Jon Gruber is an American investor and venture capitalist who is the founder and president of Gruber and McBaine Capital Management, a San Francisco-based investment advisory firm. He is a longtime donor to left-of-center causes and organizations. Together with his wife, Linda Gruber, Jon operates the Gruber Family Foundation, which supports left-of-center women’s organizations including supporters of abortion; journalism organizations including National Public Radio, Mother Jones, and Public Radio International; environmentalist organizations such as The Nature Conservancy; and education and poverty-fighting programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. ^{1 2}

Background

Jon D. Gruber is the president of Gruber and McBaine Capital Management, a San Francisco-based investment advisory firm that he founded in 1987. A biography of Gruber published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes that he “has been a consultant to government clients, a tech analyst, and now an investment advisor focused largely on technology stocks” and adds that “he is known in some circles as “the father of technology investing.” ³

He graduated from MIT in 1964, has personally endowed a chair at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and donated $1 million in 2004 to support MIT’s efforts to place its courses online. ³

Gruber is married to Linda W. Gruber, who is the president of the Gruber Family Foundation. She served in the White House during the Lyndon Johnson administration and taught at San Francisco State University. She has been a trustee for left-of-center and far-left groups including  Mother Jones, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Global Fund for Women, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ⁴

Philanthropy

In 1987, the same year he founded his investment company, Jon Gruber founded the Gruber Family Foundation with his wife Linda W. Gruber, who has been the president of the foundation since its inception. The foundation has provided funding to a variety of left-of-center advocacy groups, museums, and social services organizations with an emphasis on funding groups and projects in the San Francisco Bay area. At the end of 2023, the foundation reported $56 million in assets and reported $3 million in charitable giving in 2023. ⁵

The foundation has provided significant grants to left-of-center journalism organizations and was historically a major funder of Media Matters for America, alongside the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and the Arca, Rapoport, Bohemian, and Streisand Foundations. ⁶

Other journalism-related funding from the Gruber Family Foundation includes KQED, the public television station in San Francisco; National Public Radio; WETA, the public television station in Washington, D.C.; the Global Press Institute; and Public Radio International. ⁶

In 2019, the Gruber Family Foundation donated $300,000 to the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund, created in 1986 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund to fund housing and other programs in the San Francisco Bay area. ⁶

Inside Philanthropy notes that “The Gruber family has progressive leanings and has been known to support local chapters of Planned Parenthood. In addition to reproductive rights, investigative media, and environmental causes are also of interest to the Grubers.” ⁷

1. ^[1] Return of an Organization Exempt from Income Tax. Gruber Family Foundation. 2019. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/943039716/download990pdf_03_2022_prefixes_86-95%2F943039716_201912_990PF_2022031019730516
2. Return of an Organization Exempt from Income Tax. Gruber Family Foundation. 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943039716/202413129349101506/full
3. “Jon Gruber.” MIT Open Course Ware. Accessed February 23, 2025. https://mitocw.ups.edu.ec/about/ocw-stories/jon-gruber/
4. “Mother Jones Board of Directors.” Mother Jones. Accessed February 23, 2025. https://www.motherjones.com/about/board-directors/
5. “Gruber Family Foundation.” ProPublica. Accessed February 23, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943039716
6. Return of an Organization Exempt from Income Tax. Gruber Family Foundation. 2019. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/943039716/download990pdf_03_2022_prefixes_86-95%2F943039716_201912_990PF_2022031019730516
7. “Understanding the Gruber Family Foundation’s Giving in the Bay Area.” Inside Philanthropy. Accessed February 23, 2025. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2021-01-02-understanding-the-gruber-family-foundations-giving-in-the-bay-area