Joe Lonsdale

Joseph Todd Lonsdale V is an American entrepreneur and technology investor. He is a founder of 8VC, a technology investment firm, and a co-founder of Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and OpenGov, and was an early investor in a number of companies, including the e-commerce platform Wish.[1]

Joe Lonsdale
Born
Fremont, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University (B.S.)
Occupation

After graduating from Stanford University, Lonsdale worked as an executive at Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund run by Peter Thiel, and in 2004 co-founded Palantir, a data analytics company for organizations in industries like intelligence and finance. Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009 to co-found Addepar, a wealth management technology company. He has also co-founded several other technology companies, including OpenGov (a technology platform for data intelligence and budgeting of governments), Affinity (a relationship intelligence platform[2]), Epirus (a defense technology company[3]), and Esper (software for data-driven government rules-making[4]). Also following his exit from Palantir, Lonsdale became an angel investor before starting Formation 8 in 2011 and 8VC in 2015.[5]

In 2020, he was one of several prominent technologists who left the Bay Area for Austin, Texas, arguing that California's living standards had eroded as a result of bad public policy decisions and that the region's politics had become intolerant.[6]

Early life and education

Lonsdale grew up in Fremont, California, and attended Mission San Jose High School. He was a two-time scholastic state chess champion.[7]

Lonsdale graduated from Stanford University in 2003 with a degree in computer science. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of The Stanford Review, the university’s conservative/libertarian newspaper.[8] Lonsdale is a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.[9]

Career

Early career

Lonsdale joined the financial arm of PayPal as an intern while a student at Stanford.[10] After graduation he left to work in a variety of roles with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Lonsdale also served as an early executive from 2002-2009 at Clarium Capital, a macro hedge fund founded by Thiel.[11] At Clarium's peak the fund grew to $8 billion in assets under management, but eventually shut down after a series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions resulting in its assets declining to between $300-400 million as of 2011.[12]

Palantir Technologies

In 2004, Lonsdale co-founded Palantir Technologies with Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings. Palantir’s software allows human analysts to explore data from many sources, specifically in the intelligence, defense and financial services sectors.[13][14] It has a corporate culture modeled in part on Google's.[15] Lonsdale initially served as co-head of product at Palantir.

Palantir debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on September 30, 2020, with a $21 billion market capitalization.[16] It announced a move from Silicon Valley in California to Denver, Colorado, in 2020.[14]

Addepar

Lonsdale co-founded Addepar, a wealth management and data analytics platform for registered investment advisors, in 2009 with Jason Mirra.[17] The company automates asset management workflows, including portfolio reporting, across disparate data sources.[18] As of December 2020, Addepar administered over $2 trillion in assets and counted over 500 registered investment advisors, family offices, and banks as clients.[19]

Lonsdale currently serves as Executive Chairman at Addepar.[20]

Other entrepreneurship

Following his initial work at Addepar, Lonsdale co-founded OpenGov, a company which offers cloud-based software for government budgeting, in 2012.[21] He also co-founded and serves on the boards of Esper, Anduin Transactions, Affinity, Epirus Systems, and Zanbato.[22][23][24][25][26]

Angel investor and venture capitalist

Lonsdale has invested in technology companies in a variety of contexts since leaving Palantir, most recently through his venture capital firm 8VC. He debuted on the Forbes "Midas List" in 2016[27] (as the youngest member) and was most recently ranked No. 36 in the publication's list of "Top Tech Investors" in 2020.[28]

Anduin Ventures

In 2010, Lonsdale launched Anduin Ventures, a seed fund for information technology companies. Anduin's advisors included Alex Moore, Steve Loughlin, Matt Michelsen, and Brian Koo. Anduin's portfolio companies include Addepar, Wish,[29] Any.do, a project with Lady Gaga to launch Backplane,[30] Badgeville, Blueprint Labs, Edmodo, Healthtap, JoyTunes, Karma, Onramp, Ostendo, Ness, Practice Fusion and Vicarious.[31]

Formation 8

In 2011, Lonsdale co-founded Formation 8 with Brian Koo and Jim Kim.[32] Other senior members of Formation 8 included Gideon Yu and Pierre Lamond. The fund had a broad mandate, investing across stages in both IT and energy companies, with an intended emphasis on business development in Asia.[33] As of December 2015, Formation 8 recorded an 84% internal rate of return in its first fund, putting it among the top funds of its class.[33]

In the fall of 2015, Formation 8 announced the partners would not be raising a third fund together. [34]

8VC

In 2015, Lonsdale co-founded 8VC with a group that included 15 of the 25 colleagues from Formation 8.[35] 8VC now manages the Formation 8 Funds.[36] As of 2018, 8VC manages roughly $3 billion in assets.[37]

While 8VC is a generalist fund, it has invested heavily in the biotechnology, healthcare, and logistics industries.[38] The firm argues in its biotechnology white paper that its investment strategy is premised “recent progress in genetic engineering, electronic medical records, and DNA sequencing".[39]

8VC's portfolio companies include Synthego, Joby Aviation, Deliverr, Common, Asana,[40] IDx,[41] Orca, Cityblock,[42] The Boring Company, Vector, Honor, Flexport, Epirus,[43] and Anduril.[44]

Cicero Institute

In 2018, Lonsdale started the Cicero Institute, a policy group that delivers "entrepreneurial solutions to public problems."[45][46] The Cicero Institute campaigns for laws that allow private competition in government areas such as health care, housing, and education.[47]

Relocation to Texas

In November 2020, Lonsdale announced that he was moving his family and 8VC from the Bay Area to Austin, Texas.[48] In an opinion editorial published in The Wall Street Journal, he cited California's "bad policies [that] discourage business and innovation", worsening public safety, high taxes, and a deteriorating quality of life as the primary factors in his decision.[49] In the editorial and subsequent interviews, Lonsdale argued that the "intolerant far left" that run California's government and are the loudest voices in Silicon Valley companies are the root cause of these problems.[50]

Philanthropy

Lonsdale and his wife Tayler are active in a variety of philanthropic and mission-driven pursuits. Lonsdale is a board member and adviser to Thorn, a non-profit founded by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, which partners with innovative technology companies to prevent child-trafficking and child pornography.[51][52]

Lonsdale also served on the Board of Strive for College[53] and was the founding Chairman of The Seasteading Institute.[54] He was previously the Chairman of California Common Sense (“CACS.org”), a non-partisan non-profit dedicated to opening government to the public, developing data-driven policy analysis, and educating citizens about how government works.[55] In July 2010, CACS.org launched a data transparency portal.[56] He is also involved with Argive, which is dedicated to regulatory transparency and accessibility.[57]

Controversies

On January 27, 2015, former Stanford University student Ellie Clougherty filed a lawsuit against Lonsdale accusing him of rape and sexual and emotional abuse.[58] Lonsdale denied the claims and filed a counter suit against Clougherty.[59] Stanford University banned Lonsdale from campus as a result of the allegation.[60] Clougherty dropped all of her legal claims against Lonsdale in a court filing on November 2, 2015. Lonsdale also dropped his counterclaims.[61] Stanford University investigators, citing evidence uncovered during discovery, said Lonsdale did not violate Stanford's sexual harassment policies and lifted the ban from its campus.[60]

Family

In September 2016, Lonsdale married Tayler Cox.[62]

References
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