A conversational interview with Kevin Hartz covering his early-stage investing (Pinterest at seed, Uber at Series B around a $300M valuation, angel investing in Airbnb and Sequoia round involvement, early Zoom funding) and personal background (born in Berkeley, grew up in Orinda). The excerpt includes a sponsor message from Semianalysis.
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You also back Pinterest and Uber and a variety of food companies.
Pinterest at the seed and then Uber. That was the series B. It was the 300 million valuation. So not seed, but not complaining.
You had this little challenge with Brian Chesky at Airbnb in terms of whose revenue would grow faster and faster.
I was an angel investor in Airbnb. I invested in the Sequoia round. When they came out of yc, I got to know Brian, Nate and Joe as soon as, like, those network effects took hold, the numbers just so skyrocketed.
I think you guys were processing multiple billions.
We had taken our first seed round from Peter for Zoom and then Roloff and Pierre led our round. It was Raw's first deal at Sequoia. I think his second was YouTube. Yeah.
Were you making bombs as well in some fashion?
Yeah, yeah. You know, like. Yeah, absolutely.
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Bit of a picture about your childhood.
What was it like growing up?
Where'd you grow up?
It was in the East Bay.
I'll start somewhat far back. I was born in Berkeley in Alta Bates Hospital. Grew up in the East Bay. East Bay of the Bay Area and grew up like, not on the Berkeley side, which is like kind of the cool hipster side on the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel, which is like this WASPy, you know, middle class, idyllic little neighborhood. Neighborhoods and towns. In a town called Orinda.
Do you have very many friends or what was it like growing up there?
Yeah, I mean, it was. It was like a idyllic childhood, you know, just like what you would expect in a very Americana childhood and still have, like, you know, very, very close friends to this day. In fact, we're all on Kakao Chat, which is the Korean chat, because you're on that now. I'm on that now and active on a daily basis. And I'm. I'm on Kakao because our close friend. Jeff is in Korea. He's an expat. And. And we all stay close on this at Korea. I haven't heard of Korea. How chat. Yeah, it's. So it's you, Jeff and who else is there in. In a group of others from Miramani is the name of the high school. Other high school friends, Andy and Derek and Tommy and. And Steve.
And your dad was into politics, as I mentioned before, and obviously, you know, you grew up with that sort of environment. Were there any values instilled in you?
Yeah, my, my parents, actually my mom and dad met at a political function in San Francisco at a Democratic Party function. You know, we were like, naturally, the Democrats in Orinda at that time. Orinda was like only cons, you know, only Republicans. And we were like the one standout, weird, strange liberals in town. You know, I think because of that, I kind of grew up very politically active, worked on the different campaigns.
