Stake CEO: Who Runs Stake.com and the Stake Trading App

If you type “Stake CEO” into a search bar, you’re stepping into a split universe. One branch leads to Stake.com, the crypto casino and sportsbook that turned streaming culture and celebrity tie‑ups into a marketing juggernaut. The other branch lands on Stake, the Australian‑born brokerage app that put U.S. stocks in the hands of everyday traders across multiple countries. Both carry the same four letters. Both are real companies with global footprints. But they are not the same business, and the person at the helm in each world is not the same.

The short version: Stake.com was founded by Australians Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, who remain the primary leaders. Public materials often describe them as co‑founders rather than using the formal “CEO” title, though Ed Craven is frequently treated as the de facto chief executive. The brokerage app—hellostake.com, known simply as Stake in trading circles—is led by its CEO and co‑founder, Matt Leibowitz.

This is the definitive, practitioner’s view of who runs what, how the two Stakes evolved, how their leaders actually operate, and why it matters for investors, bettors, compliance professionals, journalists, and anyone trying to make sense of the brand’s remarkable gravity.

Quick answer: who is the Stake CEO?

• Stake.com (crypto casino and sportsbook): Founded and led by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. The company does not consistently use a singular “CEO” title in its own materials; Craven is widely referenced as the de facto chief executive and visible dealmaker, with Tehrani deeply embedded in product, operations, and growth.
• Stake app (brokerage/trading): CEO and co‑founder Matt Leibowitz leads the trading platform known for low‑friction access to U.S. equities and later local markets. He is the person you’re looking for if your search is about the trading app.

Why “Stake CEO” splits into two worlds

The confusion is structural. “Stake” is a powerful, simple brand name. Two teams in two different industries built big companies around it. They target different audiences with different obligations: one lives in the world of crypto betting, sweepstakes, and sports sponsorships; the other navigates securities regulation, custody, best execution, and retail investor education. You’ll see crossover in headlines, but these are separate companies with separate leadership. Keeping them straight is the first step toward answering any question about who leads Stake.

Two brands at a glance

Stake.com leadership: Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani

The origin story and Easygo

Stake.com grew from a studio culture: the founders built, shipped, iterated. Before the brand hit global prominence, the duo cut their teeth in gaming product with Easygo—a Melbourne‑rooted studio environment that specialized in building casino titles and infrastructure. That DNA matters. Stake.com’s look and feel—its clean UI, fast bet slips, product cadence—reflects a team that never saw “casino” as a static set of games. They treated it as software. The causality runs both ways: Easygo proved the team could ship; Stake proved the team could scale.

Ed Craven: the de facto CEO

If you follow business media, you’ve likely seen Ed Craven described as co‑founder and sometimes as CEO of Stake.com. Formal titles have tended to be less important than track record. Ed is the one who leans forward in big external moves—funding alliances for spin‑off ventures, making calls on sponsorships, and setting posture when the brand hits turbulence. Interviews paint him as product‑literate and operator‑minded, but his real fingerprint is in narrative: he’s comfortable with Stake as a culture brand, not merely a betting platform. That’s what draws A‑list ambassadors and what sustains a vibrant streaming presence that funnels users and attention back into the ecosystem.

Bijan Tehrani: product, operations, growth

Every fast‑scaling product has a pair like this: the outward‑facing dealmaker and the force that keeps velocity inside the building. Tehrani’s imprint shows up in the way Stake executes updates without a lot of ceremony—iterative releases that tighten the core loop of wagering, rewards, and community. Observers who’ve worked around Stake will tell you his strength is speed without breaking the game. You don’t see it until you watch how often the site iterates and how the experience remains familiar to power users who bet daily.

CEO title versus co‑founder stewardship

Stake.com’s own channels tend to lean on “co‑founder” instead of planting a single CEO flag. There are good reasons. Gaming across jurisdictions is a chessboard: entities are set up in different places, staff clusters form where talent can be hired, and license specifics vary. In that context, the founders have often acted as a pair of senior officers: one oriented externally and strategically, the other deeply involved in operating tempo and product decisions. Practically, it looks like a CEO/COO tandem—even when the websites keep it simple.

Ownership and corporate structure

Stake.com’s operating model looks like most international gaming networks. The front‑end brand is what you see, but the machinery sits in a lattice of entities that cover licensing, payment processing, risk and trading teams, marketing, and content production. The company has been associated with corporate vehicles in gaming‑friendly jurisdictions and maintains development and operational hubs elsewhere. The related studio, Easygo, is a keystone—both historically, as the crucible where the founders learned to scale gaming software, and currently, as a talent engine.

Headquarters and global footprint

Ask “Where is Stake based?” and you’ll get two kinds of answers. The human answer: the founders and a considerable slice of the engineering and creative culture grew out of Melbourne, with satellite talent pools in European and island jurisdictions known for gaming operations. The legal answer: the consumer‑facing operations rely on licensed entities outside Australia; the brand’s presence in each market reflects local regulatory constraints or permissions. Stake is global in practice, distributed in structure, and careful in how it describes its “head office” to the public—because in gaming, that phrase carries more weight than a pin on a map.

Licensing, compliance, and the jurisdictions that matter

Stake.com’s backbone license structure includes offshore permissions that are standard for crypto casinos. On top of that, the brand has pursued access to onshore regulated markets where it makes sense—through local partners or through direct registration when available. In the UK, Stake operates a locally compliant offering via a licensed partner framework. In parts of Canada, it is registered under provincial regulators. In markets where crypto casinos are restricted, Stake.com does not operate—hence the existence of a separate U.S.‑facing model explained below.

The crypto piece changes compliance posture. KYC still exists. So does AML screening and transaction monitoring. But crypto rails alter risk vectors: wallet screening, hot‑wallet management, and on‑chain forensics join the to‑do list alongside traditional sportsbook risk and responsible gambling obligations. The leaders’ job is to hold all of that together while the marketing engine roars.

Stake.us versus Stake.com: the sweepstakes detour

If you’re in the United States and you see “Stake,” it’s likely Stake.us—a sweepstakes casino, not a traditional real‑money wagering site. In a sweepstakes model, play is tied to promotional sweepstakes, and prizes can be redeemed within a compliant framework. This is a distinct entity, running on a separate domain, with its own set of rules. Stake.com remains unavailable to U.S. bettors. That separation is not cosmetic; it is the point. It keeps the global brand in line with U.S. law while allowing Americans to engage with a cousin of the experience under different mechanics.

Sponsorships, ambassadors, and the business of culture

Stake.com’s rise isn’t just product; it’s theater. The brand invested early in sports sponsorships that travel globally—front‑of‑shirt deals in top‑flight football, tie‑ins with major fight promotions, naming rights in motorsport. The tactic isn’t new, but the execution is notably modern: short‑form content, creator‑driven streams, and giveaways that create real‑time spectacle. The founders understood that in the attention economy, the casino can be a stage. That mindset culminates in celebrity collaborations that move from promotional posts to full‑blown live shows where the brand and the star perform together.

The Drake partnership and what it really means

This one generates endless rumor. Drake is not the owner of Stake.com. He is the brand’s most visible ambassador. The relationship has included splashy live‑streamed sessions, headline‑grabbing giveaways, and cross‑platform content. It pulls in casual viewers who might not otherwise watch a casino stream and cements Stake’s position as the cool kid of betting brands. Strategically, it’s the ultimate social proof: if the world’s most followed musicians spends hours on your platform, the signal to a certain demographic is deafening.

Security incidents, the founders’ response, and what changed afterward

When a crypto platform gets hit, you learn quickly how leadership behaves. Stake.com faced a hot‑wallet breach that siphoned funds and forced a short halt while the team triaged, traced, and rebuilt. The founders moved fast: public confirmation, controlled reopening, clear lines around cold‑wallet safety, and commitments to fortify custody patterns. The post‑incident pattern tells you a lot. Wallet segregation tightened. On‑chain tracking sophistication stepped up. Vendor and key‑management hygiene got stricter. In practice, it was a painful drill that made the operation harder to compromise and improved blast‑radius containment. You don’t want to learn those lessons live, but great operators sometimes have to.

Revenue scale, net worth chatter, and the mythmaking around success

Media have linked Stake.com’s surge with the founders’ ascent into rarefied wealth—especially in Australian business press that tracks young founders with zeal. Numbers get thrown around freely whenever a private gaming company hits velocity: handle, gross gaming revenue, net exposure, marketing spend. The signal is that Stake sits near the top of crypto gaming by volume and visibility. Ed Craven, in particular, has been profiled as a standout young founder whose net worth became a story of its own. Those headlines matter less than the operational realities: this is a high‑margin business when risk is managed and churn is contained, but it is also capital‑hungry, compliance‑intensive, and reputation‑fragile. The founders’ job is to keep the flywheel spinning without inviting the wrong kind of heat.

A founder’s playbook for regulated chaos

To understand leadership at Stake.com, forget sterile org charts and think in loops:

• Build: ship product at a pace that outstrips copycats.
• Entertain: keep audiences watching, not just wagering.
• Contain: shape risk like a bookmaker, and monitor wallets like a crypto exchange.
• Legitimize: secure permissions where possible and partner smartly where necessary.
• Respond: when things break, show up quickly and repair trust in the open.

That’s how a co‑founder pair functions as an executive engine without obsessing over titles.

Key FAQs about Stake.com’s CEO, founders, and structure

Who is the Stake casino CEO?

Stake.com is led by co‑founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Public materials often use “co‑founder” rather than a single CEO tag. Craven functions as the de facto chief executive in many external decisions.

Who owns Stake.com?

Private founders and early collaborators hold control through entities associated with the brand and its studio ecosystem. Stake.com is not owned by Drake, nor by any publicly listed company.

Where is Stake based and where is it licensed?

Stake’s brand and engineering culture have strong Australian roots. Operating entities and licenses are held in jurisdictions suitable for online gaming, with additional local permissions in markets such as the UK and parts of Canada. The company is not licensed to operate a real‑money crypto casino in the United States.

Is Stake legal in the U.S.?

Stake.com is not available in the U.S. Stake.us runs a separate sweepstakes model that is designed for U.S. play under different rules.

What is Easygo and how does it relate to Stake?

Easygo is the studio environment connected to Stake’s founders. It has built casino games and infrastructure that power or complement Stake’s offerings. Think of Easygo as the development engine that helped create the product velocity Stake is known for.

Was Stake hacked and how did the leaders respond?

Stake experienced a hot‑wallet breach that prompted a temporary halt. The team restored operations after securing systems and clarified that cold‑wallet funds were unaffected. The incident led to tougher wallet segregation and monitoring. The founders communicated publicly and treated it as an opportunity to harden the stack.

Stake app (brokerage) leadership: Matt Leibowitz

Who is Matt Leibowitz?

If your query is about the trading app—hellostake.com—this is your CEO. Matt Leibowitz is a market‑structure native who built Stake to remove the dead weight between a curious retail investor and a U.S. stock. He cut his teeth in professional trading before switching sides to serve retail. That background explains the app’s behavior: a bias toward execution simplicity, an obsession with fees and foreign exchange friction, and a hard line on custody clarity.

The founder’s lens: from prop‑desk fluency to retail clarity

Leibowitz speaks the patois of traders—fills, liquidity, microstructure—but translates it into retail‑friendly tools. Early Stake positioned itself as the cleanest lane into Wall Street from Australia: quick signup, low FX costs compared with bank wires, no confusing tiered pricing. Where incumbents leaned on clunky onboarding and phone support tickets, Stake went self‑serve and content‑rich. The play worked because the CEO never lost sight of the friction points that drive people to give up before placing their first trade.

Co‑founding and the early team

Stake’s story includes early co‑founders and senior operators who helped Leinbowitz execute a lean, product‑first go‑to‑market. Marketing wasn’t chest‑beating; it was education. The company built a library of explainers and regular market notes aimed squarely at curious strivers—a generation that watched U.S. tech giants reshape the world and wanted exposure without middlemen charging opaque fees.

Regulation, custody, and what “safety” means in practice

Brokerage CEOs spend half their time on the product you see and half on the pipes you don’t. Leibowitz’s Stake routes orders to regulated U.S. brokers and clearing firms, with custody protected under well‑known regimes. Clients benefit from SIPC protections on U.S. holdings through the underlying custodian. In its home market, Stake operates within the local licensing framework either via its own license or as an authorized representative, depending on the period and the product. As the app moved into local share trading, it leaned into CHESS‑sponsored holdings—the Australian model where client assets are held under individual HINs with a central depository—answering a chorus of retail investors who wanted direct beneficial ownership rather than omnibus custody. The specifics can vary by product and market, but the thrust is clear: explain the custody path; reduce surprises; disclose risks.

Product expansions and the CEO’s fingerprints

As the community grew, Stake added features carefully: fractional shares to match U.S. retail norms, expanded market access beyond America, and a local‑shares product that made an explicit promise about ownership and transferability. Pricing evolved but kept faith with a low‑friction thesis. You can see Leibowitz’s trading floor pragmatism in how the app treats order types, corporate action handling, and corporate governance communications—reinforcing that this is a broker built by people who have actually lived the mechanics of markets.

Growth without reality distortion

Media coverage frames Stake as a breakout among Australian‑born fintechs, with a user base that expanded across multiple continents. Even as rivals flooded the field with sign‑up bonuses and gamified screens, Stake’s posture stayed remarkably sober. The CEO talked about “removing friction” more than “making trading fun.” That distinction matters. Long‑term, it builds a community of customers who ask good questions about custody, tax documentation, and best execution rather than just chasing the next confetti shower.

Crucibles: outages, market mania, and customer trust

Every brokerage CEO earns their keep on the worst days: market surges when everyone logs in at once, corporate action chains that snarl, vendor outages that trickle down from clearing partners. Stake has waded through those moments alongside the entire industry. What distinguished the best operators was the cadence of communication: status pages that update in plain English, transparent disclosures on where the bottleneck sits, and fair remediation when clients are impacted. Leibowitz’s team learned to over‑communicate when pipes strained—which, in retail brokerage, they always will at exactly the wrong moment.

Media interviews, strategy, and where Stake is headed

Listen to the CEO in interviews and you’ll hear three chords: access, education, and sustainability. Access means removing arbitrary hurdles—high minimums, obscure fees, clumsy FX. Education means building content that doesn’t patronize newcomers and doesn’t bore veterans. Sustainability means not lighting money on fire to win a quarter only to retrench when macro winds shift. Stake’s playbook isn’t to be everywhere; it’s to be beloved by investors who care about clarity. That’s a choice, and it reflects a CEO who balances product appetite against regulatory unease and operational reality.

FAQs for the Stake app (brokerage)

Who is the CEO of the Stake trading app?

Matt Leibowitz is the CEO and co‑founder of the brokerage platform known as Stake (hellostake.com).

Is the Stake app the same company as Stake.com?

No. They share a name but are separate businesses in different industries with different leaders.

How does the Stake app handle custody?

For U.S. securities, Stake uses regulated U.S. broker‑dealers and clearing firms where client assets benefit from SIPC protections. For local shares in Australia, Stake offers CHESS‑sponsored holdings so investors hold shares under an individual HIN. Details can vary by market and product; always check current disclosures.

How does the app make money?

Stake earns revenue from FX conversions, brokerage fees on local markets, and other ancillary services. For U.S. trades, monetization can include payment for order flow or alternative arrangements with execution venues depending on the period, regulations, and disclosure. The company emphasizes transparency about fees.

Leadership timelines without the noise

Stake.com

• The co‑founders cut their teeth in game development and infrastructure via Easygo.
• The casino brand launches with a crypto‑native approach—Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins at the core.
• Sponsorships push the brand into global sports; ambassadors amplify reach.
• A security incident becomes a crucible moment; operational hardening follows.
• Spin‑off ventures in adjacent creator ecosystems cement the founders as builders beyond betting.

Stake app

• A market‑structure veteran sees a gap between retail appetite and archaic brokerage experiences.
• The first version strips friction from U.S. access for Australians.
• Product broadens to local markets and deeper feature sets while keeping the interface clean.
• Regulatory posture matures; custody clarity becomes a selling point.
• Growth brings new geographies, steady upgrades, and a content engine aimed at investor literacy.

How the leadership jobs differ—CEO versus founder‑operators

The stakes (pun invited) of each job are distinct.

• Stake.com founders manage a brand where culture and compliance collide every day. Their decisions involve a tolerance for ambiguity across jurisdictions, a constant calibration of marketing heat, and the unique operational demands of running both a casino and a sportsbook on crypto rails. The CEO function is shared, even if media often tags one face. They must be good at risk, faster at product, and unflappable when a spotlight burns hotter than planned.
• Stake app’s CEO runs a securities business under the gaze of regulators, with obligations to best execution, risk warnings, capital adequacy, and custody. His decisions are public in a quieter way: pricing pages, PDS documents, outage notices, and partnerships with clearing firms. He must be good at operations discipline, relentless about licensing accuracy, and conservative where it counts.

Each job is hard. Each requires a different kind of spine.

How these leaders talk about trust

• In gaming, trust is performance. You deposit; you withdraw; you get paid; the lines are fair; the brand shows up when something goes wrong. The founders know that every hour of delayed withdrawals undoes a month of marketing. That’s why custodial hygiene and rapid incident response sit so high on the to‑do list.
• In brokerage, trust is documentation. You see fees before they hit. You understand where your assets sit. You know who the custodian is. You can transfer out without drama. The CEO knows that the shortest path to loyalty is never making a client feel dumb for asking how things are safeguarded.

Legal and ethical considerations that shape the CEO seat

Stake.com’s leaders operate a business that must constantly navigate varying definitions of legality and propriety across borders. The presence of crypto intensifies scrutiny around AML controls, source‑of‑funds checks, and marketing standards—especially where consumer protection rules drill into VIP programs and inducements. The founders steer a course that aims to comply where they operate and to stay out of markets where they cannot.

The Stake app’s CEO works in a rulebook world—licensing, capital rules, compensation disclosures. The ethics revolve around plain‑speaking: ensuring people understand risks of leveraged products, steering away from gamification that blurs the line between education and enticement, and building a fair path for retail investors who might stay for decades, not days.

Controversies and how leaders handle them

Stake.com has faced its share: the high‑profile breach; claims filed by a former associate; the eternal debate over the social impact of gambling marketing. The founders’ responses have shared a pattern—lawyer‑clean where necessary, direct and swift where customer reassurance is required.

The brokerage has taken heat when pricing or features changed, or when vendor outages rippled downstream. Leibowitz’s posture has tended to be: own what you can, explain what you can’t control, and make the client whole when you should. It’s not heroism; it’s craft.

Stake owner myths: is Stake owned by Drake?

No. Drake is a headline ambassador for Stake.com. He is not listed as an owner of the company. He does not run it, and he does not serve as its CEO. The leaders are the co‑founders, Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. The persistence of the myth shows how effective the partnership has been at merging celebrity and brand in public perception.

Stake US versus Stake.com: who runs what?

• Stake.com: operated by the founders’ international gaming business, not available to U.S. players.
• Stake.us: a separate sweepstakes entity, operated under a U.S.‑compliant promotional model.

Leadership between the two operates with a firewall for regulatory reasons. The public often lumps them together; the law does not.

Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani: what sets them apart in the gaming CEO field

• They ship like a software company. Many gambling founders were bookmakers first and technologists second. These two feel inverted in the best way: the product comes first, and the bookmaking apparatus wraps around it.
• They treat marketing as content, not just placement. Live shows, creators, and watchable experiences are not line items to them; they are the product’s extension.
• They normalize crypto without proselytizing. Stake.com never lectured users about decentralization. It simply made deposits and withdrawals intuitive and fast.
• They absorb public heat with minimal flinch. In a world where one bad headline can spook partners, they keep moving, adjust, and stick to their play.

Matt Leibowitz: what defines him in the brokerage CEO cohort

• He treats retail investors like adults. The product tries not to shout. It teaches, explains, and shows its math.
• He sweats custody. If you’ve ever had to explain HINs, CHESS, SIPC, and omnibus accounts at a dinner party, you can spot a broker who values ownership clarity. Stake’s positioning on shareholding structures didn’t happen by accident.
• He resists sugar highs. It’s tempting to bolt on speculative instruments to juice engagement. Stake has been selective, prioritizing features that withstand regulatory scrutiny and actually serve core investors.
• He keeps interfaces clean when adding depth. Every broker can add features. The trick is not to drown newcomers. Stake’s design restraint reflects leadership discipline.

Stake CEO nationality, background, and public presence

• Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani are Australian founders who built their businesses in a transnational manner. Media coverage and public company channels frequently show ties to Melbourne’s tech ecosystem, even as the gaming enterprise itself avoids operating there.
• Matt Leibowitz is an Australian executive with a background in professional trading who took that expertise into retail fintech.

Corporate transparency: what to expect and where to look

Neither Stake.com nor the Stake app is a public company, so you won’t find quarterly filings. Here’s where reliable information tends to surface:

• Brand “About” pages and newsroom posts
• High‑quality business press (for example, Australian Financial Review, Bloomberg, Reuters) referencing funding, sponsorships, and executive quotes
• Licensing databases for gaming and securities regulators in relevant markets
• Executive LinkedIn profiles for role history
• Court databases for public filings when litigation appears in the news

Keep in mind that aggregator sites often recycle titles loosely; always triangulate with primary sources.

How Stake leaders use partnerships

• Stake.com deploys partnerships as identity. Football kits, fight nights, and motorsport deals do double duty: they buy reach and signal legitimacy. Executive quotes in these deals are carefully worded to satisfy partner scrutiny while keeping brand swagger.
• Stake app uses partnerships pragmatically. Clearing firms, custodians, payment providers—these are back‑end allies that rarely show up in ads but define customer experience. The CEO’s signature is evident in choices that favor reliability over novelty.

Comparing the two Stakes: leadership, products, and obligations

Leadership:

• Stake.com: Founder‑led, with Ed Craven acting as de facto chief executive and Bijan Tehrani driving internal product and operational tempo.
• Stake app: CEO Matt Leibowitz leads a traditional executive structure aligned with financial services norms.

Product:

• Stake.com: Casino titles, live dealer, proprietary games, sportsbook across major leagues and events, crypto deposits/withdrawals, VIP promotions.
• Stake app: U.S. equities and ETFs, later local market shares, fractional trading, CHESS‑sponsored holdings in Australia, transparent pricing.

Regulation:

• Stake.com: Offshore gaming licenses; market‑specific permissions for regulated jurisdictions; crypto AML obligations.
• Stake app: Securities licenses, appointed representative structures where relevant, U.S. custody through regulated partners with SIPC coverage for eligible assets.

Audience:

• Stake.com: Global bettors, stream watchers, crypto‑fluent users.
• Stake app: Retail investors from students to professionals, with a tilt toward those who appreciate clean design and custody clarity.

Communication style:

• Stake.com: Brash, culture‑forward, showmanship with polish.
• Stake app: Explanatory, measured, focused on reliability and education.

Answering the most searched Stake CEO questions in plain words

Who is the Stake CEO right now?

• For the casino: co‑founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani lead the business; Craven acts in the CEO‑like role publicly.
• For the trading app: Matt Leibowitz is the CEO.

Has Stake changed CEOs?

• Stake.com has remained founder‑led with no widely announced pivot to an external CEO.
• The Stake brokerage has remained under Leibowitz’s leadership.

Is Stake owned by Drake?

No. He is a flagship ambassador and collaborator, not an owner or executive.

Where is Stake headquartered?

Stake.com operates with a distributed model; licensing entities are offshore, with engineering and creative gravity in Australia and other hubs where gaming talent can be hired. The brokerage’s team is headquartered in Australia with international offices aligned to expansion markets.

What is Stake’s parent company?

Stake.com is connected to a studio ecosystem via Easygo and a network of operating entities. The brokerage is run by its own corporate group under the Stake brand. There is no single parent across both branches.

How does Stake make money?

• Stake.com: gaming margin on casino and sportsbook products, with VIP programs and volume driving revenue.
• Stake app: FX conversions, brokerage fees on certain markets, and partnership economics with execution venues, all disclosed in product documents.

What happened in the Stake hack?

A hot‑wallet breach triggered a brief pause in operations. The team resumed after securing systems and said cold‑wallet funds were unaffected. They hardened wallet segregation and monitoring afterward.

Who is the Stake US CEO?

Stake.us is a separate sweepstakes operation. It does not share a public CEO identity with Stake.com or the brokerage app. Leadership details should be sourced from that entity’s own disclosures.

Is the Stake app the same as Stake.com?

No. Different companies, different CEOs, different industries.

Practical guidance for readers with mixed intent

• If you care about casino leadership, licensing, ambassadors, or crypto deposits, you’re looking for Stake.com and the founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani.
• If you care about brokerage fees, custody, CHESS, U.S. stock access, and market outages, you’re looking for Stake (hellostake.com) and CEO Matt Leibowitz.

How the two “Stake CEOs” reflect their industries

Gaming rewards bravado if you can back it up with operational competence. Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani built a business that thrives on cultural proximity to the creators and audiences that shape taste. They deliver a product that feels fast and modern and a brand that knows how to stay in the conversation.

Brokerage rewards restraint. Matt Leibowitz’s Stake treats access to markets like a public utility that should be simple, affordable, and reliable. He isn’t playing to the gallery; he’s building a service that will be judged in quiet moments when someone needs to find a cost basis, transfer a holding, or place a limit order in a volatile tape.

Both approaches can win. Both require conviction.

Closing thoughts: names matter, but stewardship matters more

Titles can be signals or distractions. With Stake.com, the founders have never relied on the word “CEO” to justify the way they lead; they’ve let execution—product, partnerships, resilience—do the talking. With the Stake trading app, the CEO title carries a particular weight because securities law expects crisp lines of accountability. Matt Leibowitz wears it the way a broker should: with an emphasis on pipes, process, and plain speech.

So the next time “Stake CEO” crosses your screen, pause and parse the context. Casino or brokerage? Crypto rails or CHESS holdings? Ambassadors on a stadium sleeve or custody on a clearing statement? When you know which world you’re in, the answer is clear:

• Stake.com: Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, co‑founders and leaders.
• Stake trading app: Matt Leibowitz, CEO and co‑founder.

Everything else—the headlines, the sponsorships, the incident responses—makes sense from there.