Drew Oetting

Investment Team
Austin, TX
[overview]

Drew is a founding partner of 8VC. He focuses on investments across various stage and sectors including vertical software, health delivery, and biomanufacturing.

He is also a founding Board Director of Affinity Technologies, an early stage enterprise software company. Previously Drew was a partner at Formation 8. Before that he served as Chief of Staff to Joe Lonsdale.

Drew serves on the Competitiveness Council for Cerberus Capital Management. He is also a Trustee of 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.

[Q&A]
Posts
Oct 31, 2024

The AI Services Wave: Lessons from Palantir in The New Age of AI

Last month, the first company I co-founded, Palantir, joined the S&P 500. For most of 20 years, the naive mainstream view of Palantir was that it was a “glorified consultancy” – a services firm and not a real tech innovator building SaaS “products” or “platforms”. To dismiss Palantir early on was short-sighted, given they’d hired some of Silicon Valley’s top tech talent, but it was based on a factual observation: unlike most software businesses, many of our engineers spent significant time working alongside our customers. We called this team “Forward Deployed Engineers”, and they obsessed over the intricacies of our customers’ daily work, business models, and pain points. 

Posts
Oct 31, 2024

The AI Services Wave: Lessons from Palantir in The New Age of AI

Last month, the first company I co-founded, Palantir, joined the S&P 500. For most of 20 years, the naive mainstream view of Palantir was that it was a “glorified consultancy” – a services firm and not a real tech innovator building SaaS “products” or “platforms”. To dismiss Palantir early on was short-sighted, given they’d hired some of Silicon Valley’s top tech talent, but it was based on a factual observation: unlike most software businesses, many of our engineers spent significant time working alongside our customers. We called this team “Forward Deployed Engineers”, and they obsessed over the intricacies of our customers’ daily work, business models, and pain points. 

Podcasts
Apr 19, 2023

Drew Oetting On Building An $8 Billion Venture Capital Firm To Invest In Startups That Are Fixing Our Broken World

Drew Oetting is one of the biggest forces providing the financial fuel this new generation of fast-growing, super-sized startups need to make it. His venture capital firm, 8VC, has invested in startups like Unlearn, Chaos, Tome, and Ushur.

Podcasts
Apr 19, 2023

Drew Oetting On Building An $8 Billion Venture Capital Firm To Invest In Startups That Are Fixing Our Broken World

Drew Oetting is one of the biggest forces providing the financial fuel this new generation of fast-growing, super-sized startups need to make it. His venture capital firm, 8VC, has invested in startups like Unlearn, Chaos, Tome, and Ushur.

Podcasts
Interview
Apr 6, 2022

8VC's Drew Oetting on their decision-making culture, building talent at firms, and his most critical learnings as an investor

Podcasts
Interview
Apr 6, 2022

8VC's Drew Oetting on their decision-making culture, building talent at firms, and his most critical learnings as an investor

Posts
News
Nov 23, 2017

Our Reaction to WSJ’s recent coverage of Blink Health’s lawsuit

Yesterday, on Tuesday, November 21, Heather Mack of the WSJ published an article entitled “Joe Lonsdale-Backed Blink Health Faces Potential Loss of Half of Its Customers.” The article is a response to a lawsuit brought by our investment Blink Health...

Posts
News
Nov 23, 2017

Our Reaction to WSJ’s recent coverage of Blink Health’s lawsuit

Yesterday, on Tuesday, November 21, Heather Mack of the WSJ published an article entitled “Joe Lonsdale-Backed Blink Health Faces Potential Loss of Half of Its Customers.” The article is a response to a lawsuit brought by our investment Blink Health...

Posts
Oct 16, 2017

In Defense of Private Equity

The private equity industry, though much-maligned, plays a vital role in making America's economy run more efficiently. In the coming years, elements of the PE and VC industries will begin to share strategies and best practices.

Posts
Oct 16, 2017

In Defense of Private Equity

The private equity industry, though much-maligned, plays a vital role in making America's economy run more efficiently. In the coming years, elements of the PE and VC industries will begin to share strategies and best practices.

Posts
News
Jun 15, 2017

Agents are Still the Future of Real Estate

A popular opinion in the technology community is that real estate agents will soon be replaced by software — whether in the form of direct consumer-to-consumer marketplaces, or programs which automate many of an agent’s basic functions.

Posts
News
Jun 15, 2017

Agents are Still the Future of Real Estate

A popular opinion in the technology community is that real estate agents will soon be replaced by software — whether in the form of direct consumer-to-consumer marketplaces, or programs which automate many of an agent’s basic functions.

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