Background
Origins
John A. Sobrato was born in San Francisco on May 23, 1939. His parents were both Italian immigrants from Italy. His Father worked as a chef for the U.S. Army in World War II and, after the war, started a restaurant named John's Rendevous (Joint Venture Silicon Valley). After his Father died in 1952, his mother, Ann Ainardi Sobrato, sold the restaurant property and invested the proceeds into real estate. Sobrato's mother continued to expand the real estate business, eventually earning herself the title "the mother of Silicon Valley" (BayAreaCouncil).
Sobrato attended the Jesuit Bellarmine High School while performing low-level work for his mother's enterprise. After learning from and working with his mother, Sobrato started selling homes in Palo Alto when he was 18 and a student at Santa Clara University (Joint Venture Silicon Valley). He initially tried to major in engineering, but after getting poor grades, he switched to business, where he excelled (Joint Venture Silicon Valley, Philanthropy Roundtable). After graduating from SCU with a business degree at 21, he founded Midtown Realty, where he mainly bought and sold Eichler homes (Joint Venture Silicon Valley). He was the youngest member of the Million Dollar Club on the Palo Alto Real Estate Board (Joint Venture Silicon Valley). He later ventured into commercial real estate and partnered with prominent real estate figure Carl Berg in 1972, a business partnership that would last several years (Joint Venture Silicon Valley).
The Sobrato Organization
The Sobrato Organization, founded in 1979, would be one of the San Francisco Bay Area's most successful private real estate companies. The Sobrato Organization developed millions of square feet worth of R&D and office buildings and apartments, partnering with Silicon Valley's major tech companies and shaping the Bay Area into what it is today. For instance, Sobrato developed the first Apple headquarters and business campuses for Nvidia, Netflix, VeriSign, EMC, Siebel, and Yahoo! and expanded his real estate empire to what is presently 7.5 million square feet of office and R&D buildings and 30 multifamily communities (Saum, Sobrato Organization). In 1998, the Sobrato Organization founded a philanthropy arm named the Sobrato Family Foundation, which has, to date, donated over $550 million in capital and real estate to nonprofit organizations (Sobrato Organization). In 2008, the Sobrato Organization founded its capital arm, which has provided needed capital to Silicon Valley businesses and start-ups since the financial crisis (Sobrato Organization).
