John D. Arnold

John Douglas Arnold (born 1974 ) is an American philanthropist, former Enron executive, and founder of Arnold Ventures LLC, formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

He completed high school at Hillcrest High School in 1992.

A 1995 graduate of Vanderbilt University, he completed a degree in mathematics and economics in three years.

He is a member of Lambda Chi Alpha.

After college, he began his career at Enron as an oil analyst, but soon was promoted to assistant trader.

In 1996, a year after starting at Enron, he moved to oversee the trading of natural gas derivatives at the Natural Gas Desk upon the departure of Jeff Bussan.

Using their new Internet-based trading network, EnronOnline, he is credited with making three quarters of a billion dollars for Enron in 2001 and was rewarded with the largest bonus in Enron history, some $8 million.

His former colleagues dubbed him "king of natural gas."

When Enron collapsed, he was not accused of any wrongdoing.

He then founded Centaurus, a hedge fund, with his previous year's bonus in 2002.

He was widely quoted for his viewpoints on the industry by a government commission.

Arnold started donating to the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in 2004 with a gift of $30,000 which was then based in Houston, and two years later he and his wife pledged $10 million to help KIPP expand to other cities.

Other multi-million gifts followed to other education programs, for example to Washington, D.C. city schools for merit pay, to Teach for America, and to StudentsFirst.

Arnold has also given to The City Fund, an organization focused on growing the number of charter schools in the USA, and its political arm, Public School Allies.

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation was a private foundation founded by Arnold and his wife Laura.

During the collapse of Amaranth Advisors, Centaurus is widely credited as being one of the major players on the other side of their position, returning as much as 150% in 2005.

In 2007, Arnold became the youngest billionaire in the U.S. His firm, Centaurus Advisors, LLC, was a Houston-based hedge fund specializing in trading energy products that closed in 2012.

He now focuses on philanthropy through Arnold Ventures LLC.

Arnold is a board member of Breakthrough Energy Ventures and since February 2024, is a member of the board of directors of Meta.

Arnold was raised in Dallas, Texas, and he was the younger of two sons.

His mother later would work as an accountant at Centaurus.

His father was a lawyer and died when Arnold was 18.

At 14, he started his first company selling collectible sports cards called Blue Chip Cards.

August 2008, Centaurus acquired around 10% of the shares of National Coal Corporation (NCOC).

In 2008, the Arnolds were original signatories of the Giving Pledge, a pledge by some high-net-worth individuals to donate the majority of their income to philanthropic causes during their lifetimes.

In 2009, Arnold gave a public speech to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), in which he opposed limits on financially settled trading positions but supported limits in the physical energy futures as they near expiration.

The organization was founded in 2010.

From 2010-2013, the Arnolds were heavily involved in the Innocence Project which led to their interest in criminal reform.

The Foundation is focused on evidence-backed giving for systematic change.

Arnold announced his retirement from running the hedge fund on May 2, 2012.

In 2013, the Arnolds donated $10 million as a private donation to the National Head Start Association after the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 had closed the pre-K Head Start programs.

In October 2018, it was reported that Arnold had spent more than $100 million in health-care related grants since 2014, with a particular focus on reducing pharmaceutical drug costs.

Arnold funds Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), a nonprofit that created a formula to price drugs.

Those who support ICER’s formula believe it could lower prices while critics argue that the formula is discriminator toward the elderly and those with disabilities or rare diseases.

Arnold also has been an influential supporter of Democrats’ efforts to pass a drug-price reform bill.

In 2019, Arnold became the chairman of Houston's 2026 bid for the FIFA World Cup.

In 2019, the organization was transformed into a limited-liability company composed of the former foundation, a donor-advised fund, and the Action Now Initiative advocacy organization, effectively combining philanthropy, research, policy, and advocacy efforts.

The new entity is known as Arnold Ventures LLC with the charter "to remove barriers between data and decisive action, working swiftly across the policy-change spectrum."

In 2019, Arnold spoke out against donor-advised funds (DAF), criticizing them for delaying charitable giving and promoting giving to institutions that are less likely to need the money.

He proposed that foundations and DAFs should spend at least 7% annually, which would result in billions of dollars more being given to charities, and that DAFs should be legally held to an annual minimum distribution.