Upstart has named co-founder and technology chief Paul Gu its next CEO, effective May 1, the artificial intelligence lending fintech said Tuesday in a release.
Gu will succeed fellow co-founder Dave Girouard, who will remain executive chair and transition to a special adviser role.
Gu, Girouard and former Google executive Anna Counselman founded Upstart in 2012 as a lending platform that established creditworthiness using nontraditional variables such as education and job history.
The company returned to profitability in 2025, after reporting revenue of roughly $1 billion for the year – a 64% increase from 2024, according to earnings also disclosed Tuesday.
“When we co-founded the company, Paul was barely old enough to drink – and I was older than his parents,” Girouard said of Gu’s elevation. “This generational transition is a rare opportunity to have a founder-led company for decades to come.”
The company announced additional leadership changes Tuesday. CFO Sanjay Datta was named president and chief capital officer, effective immediately. Andrea Blankmeyer, CFO of healthtech firm Cityblock Health, will join Upstart next month as CFO. Grant Schneider, Upstart’s ex-vice president of machine learning, rejoined the company Tuesday in Gu’s former role as technology chief.
"I can't imagine a succession plan more thoroughly considered or executed with any finer level of detail than what we've done at Upstart in the last few years to prepare Paul and the company for this day," Girouard told analysts during an earnings call.
Gu co-founded Upstart less than a year after dropping out of Yale University to join the inaugural class of Thiel Fellows, to whom billionaire investor Peter Thiel awards $100,000 if they agree to dive into entrepreneurship instead, Business Insider reported.
“Credit is one of the cornerstone industries of civilization. Changing it is hard, but can be unimaginably impactful,” Gu said Tuesday. “Dave and I spent the past 14 years building the foundations of a company that can do that, and I'm excited to now have the opportunity to show the world what’s possible in the years to come.”
The fintech reported $18.6 million in profit for 2025’s fourth quarter – compared with a $2.8 million loss during the same three months a year earlier. Upstart’s revenue jumped 35%, to $296 million.
However, Upstart’s share price has fallen about 19.5% since earnings and the upcoming leadership transition were announced, according to Yahoo Finance.
A Citizens analyst characterized market jitters as stemming from comments suggesting Upstart will rely more heavily on secured loans, such as auto and home equity lines of credit, which offer tighter profit margins.
“We have grown rapidly in secured products and prime borrowers, segments which come with lower take rates but dramatically larger market sizes,” Gu said on Tuesday’s earnings call.
Upstart was an early entrant into the AI-powered credit space. It became the first company to obtain a no-action letter from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The fintech used the regulator’s sandbox to experiment on its alternative data model and underwriting without the threat of penalties. Upstart showed in 2019 that its alternative credit data drove loan approval up 27% over two years, with an average 16% drop in the annual percentage rate on those loans.
Upstart went public in 2020, but its no-action deal with the CFPB ended in 2022, when the agency established its Office of Competition and Innovation, which de-emphasized individual innovation agreements in favor of “incubation events” such as sprints, hackathons, tabletop exercises and war games.
Upstart received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in late 2023 over disclosures the fintech made in relation to its use of artificial intelligence models in lending, the company said.
