Gideon Yu

Gideon Yu is the Co-Owner and former President of the San Francisco 49ers. Yu holds the distinction of being the first President of color of any team in the history of the National Football League. While at the 49ers, Yu led the financing and construction of Levi’s Stadium, and during his tenure, the team appeared in three consecutive NFC Championship games and Super Bowl XLVII.

Previously, Yu was the Chief Financial Officer of both Facebook and YouTube, the first two internet companies to achieve over one billion active users. As a venture capitalist, Yu led the founding investment in Jack Dorsey’s Square and was its first outside board member. The 2009 initial investment valued Square at $45 million, while today, Square’s market capitalization is over $65 billion.

Yu was named to the “Executive Dream Team, Startup Edition” by Fortune magazine, and listed among the “Names You Need To Know” by Forbes magazine. Yu earned his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is on the Board of Trustees of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the National Leadership Council of the Navy SEAL Foundation.

Yu is an alumnus of the 1989 International Science and Engineering Fair.

He joined the Society’s Board of Trustees in 2018.