E8: From LiveRamp ($RAMP) to NQB8: Auren Hoffman’s Founder Journey

Описание: This week I sat down with Auren Hoffman founder, builder, prolific investor, and one of the most connected people in Silicon Valley.

Today’s episode features Auren Hoffman founder of LiveRamp ($RAMP), Flex Capital, Dialog, Safegraph and NQB8. This is one of the most interesting conversations I have had on the show so far and probably the best.

He grew LiveRamp to a $300m exit, has invested in 180+ companies through Flex Capital, a seed stage fund, is chair of Safegraph ($370m data company backed by Sapphire Ventures, Peter Thiel, Ridge Ventures) and is host of World of DaaS, a podcast and community for data nerds.

Auren is thinking of and validating new ideas on almost a weekly cadence. He continues to start new companies through NQB8 which includes a few successful spin outs. He also has a great blog post on it if you are interested in exploring different type of spinouts and how you should think about them as a startup.

Timestamps:



00:00 - Intro
01:14 - Can you categorize founder archetypes?
02:36 - Upbringing & early entrepreneurship
04:10 - College and job experiences
09:05 - Hiring for age v. experience, succession planning
19:20 - Choosing What to Pursue
29:15 - Insight for Safegraph
37:05 - The importance of community in the AI age
42:42 - Capitalizing on a successful podcast
47:09 - Outsiders vs Insiders
51:32 - Why founders like Thiel are not in the government
53:53 - When should founders transition to board Chair
56:30 - Investing at Flex Capital
1:01:05 - Decision Makers: Short Time, Long Time and Big Time
1:09:41 - Learning from people below the ladder
1:12:27 - Conspiracy Theories
1:18:18 - Favorite interview questions and evaluating talent
1:26:23 - Are ambition and persistence linked?
1:30:10 - Reading fewer books and favorite TV shows
1:42:18 - Signing off