Joe was an early institutional investor in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus, Illumio, Virgin Hyperloop One, RelateIQ, ZenReach, Color Genomics and uBiome, and in 2016 and 2017 was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List.

Joe is a co-founder of Palantir, a multi-billion dollar global software company best known for its work in defense and finance.  Most recently, he was a founding partner at Formation 8, one of the top performing private funds and the precursor to 8VC. Together, these funds manage total committed capital of over $2.7 billion.  Before that, he founded Addepar, which has over $1 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which modernizes various processes for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies.  He is also a founder of Affinity, Anduin and Esper.  Previously, Joe was an early executive at Clarium Capital, which he helped grow into a large global macro hedge fund. He also worked with PayPal while he was at Stanford.

Joe and his wife Tayler are active in a variety of philanthropic and mission-driven pursuits involving public policy and liberty, classical arts, and healthcare innovation. In addition to supporting various nonprofit organizations such as Thorn, an NGO which leverages technology to fight child trafficking, Joe and Tayler are focused on harnessing the power of markets to create more opportunity for all parts of society.

Joe received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford in 2003. He often lectures and writes on entrepreneurship, technology, and public policy.

Drew focuses primarily on enterprise and consumer software investments.

He is a founding Board Director of Affinity Technologies, an early stage enterprise software company. Previously Drew served as chief of staff to Joe Lonsdale (Formation 8 Founding Partner). Drew serves on the Competitiveness Council for Cerberus Capital Management. He is also a Trustee to LivingOnOne, a non-profit impact production studio; WeAreThorn, a NGO which leverages technology to eliminate child trafficking; and the Claremont McKenna College Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Drew graduated with degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Claremont McKenna College. He was a Robert Day Scholar, two-time Bill Gates Investment Asset Management Fellow, CEO of the Student Investment Fund and served on the Board of Trustees. In college he played varsity golf and sang in a professional a capella group. Drew is originally from Iowa City, Iowa and enjoys tennis, golf, snowboarding and philosophy.

Alex Kolicich focuses on IT and Bio-IT investments.

Prior to joining 8VC, Alex was a Partner at Formation 8. Alex has also worked with Peter Thiel as a Principal at Mithril Capital Management, a growth-stage venture fund, where he helped lead investments in AppDirect, C2FO and Helion Energy.

Preceding his venture career, Alex worked as engineer and early-product advisor at Clarium, Palantir, and Google. He was an early member of the Clarium Capital quantitative engineering team (with Joe Lonsdale) and close advisor/collaborator with the early Palantir team; advising on product design and contributing to the product. At Google Research, Alex worked on Google Street-Views before and during launch. Preceding Street-Views, also at Google, he worked on the development and launch of the Google Checkout product.

Jake focuses on software investments in both the consumer and enterprise space. Before joining the venture world, Jake co-founded Humin (Acq. Tinder/IAC), a consumer mobile software company where he focused on building the engineering team, product distribution, and new market expansion/partnerships. Jake also co-founded the Kairos Society, the largest and most recognized global network of entrepreneurs under the age of 25, where he sits on the Board of Directors. While in college, he founded Solé Bicycle Company and grew it into an industry leader. Jake serves as an adviser to numerous start-ups including Hired and Rubicon Global.

Jake received a degree in Entrepreneurship from the USC Marshall School of Business where he frequently lectures on entrepreneurship and technology.

Kimmy Scotti focuses IT investments and is the Founder of the women’s health and wellness company Monthly Gift. Prior to 8VC, Ms. Scotti served as the Executive Director of Business Development & Operations at Loeb Enterprises where she co-founded Script Relief, a direct-to-consumer healthcare company that has helped over 10 million Americans afford their prescription medications. She also serves as the Executive Chairman of The RunThrough, the international, digital showroom connecting established and emerging designers to the fashion press.

Prior to graduating from The Fashion Institute of Technology, she created Mimz New York, a fashion jewelry line that was sold at Bloomingdales and featured on the hit show, “Project Runway”. She is a member of New York Angels, an advisor to the CFDA Incubator, an advisor to Cornell Tech.

Bhaskar Ghosh (“BG”) is the CTO at 8VC, having initially joined the company as an Advisor in December 2015. Since receiving his PhD in Computer Science from Yale, BG has had a distinguished career in Silicon Valley, working for 20+ years in technology leadership in diverse domains including enterprise data and web infrastructure, digital advertising, social networks, and consumer fintech. Previously, he ran technology at Nerdwallet as VP of Engineering, helped build the teams and back-ends that helped fuel LinkedIn’s meteoric growth as its Head of Data Engineering, and led engineering for the pioneering Yahoo! Right Media Display Advertising Exchange. BG built his deep technology and data chops developing RDMBS kernels at top enterprise data-platform companies like Oracle and Informix. At 8VC, BG is excited to work with the entrepreneurs and leaders in our portfolio as a virtual CTO, and in finding the next big investment idea across technology domains.

Alex Moore focuses on incubating projects and strengthening the 8VC portfolio. Prior to joining 8VC Alex was a startup operator for 12 years. Alex was the 1st employee and Director of Operations at Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company, growing the team from one room to 350 people, $100mm in sales. Alex co-founded Backplane, a social media analytics company, and NodePrime, a cloud automation company which was acquired in 2016 by Ericsson.

After his operator career, Alex invested in over 20 seed-stage companies. Alex incubated Augmenta Bioworks, a drug discovery platform, at Stanford University in 2016. Alex also advises Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery materials company. Alex graduated from Stanford University in 2005 with a BA in Economics.

John Tenet focuses on early stage investments in the security and defense sectors, as well as incubating special projects on the 8VC platform. He is a co-founder and Vice Chairman of Epirus Systems, a defense technology company focused on UAS (unmanned aerial systems) & IED (improvised explosive devices) deterrence.

Prior to joining 8VC, John worked at Valar Ventures, where he was responsible for investments across a variety of sectors, helping to shape the firm’s U.S. strategy.

John began his career at Allen & Company in New York City, where he worked in the firm’s Capital Markets and Investment Management groups.

John holds a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University.

Jin-Young Kim leads the firm’s fundraising and investor relations strategy and helps manage firm operations.

Prior to 8VC, Jin-Young was an early team member at Formation 8.  Previously, Jin-Young worked at General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm, where she focused on investment opportunities in enterprise technology. Prior to GA, Jin-Young began her career in technology investment banking at Morgan Stanley.

Jin-Young received a B.A. in English Literature from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Entrepreneurial Management, Marketing and Operations.

Francisco focuses on Bio-IT investments and Enterprise AI.

Francisco previously was the Resident Data Scientist at Formation8 Partners where he worked with portfolio companies to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He was the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams.

Francisco received his Ph.D. from Stanford in Biomedical Informatics, where he was a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow. His research focused on clinical decision support for Radiology which won him the Martin Epstein award for best paper at the American Medical Informatics Association in 2014. He was the commencement speaker for the Stanford School of Medicine in 2015.

Prior to that he got his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley while doing research in Parkinson’s disease at UCSF.

David focuses on the Bio-IT space.

Prior to joining 8VC, David completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford University, where he concurrently received an M.S. in Statistics. His research focused on the development of statistical and machine learning approaches for analyzing genomics data, and the characterization of epigenetic changes associated with aging in T cells.

Previously, David was a Bioinformatic Analyst at Einstein College of Medicine, where he worked on the genetics of aging and human disease. He performed his undergraduate studies in Computational Biology at Brown University.

Stacey Olson specializes in portfolio management, financial analysis and international entity structuring and management.

Stacey has a broad range of experience working with both regional and multi-national financial institutions. Prior to 8VC/Formation 8, Stacey worked in PwC’s Asset Management Practice based in both San Francisco and Hong Kong. Stacey has extensive knowledge and experience working with Advisors, Managers, Hedge Fund, Private Equity and Venture Capital organizations across a diverse range of asset classes.

Stacey received a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting from Sonoma State University. She earned her CPA and is a member of the AICPA.

Nathan Apsel focuses on portfolio management and financial reporting.

Prior to 8VC, Nathan was a Senior Manager in PwC’s Asset Management Practice based in San Francisco. Nathan worked with a range of financial services clients, with a focus on alternative asset managers. Nathan also completed a tour at PwC’s National Office in Florham Park, New Jersey.

Nathan received a MAcc and B.S. in Accounting from the University of Oregon. Nathan is a CPA and is a member of the AICPA.

Prior to 8VC, Caroline managed operations for Formation 8. Prior to Formation 8, she worked at Highbridge Capital, in New York, as a Client Services professional specializing in loan focused funds. Caroline began her career at San Francisco based hedge fund, PFM, L.P. as a research assistant focused on the Healthcare sector.

Caroline received her B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from The University of the Pacific.

Allison Pavlick works with Jin-Young Kim in managing 8VC’s fundraising and investor relations strategy.

Prior to her time at 8VC, Allison worked in investor relations and business development at The Blackstone Group, one of the world’s leading investment firms. Previously, she focused on corporate development and internal strategy at Bloomberg. Allison began her career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch, where she specialized in the consumer staples sector.

Allison is a graduate from Penn State University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in finance.

Zach Rivkin is Chief of Staff to Joe Lonsdale, focusing on corporate strategy, talent acquisition, and company building.

Prior to 8VC, Zach was a senior investment associate at Bridgewater Associates where he focused on market impact and financial companies. He previously worked on the equity derivatives desk at Goldman Sachs, modeling and trading long dated options.

Zach received a BS in Mathematics from Caltech, where he was student body president.

Robin is the Director of Joe’s Executive Office. She started working for him as his Executive Assistant at Addepar in 2011, but spends the majority of her time at 8VC and on the logistical operations of his daily life and travels. Robin has been supporting C-Level executives in various industries for over ten years, at such companies at Hotel Nikko, The Pacific Maritime Association, All Nippon Airlines, and Sumitomo-Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Her philanthropy work involves helping alleviate local hunger issues at the San Francisco Food Bank.

Robin received her B.A. from UCLA in Japanese Language and Linguistics.

Deny focuses on adding value to our companies through design mentorship, hiring, product feedback, and being a conduit to help teams overcome design challenges.

Deny is the founder of Whitespace, a startup-focused company helping early stage teams build up their designers and design teams. Prior to 8VC, he was Creative Director at Zanbato, a fintech company focused on bringing efficiency to private capital markets. Deny serves as a design advisor to startups including Affinity Technologies and Anduin Transactions. He is also a mentor at Boomtown Accelerator and an alum of Techstars, a global startup accelerator.

Deny has a BFA in Graphic Design and BFA in Photography from San Jose State University where he also served as an adjunct design lecturer.

Luke handles brand, product design, and web development for the many parallel initiatives being run at 8VC and throughout our portfolio.

Prior to 8VC Luke was a designer for Persista. Before that Luke spent 2 years as a designer for OpenGov, an 8VC and Andreessen Horowitz portfolio company which is the leading cloud-based financial analysis platform for governments.

Luke is also an accomplished artist. His work has been featured by Lululemon Athletica, Adobe’s Inspire Magazine and Grafik Design Academy’s yearly magazine.

Luke holds a B.S. in Business Marketing from The Master’s University.

Pranav works with portfolio companies on product development efforts.

Prior to 8VC, Pranav was a product manager at Yahoo, where he worked on a range of teams including mobile user analytics, mobile mail and machine learning. Prior to that, he worked at the MIT Media lab as a Research Associate with the Social Computing Group, where he worked on geospatial data algorithms and visualizations.

Pranav graduated with a M.Eng and B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT.

Leandra Sivess works with Jin-Young Kim on the back end strategy for investor relations.

Leandra has a diverse background having worked in hospitality, sales, office and operations management, as well as supporting C-Level executives within the Private Equity Industry.

Leandra is a graduate from Colorado State University where she received her B.S. in Health and Exercise Science with a concentration in Sports Medicine.

Prior to 8VC, Allie worked for RD&SM Holdings in Australia where she managed the day to day operations for several starts ups. Allie began her career with Greystone Hotels as a Hotel Sales Manager in San Diego.

Prior to joining 8VC, she worked at a real estate investment firm in a project accounting role.  She began her career in accounting as an auditor for a CPA firm, which specialized in audits of employee benefit plans, before moving to a non-profit organization focusing on providing elementary school education for low income students in underserved neighborhoods.

Yelena graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management Economics with a concentration in Accounting.

Clay works on writing, editorial, and research projects at 8VC. His work is multidisciplinary, ranging from diligence on specific industries and macroeconomic forecasting to humanistic pursuits in history, politics, and ethical philosophy. He works on exploring the relationship between the microcosm of Silicon Valley and the wider social landscapes of culture, government, and markets. Prior to joining 8VC, Clay completed a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics major at Claremont McKenna, where he specialized in population ethics and Baruch Spinoza. His particular interests include the history of finance, evolutionary biology, and contemporary political theory.

Prior to 8VC, Jillian worked at PFM, L.P., a San Francisco based hedge fund, as a research assistant with the Industrials and Infrastructure team. Jillian began her career at Boise Hunter Homes, a premier new and custom home builder in Idaho. While in college she interned for The Salvation Army finding resources and provisions to meet immediate and basic needs for homeless individuals and families transitioning to permanent housing.

Jillian received her BA in Philosophy and a BS in Political Science with a focus on American Government and Public Policy Emphasis from Boise State University.

Connor works directly with Joe Lonsdale and portfolio companies to coordinate and advance policy efforts.

Prior to 8VC, Connor was a partner on the market development team at Andreessen Horowitz where he worked on proactive deal sourcing for prospective investments and go-to-market strategy for portfolio companies. He previously worked on product and sales at GiveCampus, a Y-Combinator backed company that builds technology for charitable giving. He also worked as a research assistant at Capitol Counsel, where he supported partners on healthcare and tax policy work.

Connor received an AB with Honors in Philosophy and a minor in African-American Studies from Georgetown University.