After 14 years of building one of fintech's most disruptive players, co-founder Dave Girouard is stepping down as CEO on May 1, 2026. His successor? Co-founder Paul Gu—the quantitative wizard who built Upstart's original AI engines.
This isn't a forced exit or boardroom drama. It's a relay handoff, mid-stride.
The Numbers That Matter
The announcement dropped alongside Q4 2025 earnings. The timing wasn't accidental.
| Metric | Q4 2025 | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ~$296M | +35% |
| Full Year Revenue | ~$1.4B | — |
| After-Hours Move | +7% | — |
Loan volumes surging. AI improvements compounding. GAAP profitability returning. The leadership change lands on a foundation of momentum, not desperation.
The Emerging Verticals: Paul's Fingerprint
Beyond the core personal loan business, Upstart's newer verticals are exploding. This is Paul Gu's domain—he led auto, home, and small business lending while Dave handled strategy.
Auto Originations:
| Quarter | Q3'24 | Q4'24 | Q1'25 | Q2'25 | Q3'25 | Q4'25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of Loans | 1,289 | 2,073 | 2,839 | 5,058 | 6,705 | 9,918 |
~8x growth in six quarters. Nearly 10,000 auto loans per quarter.
Home (HELOC) Originations:
| Quarter | Q3'24 | Q4'24 | Q1'25 | Q2'25 | Q3'25 | Q4'25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of Loans | 283 | 453 | 666 | 1,118 | 1,262 | 2,086 |
7x growth from a standing start to 2,000+ loans per quarter.
These aren't side projects. They're proof the AI-first credit model works beyond personal loans—and Paul built them.
Balance Sheet De-Risking
One concern from previous quarters: R&D loans on Upstart's own balance sheet. The trend is now clearly downward:
| Quarter | Q3'24 | Q4'24 | Q1'25 | Q2'25 | Q3'25 | Q4'25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R&D Loans | $119M | $103M | $89M | $76M | $64M | $54M |
That's a 55% reduction in balance sheet exposure. Meanwhile, total loan volume grew from $656M to $985M in Q4'25.
Dave on the call: "Balance sheet loans will drop in the coming quarters, not rise."
The shift: more partner-funded and securitized loans, less Upstart taking on credit risk directly. And this isn't accidental—Sanjay Datta has moved from CFO to Chief Capital Officer, a new role laser-focused on scaling this de-risking effort.
The $3.9M Signal
Here's where it gets interesting.
Back in November 2025—months before any public announcement—Paul Gu scooped up 100,000 shares at ~$39.22 per share. That's nearly $3.9 million of his own money.
Insider filings don't reveal motivations. But the timing is hard to ignore: a massive personal bet just as the succession decision likely crystallized internally.
Paul wasn't just inheriting the throne. He was all-in on the kingdom's future.
Two Founders, One Vision
Dave Girouard brought the gravitas. Former Google Apps president, steady hand, public face. His social presence? Understated—22K followers, posts that land with boardroom precision rather than viral energy. Reliable. Professional. Ready to step backstage.
Paul Gu brings the edge. A Thiel Fellow who dropped out of Yale, he built the statistical engines that dared to assess creditworthiness beyond FICO scores—looking at education, employment potential, human promise. While Dave handled strategy and the 2020 IPO, Paul quietly led product, engineering, ML, and emerging verticals.
Dave's quote from the release: Paul was "barely old enough to drink" when they started.
Now he's CEO.
The Leadership Shuffle
It's not just Paul stepping up. The entire C-suite got a refresh:
Andrea Blankmeyer joins as the new CFO. Her background? Former VP of Finance at SoFi. The fintech cross-pollination continues.
Sanjay Datta moves from CFO to the newly created Chief Capital Officer role—entirely focused on scaling the capital markets side and reducing balance sheet exposure.
Dave stays on as Executive Chairman. The DNA remains intact while new blood takes the wheel.
Forward Guidance: Conservative or Sandbagging?
A few notable call-outs from guidance:
- UMI target range: 1.4–1.5 (and this doesn't account for potential interest rate reductions)
- No new products baked into guidance—anything from small business or other verticals would be upside
- Voice LLMs being deployed for manual verification steps—further automation of the loan process
The guidance feels deliberately conservative. If rates come down or new products hit, there's room to surprise.
What's Next
The investor materials underscore why this works:
- Expanding partner networks
- AI model iterations widening the moat
- New categories (auto, HELOCs) gaining traction
- Funding pipeline primed for scale
As Paul put it: "Credit is a cornerstone of civilization. Changing it is hard, but unimaginably impactful."
Under this new guard, Upstart seems poised to keep proving that point.
The Dilution Question
One cloud over the celebration: shares outstanding keep climbing.
| Quarter | Q1'24 | Q2'24 | Q3'24 | Q4'24 | Q1'25 | Q2'25 | Q3'25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shares (M) | 87.8 | 89.1 | 91.0 | 93.5 | 95.1 | 96.1 | 97.3 |
That's +10.8% dilution in under two years. The stock-based comp machine keeps running.
For long-term shareholders, growth needs to outpace the share printer. So far, revenue is scaling faster than dilution—but it's worth watching. Every quarter that share count ticks up, EPS gets a little harder to grow.
Effective May 1, 2026.
UPST