Joe Lonsdale (Palantir & 8VC Founder) Lunch

Insights from a legendary founder and venture capitalist

It was a great honor to host an Icons lunch with Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and the Founder and Managing Partner of 8VC. It was an absolutely epic experience, and we learned so much from Joe. This was certainly one of Icons’ most fun and interesting events. Thanks so much to Joe as well as Isabela Becerra and Vivek Gopalan from the 8VC team for helping organize such a great event. Thanks also to Asset and Asror for hosting us at Silkroad Innovation Hub. Takeaways below:

Tactics for success:

·      Identify smart people to work with and stick with them on future projects

·      Leverage past success to be a platform to pursue even bigger efforts

·      Concentrate your focus on a single project to maximize value per unit of effort. Don’t pursue multiple ventures at once

What made Palantir successful?

·       Hiring and empowering the best tech talent

Advice for founders:

·      Hire a killer team. Everyone must be an A+ player, not just the engineers

·      Develop a single unifying, intense culture

·      Talk to people about your idea. Do not worry about it getting stolen. Talk to as many industry experts as you can, get their input, learn, and iterate if necessary

What makes Joe proud? 

·       Seeing the success of people who have worked with him, both within and outside his organizations

What is Joe’s competitive advantage?

·       People – identifying and recruiting the best talent is Joe’s superpower

·       Key advice – have smart friends

·       Many of Joe’s early hires at Palantir were good friends – fellow chess and math enthusiasts he had met at competitions and Stanford fraternity brothers

What are the two ingredients to success in venture capital?

·      Attract top talent

·      Identify gaps – what is possible now that wasn’t 5 years ago, but no one is doing?

What areas does Joe find exciting?

·      AI services

·      Bio infrastructure

·      Defense

Recruiting tactics

·      Ensure the person you are trying to hire hears about you from 2-3 orthogonal sources

·      Show the person you appreciate their unique skill and explain why it will be very important at your startup