Professional History

Born, Southern California.

First introduction to C and Unix at the University of California, Santa Barbara computer center.

First part-time job as a software tester.

LOBO Systems, Santa Barbara, California — Product Tester. Tested early CP/M-based microcomputers and mass-storage hardware.

Paid instructor for teachers in the Santa Barbara Public Schools district on the topic of Pascal programming.

Sold a custom library of C code to a major software company. The libraries enabled asynchronous I/O through RS-232 serial ports beyond the traditional 2-port limit imposed by 16550 UART devices on PC-compatible computers at the time.

Learned Corporate Finance working for a major New York-based investment bank. Worked on hundreds of startup and reorganization transactions.

Founded Quepasa — a major bilingual English/Spanish web portal for U.S. Hispanics and Latin American users. Beat out Yahoo!'s Spanish language network in year one.

Quepasa IPO on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Early investments in Exodus Communications and Limelight Networks.

Recruited José María Figueres, former President of Costa Rica, to Quepasa's Board of Directors.

Recruited Gloria Estefan as Quepasa's corporate spokesperson — the only brand she ever endorsed in her entire career.

Fired from Quepasa by the CEO Peterson had hired 60 days prior. National news coverage for approximately a month; complex civil litigation. Settled November 1999: ~$2.5M payout, exit of all remaining shares. (Market value at time: ~$300M.)

Regained control of Quepasa after prior management erased its market value. Began rebuilding.

Major Democrat donor. Helped start the careers of U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, among others, based in Arizona.

Became a Technology Advisor to Vicente Fox, President of Mexico.

Under Peterson's renewed leadership, Quepasa launched its social networking platform — already publicly traded on Nasdaq at the time, giving it a strong claim as the first publicly traded social network in U.S. history.

Quepasa's trading volume had eclipsed $1 billion USD by this time.

Sold the rebuilt Quepasa (40 million users) in a controlling-investment transaction to Richard L. 'Rick' Scott — before he entered politics as Governor of Florida, then U.S. Senator from Florida. (Market value: ~$150M.) Transitioned from CEO to CTO after Rick's investment.

Stepped off the day-to-day executive team and continued in a Board of Directors role.

Made a substantial donation to The University of Texas at San Antonio, endowing the Jeffrey S. Peterson Honors Scholarship at the UTSA Honors College.

Semi-retired.

Worked on a startup; proposed its business ideas to Mexico's largest telecom entrepreneur, who passed on the idea at the time.

Joined the U.S.-Philippines Society Board of Directors, alongside Maurice 'Hank' Greenberg (former AIG Chairman/CEO) and John Negroponte (former U.S. Director of National Intelligence).

Became a Technology Advisor to Benigno 'Noynoy' Aquino III, 15th President of the Philippines.

Stepped away from prior startups to focus on other business.

Left the United States Democratic Party.

An investor group published a 'hit piece' article in the Arizona Republic. Peterson sued the newspaper; lawsuit dismissed on 'public figure' defense.

Invested in a film about Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books — a fellow Santa Barbara resident.

Civil litigation with the investor group from the 2013 startup. Vigorously defended.

Lawsuit dismissed with prejudice by the Maricopa County Superior Court — it cannot be refiled.

Launched jeff.pro — an online brand focused on technical education for mainstream America.

jeff.pro became profitable.

jeff.pro: 50,000 monthly visitors · 1,000+ paying subscribers · 100,000+ email subscribers.