Joe Lonsdale – Entrepreneurship and 8VC (First Meeting, EP.09)

Joe Lonsdale is a founding partner at 8VC, a leading venture capital firm that partners with top founders and entrepreneurs to build lasting technology platforms.  He began working at Peter Thiel’s PayPal while Joe was an undergraduate at Stanford, and upon graduation became an early executive at Thiel’s Clarium Capital, which became a multi-billion dollar global macro hedge fund.

From within Clarium, Joe went on to become a co-founder of Palantir, and later founded Addepar and OpenGov. After operating this series of successful start-ups, he turned to early stage venture investing for himself and then as a founding partner of Formation 8, the precursor to 8VC.  In 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List.

Our conversation begins with Joe’s dive into entrepreneurship out of school, the founding of Palantir and Addepar and his shift from operator to venture capitalist.  We discuss the venture landscape, 8VC’s competitive advantage, building new companies within 8VC, price competition for deals, the due diligence process, adding value to portfolio companies, and new ideas on the horizon in venture investing.

Although we were pressed for time, Joe packs the conversation with great nuggets of wisdom from his incredible success.

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