Hunter Walk, Homebrew

**SPEAKER_1** (0:06)
Welcome to Origins, a podcast about the money behind the money.
This podcast is created by Notation Capital, a pre-seed venture firm. We invest in amazing technical teams in New York at the infancy of an idea. You can find us on Twitter at Notation Capital. This season is sponsored by our friends at Silicon Valley Bank, a member of the FDIC. SVB is the bank of the world's most innovative companies and their investors, with a dedicated practice for emerging managers. Learn more about Silicon Valley Bank Services at svb.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:47)
Hunter Walk is a co-founder and partner at Homebrew, a seed-stage venture capital firm investing in the bottoms-up economy. He previously was head of product at YouTube, and before that, head of product and on the founding team of Second Life. He's an active blogger, and you can find him on Twitter at Homebrew or at Hunter Walk.
What's up, Hunter?

**Hunter Walk** (1:07)
Hey, guys.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:07)
What's going on?

**Hunter Walk** (1:09)
Should we set the scene for people?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:11)
They can't see that beard, but it is.

**Hunter Walk** (1:12)
It's my rally beard.
I usually shave every two to three weeks. This is six weeks of growth. I'm not sure when people will listen to this, but right now, as we're taping it, it's about a month till the election.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:22)
Oh, is that what the rally's about?

**Hunter Walk** (1:23)
The rally, and I'm going to either, day after the election, I'm either shaving or never shaving again.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:28)
God.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:30)
I mean, I really, I worry for the never shaving again world, but I kind of want to see it actually like a year from now.

**Hunter Walk** (1:38)
That's either so I can pass as Canadian or walk the streets with an end is near sign.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:42)
It'll serve you well in the, you know, your shack in the woods.

**Hunter Walk** (1:45)
Exactly.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:48)
It might make it harder to raise fun three.

**Hunter Walk** (1:51)
I think I know what the LP is want for me.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:54)
Okay.

**Hunter Walk** (1:55)
They want a little wild. I'm the X factor.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:59)
Love it.

**Hunter Walk** (2:00)
Satya. Stable.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:02)
He's got some beard.

**Hunter Walk** (2:03)
I'm staying in survival. I'm the X factor.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:05)
He's got some beard growth though.

**Hunter Walk** (2:07)
Oh yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:07)
Yeah.
Yeah. Is that a part of the, is that a part of the homebrew site?

**Hunter Walk** (2:12)
No, we share facial hair.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:13)
Okay.

**Hunter Walk** (2:14)
We share a bedroom when we travel and we share facial hair. I have a homebrew tattoo. He doesn't.
What? You didn't know that? Where's the commitment? Oh, okay. You know, I did. You just didn't know he did. Yeah. It's my thing.
It's on my right shoulder.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:28)
I'm, I couldn't tell if that was fake or not. That's real. It's real.

**Hunter Walk** (2:31)
I've never used it to win a deal, but it'll come out of some hold it in reserve. Yeah. You think you're committed.
This is commitment.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:38)
Do you guys actually share a room when you travel?

**Hunter Walk** (2:40)
Yeah. Cause we don't travel much.
And when we do, it's like a hotel room. We like hanging out. We do too. We like each other.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:46)
Yeah. We do too.
We've gone above and beyond recently and gotten the Airbnb in Oakland, where we each have our own separate bedrooms. It's very luxurious.

**Hunter Walk** (2:59)
But you are ready for fun too.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:00)
Yeah. But usually we do the hotel room.
Hunter, thank you so much for joining us.

**Hunter Walk** (3:07)
Of course.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:08)
We're really excited to have you.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:10)
Could you just give us a brief background pre-Homebrew?

**Hunter Walk** (3:17)
Absolutely. So, we're taping this in New York, where I'm originally from, moved out west for grad school, and then was sort of birthed into Internet 1 in 2000
I emerged from grad school with sort of a better understanding of myself, which included sort of like, how was I going to make career decisions? What I decided was, I wanted to work on projects that I'd be happy to put on my tombstone, right? They were sort of representative of who I was, not just kind of a job. I wanted to look for opportunities where I thought like, I could uniquely make a difference, and I didn't want to separate personal and professional, like what you got was what you got. That led me to, I got introduced to this guy, Philip Rosedale, who was starting a virtual world project called Second Life, and it was him and a few engineers, and I came on as sort of the first non-engineer. I had been excited about what technology, how technology was changing play and changing creativity from sort of a offline consumption experience to an online creative one.