Jared Isaacman Height, Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jared Isaacman

• Jared Isaacman is the youngest of the three siblings. He spent his initial childhood with his family in Union Township, Union County, New Jersey. His family moved to Westfield, New Jersey, in April 1987.

• In 1995, he and his family shifted to the Liberty Corner section of Bernards Township, New Jersey.

• Jared and his best friend Brendan Lauber at the age of 9 started fixing computers at their home by charging a minimal amount.

• Soon after, he started working as a technician in a tech company, repairing computers.

• He and his friend then decided to use this skill to earn money, and later, they started a small company Deco Systems to provide assistance to computer users.

• According to him, he used to live in the basement of his childhood house, where he had established several computers all by himself.

• Jared started working at a private firm ‘CompUSA’ in the USA in his summer holidays. Later, one of the clients of the company Mario Parisi who was the owner of Merchant Services International offered him a job in his company.

• Jared quit his school in 1999 and started working at Merchant Services International. This decision of his was challenged by his parents who did not like it. During an interview, he talked about his school. He said,
  

  I hated high school. I watched my older siblings out in the world and they seemed to be having a much better time than me. I could not wait to be an adult.”

  

  A photo of Jared Isaacman taken when he was in the high school

• While working at Merchant Services International, he realised that the process involved in using credit cards for transactions was quite lengthy and expensive. He then decided to make an application software that can make this process easy and affordable.

• Thereafter, he took the General Educational Development (GED) test following which he received a high school diploma.

• After working at MSI for six months, he decided to leave his job and start a digital payment company named United Bank Card and began tying up with renowned organisations to help them process their payments digitally. As of 2024, this company deals with payments of brands like KFC and Hilton.

• Thereafter, his father joined the company and helped Jared in getting clients.

• Then, Jared took a loan of $10,000 from his grandfather and convinced a bank to issue him an identification number which is required to sell the credit card terminals. One of his friends Decho also joined him in the company.

• Initially, he was denied his request; however, with the help from the clients he made while working at MSI, his request was granted and his company was incorporated.

• In an interview, Jared said that he decided to shift from the computer repairing field to the digital payment processing field as he believed that the American processing sector did not offer much scope for improvement due to the monopoly of organisations like Chase and Bank of America.

• After receiving the identification number, he took over as CEO of the company and focused on establishing his clientele by connecting with more merchants.

• Soon, his business started flourishing, and he made huge profits. First of all, he returned his grandfather’s loan and then started an office in Arizona.
  

  Jared Isaacman at the age of 23

• To lure more merchants to use his services, Jared Isaacman initially started distributing expensive credit card readers free of cost. The merchants earlier had to buy the readers at higher prices to allow their customers to use their credit cards.

• His popularity increased more when he cut short the documentation and reduced the time taken to install the hardware from 30 days to 1 day.

• After some months, he started hiring sales executives and offered them higher incentives for getting a client. More executives signed up as Jared had reduced the formalities needed for the hardware’s installation. This motivated them to bring more clients for the company due to the less time required and hence earn more money.

• His strategy bore fruits and within months of adopting it, his sales executives were finding up to 2,800 customers every year.

• Initially, his customers mostly included restaurants, coffee shops, and boutiques owners.

• By the time he turned 19, he had provided employment to more than a hundred people in his company.

• He revealed in an interview that he does not party much as he never developed an interest in doing so because of the burden of working on the weekends with his colleagues to grow the business. He added further into it and said,
  

  I simply couldn’t get drunk on a weeknight or do fraternity level crap–which is what I would probably have been doing had it not been for Harbortouch. That would have been more than putting my own life at risk, it would be jeopardizing the livelihoods of so many other people.”

• Isaacman has known his wife since his early days. They both studied together in the school, and she was his 12th employee. They later fell into love and entered a relationship.

• In 2008, he decided to launch a touchscreen device that could help in combining a cash register and credit card terminal in one device.

• Due to excessive work, he started getting tired of the corporate culture so to help himself cope with it, he started undertaking flying lessons at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.

• In 2008, he tried to circumnavigate the globe; however, he fell short of the existing record and could not break it.

• After completing his professional training, in 2009, he flew in the fastest around-the-world flight in a light jet from Morristown, New Jersey, via the Azores and Alaska. He completed the journey in 61 hours and 51 minutes, and in the event, he raised a fund of $100,000 which was donated to ‘The Make-A-Wish Foundation.’

• During the flight, he flew a Cessna Citation CJ2 and skipped stopping in India and Japan due to the time taken by these countries to give ground clearance.

• He then found that if he took professional training and FAA certification, he could fly the US military aircraft. Later, he completed his training and received the FAA certification. While undergoing FAA training, he was given the callsign “Rook,” abbreviated from “Rookie.”
  

  Jared Isaacman sitting in the cockpit of a Russian-built MiG fighter aircraft

• He is a Airline Transport Rated Pilot (ATP) and Certified Flight Instructor (CFI).

• In 2010, Jared, along with Sean Gustafson (a member of the popular Air Force stunt squadron ‘Thunderbirds’ at that time), did an air show “Black Diamond Jet Team” with the help of retired pilots and trained civilians.

• Later, Jared, along with one of his friends, decided to start an organisation where they could train the new pilots in the US Army. They both then started a company named ‘Draken International’ to provide air services on contract.

• Jared invested a huge amount in the company to buy fighter jets like Douglas A-4 Skyhawks from New Zealand, Atlas Cheetahs from South Africa, and Aero L-159s from the Czech Republic. Along with his aircraft business, he was also managing his payments app company. In an interview, while talking about it, he said,
  

  All I needed to focus on was buying more fighter jets before others could get their hands on them. Shift4 has always been the greater portion of my time commitment.”

• He acquired one of his previous client’s company, MSI, for around $250 million in 2014.

• In 2015, Draken International expanded its base of operation after it was awarded contracts to train jet pilots belonging to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the Air National Guard (ANG).

• In 2017, he renamed United Bank Card, Inc. to Lighthouse Network, and in the same year, when the company acquired Shift4 Corporation, it was renamed Shift4 Payments.

• Later, he faced problems in his company ‘Shift4 Payments’ and it was about to shut down, but with his hard work, he retained the company.
  

  Jared Isaacman- CEO of Shift4 Payments

• In 2018, the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) listed him in the “Forty Under 40” category.

• In the same year, Isaac worked on brokering a deal with the United States Civil Aviation Authorities to repair the Lakeland Linder International Airport for $6.7 million.

• A few months later of the acquisition, he signed one of the biggest projects of his company ‘Draken International’ worth $280 million for five years in which he had to train the 57th Adversary Tactics Group at Nellis AFB, Luke AFB in Arizona, and Hill AFB in Utah.
  

  Jared Isaacman at Draken International

• In 2020, he sold a considerable portion of Draken International and retained a small portion with himself. The private air force had amassed fighter jets worth more than $100 million, including a retired Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) fighter jet.

• In June of the same year, Shift4 Payments became a public entity following which it earned $345 million through its IPO.

• By October 2020, Shift4 Payments was competing with Square, another famous payment management company, and was handling transactions worth more than $200 billion per year.

• Jared Isaacman acquired the e-commerce giant 3dcart in November 2020, and in January 2021, he rebranded it as Shift4Shop.

• He then sold Draken International completely to the Blackstone Private Military Contractor.

• By the end of 2020, he had amassed a net worth of over $1.4 billion and owned 38 per cent of shares in Shift4 Payments.

• In August 2021, Jared Isaacman and the crew of Inspiration4 were featured in Time Magazine’s double issue.

• He served as a commander in the first civilian spaceflight ‘Inspiration4,’ operated by SpaceX and launched by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle in 2021, and the mission was scheduled for 15 September 2021. During an interview, while talking about the spacecraft, he said,
  

  I certainly hope that in the future, [spaceflight] can be a bunch of buddies going up in space together. That’s the world you want to work towards, where it becomes an everyday thing … As soon as I knew I would have the opportunity to command the first all-civilian mission to space, my mind immediately gravitated towards ways that can be super-symbolic of a step in this direction.”

  

  Isaacman’s portrait photo taken in the space suit before the commencement of the Inspiration 4 Mission

• While Isaacman was commanding the mission, he made the record for becoming the first man from space to make a bet on sports when he bet on an NFL team with the BetMGM Sportsbook.

• The spaceflight was taken to collect money for the Tennessee-based St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the first privately launched space shuttle to orbit the Earth with a complete civilian crew.

• From 16 September 2021 to 18 September 2021, the crew performed tests on over 40 scientific subjects. It also undertook a demonstration of the utilisation of the ultra-advanced satellite communication equipment, Starlink, made by Elon Musk‘s SpaceX.

• Before the commencement of the flight, Isaacman underwent a rigorous astronaut training module in a SpaceX facility, which included lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity environment, stress testing, emergency-preparedness training, and mission simulations.
  

  Jared Isaacman and the members of his crew training in zero gravity before their space mission

• In 2021, his company earned revenues of $731 million, making it a record.

• In July of the same year, Shift4 Payments was chosen as the payment partner for the renowned NFL team Las Vegas Raiders. The Allegiant Stadium also chose the company as its Official Credit Card Processing Company.

• Isaacman made a donation of US$125 million to childhood cancer research in 2021.

• In the same year, Netflix released a documentary titled Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, based on Jared’s first space mission.
  

  Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space’s poster

• He takes an interest in undertaking adventure sports and is also a trained mountaineer. In January 2020, he visited Antarctica, where he climbed the 4,892 m tall Mount Vinson Massif. However, he had to return to the mountain’s base 500 metres before he could reach the summit due to dehydration and breathlessness.
  

  Jared Isaacman with the mountaineering crew at the base of the Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica

• Apart from being a businessman and pilot, he is also a social worker and has raised funds for various social activities.

• According to Jared, he is a Jew but is not religious and never visits places of worshipping.

• According to sources, Jared Isaacman worked for 16 hours on the weekdays and 8 hours on the weekends.

• In September 2024, Isaacman was chosen to commandeer SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn space exploration expedition. According to sources, due to the specialised equipment required to operate the spacecraft involved in it, Isaacman donated money to SpaceX for the installation.
  

  Jared Isaacman standing with the crew of Polaris Dawn

• While in the space, Isaacman and his crew were exposed to the vacuum of the space, and they conducted Stand-up Extravehicular Activities or SEVAs.

• After that, Jared Isaacman donated approximately $200 million to charitable causes.

• In December of the same year, President-elect Donald Trump appointed him as the administrator of NASA.

• Jared Isaacman consumes alcohol occasionally.
  

  Jared Isaacman holding a mug of beer during a party