Josh Kushner
speaker
255 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Josh Kushner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
So we try our best to do that, knowing that obviously, given a large portion of our conversation has been focused on concentration, that a large portion of our conversations are us saying no. That being said, when you do a deal, when you're a founder, the best conversations are when they're not zero-sum. You want both sides to win.
And obviously the best deals are the ones where both people feel like they're giving a little something. In the construct of Stripe, the company needs to raise a large amount of capital, but also John and Patrick were so focused on making sure that their employee base felt deeply respected.
So a couple of things. One is, I don't know if we spoke about this before, but one of the core insights when we started Thrive was the perceived risk reward associated with the asset class was very different than the actual risk reward. So in many respects, my view when Thrive got started was venture as a term was mislabeled.
And the idea that someone could build and invest early was obvious, but the idea that someone could invest at later stages as a venture firm was seen as deeply unconventional. I think in 2021, there was an idea that given the amount of value that was created over the last decade, the cost of capital associated with the industry should come down.
And Thrive is not perfect in terms of everything that we did. But in many respects, my view was the perceived risk reward was very different than the actual risk reward in the opposite direction. And going back to the frameworks that have driven our success so far, a small amount of companies create the most value and that value compounds over very long periods of time.
So the idea that there were so many companies that were raising so much capital over such short periods of time, where the progress associated with the companies and their products and their customer traction were not necessarily correlated with their valuations. but more correlated around the markets that they had the opportunity to ultimately penetrate over time was very destructive.
Now, I've always been of the belief that investors don't really know what investors want. And I know we've spoken a lot about independent thought, But there was a moment where investors were telling companies to grow at all costs. And there are moments now where investors are telling companies to become profitable at all costs.
And our view is that each company is an entirely different conversation. And every single individual company has to think about what is the best thing for them. There are no generalizations in life, in my opinion. Maybe be kind, maybe be good. But I think when it comes to a company, the idea of there being a generalization that applies to our existing portfolio is deeply flawed.
So we have always tried our best to say to companies, and I think this is very counter to most folks right now, is let's actually think about your business as a totally independent entity and think about what is best for you in order to achieve profitable growth over a very long period of time. And I think that has been the right approach. Going back to what I spoke about earlier,
We have tried our best as people have been focused on the volatility of the market to say, what are the things that we think are most special in the world and lean into them. We believe in the compounding tailwinds of technology and the power of innovation. We also believe that there's a huge difference between being an optimist and being delusional.
I think we're very pragmatic and rational about our approach on these things, but we have to pick correctly.
I think the thing that I would want people to understand is that every single person who is at the firm has been deeply impactful to the firm's success. Every single person who comes in the future will be deeply impactful to our success in the future. Thrive is a company and we think about excellence across our entire organization.
And different people have pushed us in different directions over different periods of time. For example, I started Oscar recently. But my partner, Kareem, has started three healthcare businesses that are worth a billion dollars plus. In my view, he is the single best healthcare investor in the world.
Taking a kernel of exposure and making us a leading firm in a sector is something that I'm very proud of. Vince has pushed us into software and infrastructure in a very meaningful way alongside Philip and Avery. Gaurav has pushed us into financial services in a very meaningful way.
Nabil has built out our portfolio impact team that has enabled us to actually unbundle the investor and be this value-added partner. We didn't have a data science team a couple of years ago, and now 10% of our organization is focused on building products for ourselves and our companies. What's the point of something like that? Is it telemetry?
Well, I think my framework has always been, what is Thrive? Thrive is people, culture, capital, process. and data. The four things prior are mostly always going to be art and some element of science.
But if you can actually think about an investment firm as effectively a proprietary data asset, what could you do with that data that would enable you to actually make the process better, make the culture better, enable you to deploy the capital much more efficiently? And we have seen our capacity to make better decisions, have a more, I would say, informed perspective and prepared mind.
as a result of some of the things that we're seeing, and then also be a much more meaningful partner to our founders as a result.
Yes. And we build a lot of products for ourselves to help us have a more informed perspective on everything that we're doing.
I think there are two types of investors that currently exist in the healthcare ecosystem. There are those that understand the healthcare industry, and there are those that understand technology. There are very few people that understand both. And I think that's what makes Kareem so special. It's his... deep understanding of the industry. He was pre-med. His father's a doctor.
Showing 221–240 of 255 · page 12 of 13
← Previous
Next →