A lot of venture capital firms say they will add value beyond just the capital they invest. Last week, Andreessen Horowitz proved yet again that they mean it. To be fair, a lot of our investors add a ton of value in many ways. And these events were just a couple more examples in a long list of things our investors have done to help us along our journey, but it was a packed week so I thought I’d share a bit about it here.
Pressing the Flesh and Kissing Babies
Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet Congressman Patrick McHenry when he was hosted by the Policy Team at Andreessen Horowitz. Congressman McHenry is the Chief Deputy Whip, which means he’s the fourth ranking Republican in Congress, but just as importantly, he is a huge fintech advocate. In fact, he helped author parts of the JOBS Act as well as the recently passed legislation, Supporting America’s Innovators Act. Along with the founders of Point and Branch, we discussed PeerStreet and what kind of legislation would help us serve more people throughout the U.S. and beyond. Congressman McHenry has a deep knowledge of fintech, so he was very quick to understand our business model and how we’re helping improve communities, one house at a time.
We were later joined by Marc Andreessen himself, who never fails to impress. He had great stories from the trenches, but left us optimistic about the potential for our government to work with industry to help foster innovation.
It was an honor and privilege to take part in the conversation and I look forward to more interactions with Congressman McHenry.
Lessons in Building Platforms
If that wasn’t enough, two days later, Todd Lutwak, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz who runs their Partner Development team, joined us at PeerStreet headquarters to share lessons from his twelve years of building platforms at Ebay and beyond. His insights were incredibly inspirational and timely. The topics he covered were relevant to our constant efforts to ensure customers have the most positive experience with our platform possible. He was engaging and prescient. Lauren Berson who is also a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz on Todd’s Partner Development team also joined. She left with a hat, but not before Jessica and I got photos with both of them.
Photo: Todd Lutwak sharing a laugh about his experiences.
Photo: Todd Lutwak dropping knowledge on our enthralled team.
Photo: Jessica Murray, VP of Strategy at PeerStreet, Todd Lutwak, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Brett Crosby, COO & Co-founder at PeerStreet, and Lauren Berson, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
