Josh Kushner - Concentration and Conviction - [Invest Like the Best, EP.459]
This is my second conversation with Josh Kushner, founder and managing partner of Thrive Capital.
I recorded this conversation in October after publishing the Colossus cover story about him and Thrive. Given the overwhelming response, we created some breathing room before releasing it.
Josh started Thrive in 2011. The firm now manages approximately $50 billion with a very small investment team. What makes Thrive different is how concentrated they are and how involved they get with their portfolio companies.
We cover the iconic investments that defined Thrive: Instagram, Stripe, GitHub, and spend a lot of time on OpenAI. Josh explains how Thrive thinks about investing today and the three categories they're currently focused on.
Josh also talks about building the firm, why they keep the team small, and what he's learned from A24 about enabling artists to do their best work.
He shares personal stories that shaped him, including his grandmother's experience surviving the Holocaust, and lessons from Stan Druckenmiller, Jon Winkelried, and others at formative moments in Thrive's history.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:02:43) Intro: Josh Kushner
(00:03:46) How Thrive Has Changed Since 2023
(00:05:18) Thrive’s Entrepreneurial Culture
(00:12:22) The Power of Small Teams
(00:13:35) Sponsors
(00:14:35) Concentration as Differentiation
(00:16:16) The Github Deal
(00:18:08) Lesson from Stan Druckenmiller
(00:20:37) Leading Stripe’s $50 Billion Round
(00:23:16) Instagram: Doubling an Investment in Days
(00:25:43) Isomorphic: Thrive as an Enabling Technology
(00:27:04) Thrive & A24
(00:28:19) OpenAI: The Product Josh Couldn’t Unsee
(00:32:09) Pricing the OpenAI Investment
(00:33:40) OpenAI and Power
(00:35:26) Finding Joy in Hard Work
(00:39:15) Inside View of the Tech & AI Landscape
(00:42:28) Three Investment Categories Thrive is Focused On
(00:44:37) Thrive Holdings: Inside-Out Disruption
(00:48:54) Competition in Venture
(00:50:49) Sponsors
(00:51:48) Thrive’s Immutable Values
(00:54:21) A Family Story of Survival
(00:56:43) The American Dream
(00:58:03) What Artists Can Teach Investors
(01:00:26) Never Compromise Your Values
(01:01:33) The Story Behind Josh’s Forever Watch
Josh Kushner - Building Thrive Capital - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS]
Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years published once a month. These are N of one conversations with N of one people. This is a rare opportunity to hear from one of the best investors of the past decade—Josh Kushner, founder and managing partner of venture firm, Thrive Capital.
Josh started Thrive in 2010 and launched its first institutional fund in 2011. That first institutional fund was $40 million and, in it, Thrive led Warby Parker’s Series A, invested in Instagram, and incubated a business, which Josh co-founded, called Oscar. Their portfolio is stage agnostic and their track record includes many of the best known businesses from the past decade, including Spotify, Unity, Stripe, and Twitch among many more. Please enjoy my great conversation with Josh Kushner.
Subscribe to Colossus Review.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:05:14) Why do this podcast
(00:08:14) The development of taste and quality
(00:12:20) CS Lewis tweet; The Inner Ring
(00:18:14) Overview the founding story of Oscar Health
(00:25:18) Learning to identify good problems and creating a business to solve it
(00:27:43) The birth story of Thrive Capital
(00:32:14) Lessons learned from creating the first three Thrive funds
(00:39:44) Talent, recruiting and seeing potential in younger generations of people
(00:47:40) Investments he made during the early foundation of Thrive that had significant impact
(00:51:12) His analogy for investing in early versus late stage and styles of real estate investing
(00:56:22) The current macro environment
(01:00:57) Why he sold small stakes of Thrive
(01:05:10) His philosophy on what makes a good product
(01:10:10) His absence from crypto and why he refrained during the boom in 2021
(01:12:33) Thoughts about the opportunity set in FinTech today writ large
(01:15:39) Lessons learned from his time spent with Marc Andreessen
(01:17:43) Lessons learned from Stan Druckenmiller, Henry Kravis, and David Geffen
(01:22:09) Firm values he thinks are very important
(01:31:15) Vision as a key ingredient for founders
(01:34:19) His view of the investment industry in the world today writ large
(01:44:48) The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
Josh Kushner - Building Thrive Capital - [Invest Like the Best, EP.337]
My guest today is Josh Kushner, founder and managing partner of venture firm, Thrive Capital. Josh started Thrive in 2010 and launched its first institutional fund in 2011. That first institutional fund was $40 million and, in it, Thrive led Warby Parker’s Series A, invested in Instagram, and incubated a business, which Josh co-founded, called Oscar. Thrive has gone from strength to strength since then and now manages $15 billion with a small team of 9 investors. Their portfolio is stage agnostic and their track record includes many of the best known businesses from the past decade, including Spotify, Unity, Stripe, and Twitch among many more. Josh rarely speaks in public about the firm and their philosophy so it was a blast to do this with him. Please enjoy my great conversation with Josh Kushner.
Founders Podcast
Founders Episode 136 - Estee Lauder
Founders Episode 288 - Ralph Lauren
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
(00:03:14) - (First question) - Why do this podcast
(00:06:14) - The development of taste and quality
(00:10:20) - CS Lewis tweet; The Inner Ring
(00:11:53) - Founders being heroes and motivating quietly from the background
(00:16:14) - Overview the founding story of Oscar Health
(00:21:30) - Is a big business different from a small one
(00:23:18) - Learning to identify good problems and creating a business to solve it
(00:25:43) - The birth story of Thrive Capital
(00:30:14) - Lessons learned from creating the first three Thrive funds
(00:33:35) - Industry wide competition today and models for building a firm in general
(00:37:44) - Talent, recruiting and seeing potential in younger generations of people
(00:45:40) - Investments he made during the early foundation of Thrive that had significant impact
(00:49:12) - His analogy for investing in early versus late stage
(00:54:22) - The current macro environment
(00:57:52) - Giving AI companies computing power instead of money
(00:58:57) - Why he sold small stakes of Thrive
(01:03:10) - His philosophy on what makes a good product
(01:05:20) - What he thinks about the models like Mobile and Cloud
(01:08:10) - His absence from crypto and why he refrained during the boom in 2021
(01:10:33) - Thoughts about the opportunity set in FinTech today writ large
(01:12:04) - Other potential opportunity sets beyond what’s already been discussed
(01:13:39) - Lessons learned from his time spent with Marc Andreessen, Stan Druckenmiller, Henry Kravis, and David Geffen
(01:21:59) - Balancing magnitudes of capital between investment funds
(01:23:32) - Why founders choose Thrive
(01:29:15) - Vision as a key ingredient for founders
(01:32:19) - His view of the investment industry in the world today writ large
(01:40:19) - Other investment firms he would invest in
(01:42:48) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him
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