David Haber of a16z: Building a Firm vs Fund + What a16z is focused on in 2026

Tyler Hogge (0:00)

All right, everyone. Welcome to the first IO Podcast of 2026 We're a couple weeks late getting this one out, but we are very excited to have David Haber from Andreessen Horowitz join us. David, it's good to have you, man.

David Haber (0:13)

Thanks so much for having me, guys. It's great to be here.

Tyler Hogge (0:15)

Hey, I'm gonna set some quick context, and then we'll just jump into it. So for those who are new to the podcast, the whole goal is to interview people at the intersection of investing and operating, and you're gonna see David's story is right down the fairway, both as a founder and an investor multiple times. I got to know David because, I don't know if you remember this, but Sterling and I are at Divi. It sells to Bill, and I get kind of interested as to Sterling in angel investing, and Andreessen Horowitz gave me the opportunity. That's how we got to know each other, and David's become a friend since then, and I've learned a ton from him and his writing, so we're glad to finally have the convo, David. You remember that, the Scout Fund days?

David Haber (0:57)

100%.

I also remember you at Divi. I was at Goldman at the time, so that was a wild ride, I think, through the beginning of COVID, and then obviously an amazing outcome.

Tyler Hogge (1:06)

Yeah, it worked out, knock on wood. So, hey, so we want to cover a couple of things. Let's start with my understanding of your story, David, really, is you actually started and ventured at a couple firms, but Spark's probably the one people know most. Yep. Then you decide to become a founder, and then you jump back to Andreessen, and we want to cover like a couple of the pieces you've written recently that I think are highly relevant, and we'll weave a bunch of questions through all that. But to kick it off, can you tell us the start of your career at Spark, how you got into venture, and then I think specifically, didn't you source Plaid and kind of how you did that? Let's dive into your time at Spark.

David Haber (1:42)

Yeah, sure. Well, even before Spark, honestly, I worked for a really successful serial biotech entrepreneur here in New York City, and would kind of spend my nights and weekends running around the tech ecosystem with friends who had either become entrepreneurs or who had gone to venture. It's funny, I actually applied to Union Square Ventures back in 2010 They have the famous kind of analyst program, made it to the end of the process basically. My friend, Christine, ended up getting the job. She now runs Vanta. There was a guy there named Andrew Parker who had been, I think, a principal for four or five years, who ended up getting married and moving to Boston and joining Spark. And so when they were first looking to bring on kind of their junior hire, he reached out and kind of shepherded the process. And so I ended up moving back to Boston and joining Spark in, I think it was June of 2011 I was a 22 or 23-year-old kind of analyst associate. And it was an amazing experience. We were just starting to invest out of, I think it was Fund 3 They had seeded Tumblr, I believe, in Fund 1 They had put a bunch of money into Twitter when there were 10 employees in Fund 2 And then Fund 3 ended up being a bunch of amazing companies. Oculus, they put the first money into Wayfair when I was there.

At one time's revenue, the founders had bootstrapped that business to $500 million in revenue. And then, yeah, I kind of started going down the fintech rabbit hole in those years and somewhat naively just sort of assuming that it was a big part of the economy that had yet to be sort of transformed with technology. And, yeah, kind of got lucky, ended up meeting Zack and Will and, you know, had to some degree a prepared mind for what you could build on top of kind of financial transaction data, which we can get more into. And Twilio was already a pretty successful API business and, yeah, ended up kind of pounding the table. Moe Coifman, who was a GP at the time, ended up writing the check. I didn't have to kind of check writing authority and, you know, turned out to be a great investment and became, yeah, kind of foundational infrastructure for, you know, and kind of helped create in many ways the kind of fintech market, you know, in the subsequent years.