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, the precursor fund to 8VC, which manages over 1.5 billion USD and is one of the top performing private funds. Before that, he founded Addepar, a leading wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov. He is also a founder of Affinity and Anduin. Previously, Joe was an early executive at Clarium Capital, which he helped grow into a large global macro hedge fund. He also worked at 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.
He is a founding Board Director of Affinity Technologies, a stealth enterprise software company. Previously Drew served as chief of staff to Joe Lonsdale (Formation 8 Founding Partner). Drew serves as an Adviser to LivingOnOne, a non-profit impact production studio and WeAreThorn, a NGO which leverages technology to eliminate child trafficking.
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, basketball, snowboarding, philosophy.
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 received a degree in Entrepreneurship from the USC Marshall School of Business where he frequently lectures on entrepreneurship and technology.
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.
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.
Prior to 8VC, John worked at Valar Ventures, where he was responsible for sourcing and investing in companies across a variety of sectors, as well as taking an active role with the firm’s fundraising and business strategy efforts.
John began his career at Allen & Company where he worked in the firm’s capital markets and investment management groups.
John graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in Government.
Brett received dual degrees in Finance and Accounting from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Brett earned his CPA in 2006 and is a member of the AICPA, California CPA Society, and is a Financial Executives Alliance NorCal PE/VC Board member.
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 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.
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.
He previously worked on the M&A and Strategic Advisory team at Perella Weinberg Partners, where he worked with clients in the biotech and energy industries on a range of transactions. Prior to that, he worked as a Quantitative Analyst at Atlas Capital Partners.
Prior to Atlas Capital Partners, Sid spent two years working on machine learning research in the Stanford School of Medicine. His research included the first application of deep learning to radiological imagery and culminated in a cancer detection system for mammograms that outperformed state-of-the-art technology.
Sid studied Mathematical and Computational Science at Stanford University, where he was Co-President of the Blyth Fund, an actively managed portfolio of the Stanford endowment.
Stacey has a broad range of experience working with both regional and multi-national financial institutions. Prior to 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.
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.
Caroline received her B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from The University of the Pacific.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
Kacey started her career in social work, then transitioned into sales/marketing for an insurance company for CPAs and most recently worked in tech sales.
Kacey is a graduate from Notre Dame de Namur University where she received her B.S. in Sociology and Psychology with a concentration in Criminal Justice.
Yelena graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management Economics with a concentration in Accounting.
She holds a B.A. in Communications and Business from Loyola Marymount University and is based in Brooklyn, New York. She believes that companies do best by doing good.
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.
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.
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