editor Chief Executive Officer of Zenefits
Conrad was born in New York City to Ellen Rouse Conrad, a president and founder of the non-profit environmental group the Bedford 2020 Coalition, and Winthrop B. Conrad, Junior., a now retired senior partner at the New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
He attended the prestigious Upper West Side preparatory school The Collegiate School, and spent nearly two years during high school studying the neurobiology of sea snails.
Despite this early display of an evident talent for science, Parker admits that his high school grades were generally mediocre. In the fall of 1998 Conrad began studying at Harvard University, where he served as managing editor of The Harvard Crimson. Conrad cites his time at the paper as an incredibly stressful period that ultimately led to his taking a leave of absence from school.
"I was spending all my time at the Crimson, like 70 hours a week and I didn’t go to class for like a year," he told Business Insider in February 2015.
"But then I failed out of school. I had to leave Harvard, really halfway through my tenure as the Crimson managing editors
lieutenant was this incredibly humiliating and shocking experience." However, Conrad returned to finish his studies one year later, and graduated in 2003 with an Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry. Conrad was diagnosed, treated and cleared of testicular cancer at the age of 24.
Conrad"s first job out of college was working as a Product Manager for the biotechnology firm Amgen.
However, after a falling out with Sha in 2012, Conrad was forced to leave the company. Inspired by the recent launch of President Obama"s Affordable Care Acting and his own experience as a cancer patient, Conrad proceeded to launch his next startup, Zenefits, in September of 2012. The company quickly took off, receiving millions in early funding rounds from top tier venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Institutional Venture Partners.
In 2014 Zenefits was named the fastest-growing startup of the year, and its annual recurring revenues continued to grow, from $20 million in 2014 to $100 million in 2015.
After only two years of existence, the company had 1,600 employees, 10,000 customers, and a $4.5 billion valuation. In May 2015, Conrad received notoriety for revoking the job offer of a potential engineer who asked for advice on the question-and-answer website Quora about whether he should accept a job offer from Zenefits or Uber.
In the fall of 2015, Zenefits came under widespread scrutiny for allegedly failing to comply with state health insurance regulations, and was subject to an investigation by the popular media website Buzzfeed. On February 8, 2016, Conrad resigned from Zenefits after revelations that the company used unlicensed brokers to sell health insurance in multiple states.
In 2015, Conrad was listed as Number 20 on Fortune"s 40 Under Forty list.
Lars Dalgaard, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, has said of Conrad: "lieutenant’s very compelling to me that someone is that humble..I just loved that personality. lieutenant’s a very simpatico attitude.".
