Alex Rampell, General Partner of top venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz

We are on the verge of massive change where innovations in mobile, digital money and machine learning are changing how we move money and manage our finances. An expert on these technologies is Alex Rampell, who plays a significant role in building the future of financial services. A General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Alex also serves on the board of Branch, Brightside, Descript, Divvy, Earnin, FlyHomes, Loft, Mercury, PeerStreet, Point, Propel, Sentilink, Super Evil Mega Corp, Transferwise, and Very Good Security. Alex additionally led the firm's investments in OpenDoor ($OPEN), Plaid, Quantopian (acquired by Robinhood), and Rival (acquired by LiveNation). Prior to joining the firm, Alex co-founded multiple companies, including Affirm ($AFRM), which he co-founded with Max Levchin, FraudEliminator (acquired by McAfee in 2006), Point, TrialPay (acquired by Visa in 2015), TXN (acquired by Envestnest in 2019), and Yub (acquired by Coupons.com in 2013). Join Willy Walker and Alex Rampell on this week's Walker Webcast as they explore the ins and outs of fintech, the right mindset in approaching investments, censorship-resistant technology, lessons from a dental software story, the future of financial services, and so much more. Willy invites Alex to share his Andover boarding school experience, getting to Harvard and starting his little software business when students are prohibited from doing it from their dorm room. "It was a part-time thing, but I used to sell software on the internet in the 90s when this was not really a mainstream thing, which ironically made it much easier to do because you were not competing with millions of software developers around the world." From being an undergrad to jumping right into entrepreneurship, Alex attributes luck, common sense, and not being afraid to fail as his ingredients of starting a company in college and making his way to success. Alex emphasizes the importance of empathy and a grounded understanding, especially in venture capitalism. He brings this mindset and experience to Andreessen Horowitz as an outstanding investor. He also uses an example of looking at the video of Tiger Woods as a kid hitting his 25-yard drive. "One can think, hey, I'm 40, I can hit a drive much further than that little kid, I'm much better than him." or "Wow if that kid keeps it up, he could win 15 majors in the future." In a venture mindset, you have to default to that latter category and realize that you're not looking at Baby Tiger Woods; you're looking at something that will not work. But you can't judge it on the present because it is an extraordinarily easy way to never really win." Tune in to this new episode of the Walker Webcast — FinTech and Venture Capital Alex Rampell, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices