature in Vanity Fair that examined his role as Yelp's leader and his influence on the local business ecosystem.

Recognition

Stoppelman has received recognition from several media outlets and industry publications for his role in building Yelp. Vanity Fair included Stoppelman on its New Establishment list in 2011, a ranking of influential figures in business, technology, and media.

He was also featured by the New York Stock Exchange in connection with Yelp's listing on the exchange in 2012. Fast Company profiled Yelp under Stoppelman's leadership, highlighting the company's cultural impact and business model as distinct from other Web 2.0 companies of its era.

As an alumnus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Stoppelman has been recognized by the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for his achievements in the technology industry. His association with the PayPal alumni network has also been a recurring element of his public profile, as media coverage frequently contextualizes his career within the broader story of the so-called "PayPal Mafia" and the disproportionate influence its members have had on the technology sector.

Legacy

Stoppelman's primary contribution to the technology landscape has been the development and growth of Yelp as a platform for local business reviews. Yelp fundamentally altered the relationship between consumers and local businesses by democratizing the review process, allowing ordinary users to share their experiences and opinions in a public forum that could influence the success or failure of local establishments. The platform's star-rating system and review culture became embedded in how many consumers make decisions about where to eat, shop, and seek services.

The decision to reject Google's acquisition offer remains one of the most discussed aspects of Stoppelman's career. By choosing independence over a lucrative buyout, Stoppelman bet on Yelp's ability to compete as a standalone company against much larger technology firms, including Google itself, which subsequently built out its own competing local review features. This decision has been analyzed in business schools and technology industry discussions as a case study in the trade-offs between acquisition and independence for growing technology companies.

As a member of the PayPal alumni network, Stoppelman is part of a generation of technology entrepreneurs who emerged from a single company to reshape multiple sectors of the technology industry. His trajectory from engineer at a payments company to founder-CEO of a consumer platform exemplifies the interconnected nature of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial ecosystem, where shared experiences at one company can seed the creation of entirely new ventures and industries.