Carl Berg was born and raised in a Jewish family in New Mexico. He has one brother, Clyde Berg, also a real estate developer. He worked as a loan officer in Texas and then moved to California in the 1970s where took a job running a mortgage company in Sunnyvale, California. In California, he partnered with real estate agent, John A. Sobrato, and pooling their owned capital, founded Midtown Realty. In 1979, they re-focused their Business on building industrial campuses for the tech industry.