Jake Leach went from washing lab equipment for $10 an hour to leading Dexcom
Jake Leach washed lab equipment for just $10 an hour as a teen.
The short version
- He now runs Dexcom as a chief executive officer.
- The healthcare giant is worth roughly $30 billion today.
- Hard work built His climb to the corner office.
The road to the top does not always start with an Ivy League degree. For Jake Leach, the chief executive officer of Dexcom, it started washing lab equipment for just $10 an hour. In the 1990s, Leach was a teenager trying to pay His way through community college in California.
His high school sweetheart offered him her summer job at MiniMed, an insulin pump company. Cleaning flasks and beakers marked the start of a career in diabetes management. Nearly three decades later, according to Fortune, Leach leads Dexcom, a roughly $30 billion company that develops non-invasive glucose-monitoring systems.
Growing up in California's San Fernando Valley, money was tight. When He wanted a $350 bike in elementary school, He washed cars for $2 apiece all summer until He could afford it. He studied electrical and biomedical engineering at UCLA, becoming the first in His family to earn a four-year degree.
His $10-an-hour job turned into a full-time position before He joined a 30-person startup called Dexcom in 2004. Now 48, Leach oversees a healthcare giant that brought in $4.6 billion in annual revenue by 2025 with 3.5 million users globally. His compensation now includes an annual base salary of $1.15 million.
Leach says He never once asked for a promotion in His 22 years at the company, letting His work speak for itself.
Figures as reported by Fortune.
