Regardless of how well a founder has mapped out their idea maze, the road to product-market fit is unpredictable and difficult. The founders who do achieve product-market fit are rewarded with a set of latest challenges: incumbents put a goal in your back, recruiting and hiring must speed up, prioritization becomes more complex, etc.
We’ve staffed the a16z crypto operating team with experts in functions resembling go-to-market, recruiting, and regulatory, to supply guidance to our founders in those areas. We also know that founders often need guidance from someone who’s personally navigated lots of the abstract, harder-to-define, but nevertheless critical obstacles that inevitably arise in any startup. Jason Rosenthal is a main example of that somebody. I’m very comfortable to share that Jason has joined a16z crypto as an Operating Partner.
Jason has spent greater than 25 years as a web entrepreneur and executive, including greater than 10 years as a startup CEO, and his profession has been dedicated to the event of transformational latest platforms.
His connections to a16z run deep: Ben trained him as a product manager at Netscape within the Nineties, and shortly after Marc and Ben hired him as the primary Loudcloud worker. As CEO of Ning within the early days of social, he led its successful transition from an ad-supported to a premium subscription business model. His five years as CEO of Lytro taught him when to scrap the strategy, amongst many other lessons, before he sold the corporate to Google in 2018. He most recently ran nearly all of Google’s consumer-facing subscription services, with tens of thousands and thousands of shoppers across 150+ countries.
In his latest role, Jason will likely be working closely with the CEOs and founders in our crypto portfolio to supply leadership guidance, help them plan for and react to the facets of running firms in rapidly-changing markets, and customarily help them change into the most effective version of their skilled selves. We’re thrilled to have him on board. Welcome, Jason!
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