LaBossiere Podcast

#57 - Kevin Hartz

Apr 10, 2025

45:11

Kevin Hartz is Co-Founder and General Partner at A*, a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments. Before establishing A*, Kevin co-founded Eventbrite and guided the company as CEO for its first 11 years before it went public. His entrepreneurial journey also includes co-founding Xoom, a digital money transfer service that PayPal acquired in 2015 for over $1 billion. Kevin has established himself as a successful angel investor with seed investments in companies like PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Ramp, Trulia, and Anduril. His investment portfolio also includes early stakes in prominent companies such as Uber, Palantir, SpaceX, Square, Gusto, and numerous others.

00:00 - Intro

04:25 - Kevin's North Star

06:27 - The Bottleneck to Entrepreneurship

09:20 - The Explosion of Capital in Private Technology Markets

11:52 - Monopolies and the Shift in Private Enterprise Value Distribution

15:18 - Do Public Markets Price Themselves In?16:37 - When Is VC a Suitable Capital Instrument?19:09 - Agglomeration and The Future of Venture Capital20:56 - Cost of Capital and Competing in Venture23:09 - Is Value-Add Real?25:33 - On IPOing

27:14 - Picking and Magnitude of Outcomes

28:41 - Founders and Investors as Personality Types

29:56 - Seed and Growth Investing as Distinct Skillsets

32:02 - Incubations

33:56 - Symptoms of Excess Capital35:55 - Can You Kingmake With Capital?

37:17 - When Does It Make Sense to Raise a Huge Round?

38:17 - Capital Efficiency39:39 - The Expansion of Technology Markets

41:51 - Capital Innovation in Venture

43:47 - The Endgame of Evaluation

44:33 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

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