Leadership Team
Building a community, revolutionizing an industry
Joe Chen
Chief Executive Officer
After earning a master’s degree from MIT, Joe joined Altec Industries as an engineer and soon promoted to area manager managing East Asia sales. In 1997, while at Stanford Business School, Joe co-founded a pioneering social network, raising over $10M from investors including Goldman Sachs, KKR Partners Fund, and contributions from ten classmates. After selling the company post-dotcom bust, he moved to Dallas to launch an optical networking startup.
In 2002, Joe founded 1000 Oaks Inc in Dallas, which later became Moatable Inc, aiming at the emerging mobile internet market. The company went public as Renren Inc on the NYSE in 2011 after significant funding from investors like SoftBank, General Atlantic, Accel Partners, and Technology Crossover Partners.
Since 2011, Joe has directed investments in tech companies such as SoFi, Fundrise, Kiavi, Loadstar Capital, Paydy, Snowball Finance, BacklotCars, FiscalNote, Talech, XtalPi, and Chrystal Pharmaceuticals, serving on many of their boards.
Starting in 2016, Joe spearheaded the company’s shift from B2C Internet to B2B SaaS. He exited all of Moatable’s operating businesses in China in 2018 while leading the effort launching Lofty, initially known as Chime, to serve real estate agents. His early trucking experiences influenced his decision to invest in Trucker Path, a leading mobile app for North American truck drivers, which Moatable acquired in 2017. In 2022, Lofty acquired UK-based Rentancy and relaunched it in 2024 as LoftyWorks to serve the property management industry.
Joe is a recipient of the University of Delaware Presidential Citation and member of the Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network. He resides in Arizona with his wife and two toddlers.