David Haber is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and was the founder and CEO of Bond Street. This collection gathers his own words from an interview. — David Haber, General Partner at a16z (Wharton FinTech).

Infographic for "Lessons from David Haber".

On Entrepreneurship

  1. On how hard founding is: David Haber: "The reality is, it is very challenging to build a company and it’s one of the most painful experiences that I’ve ever gone through." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  2. On what the CEO must do: David Haber: "The CEO needs to be the one to raise capital, to sell the business, to in large part hire and fire the leadership team, to manage the board and their expectations." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  3. On what founding teaches you: David Haber: "I think you learn a tremendous amount about yourself — what you’re really good at, what you’re bad at, your leadership, your capabilities — and I just really loved building a team, a brand, a culture, a product." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  4. On ideas versus choosing one: David Haber: "Literally this happened where, again, it was always easy for me to come up with business ideas, harder to figure out which ones to pursue." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  5. On the company becoming the product: David Haber: "At some point the company itself became the product, and that was also just a really interesting experience." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  6. On thinking of myself as an entrepreneur: David Haber: "I always thought of myself more as an entrepreneur than as an investor." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  7. On why founders want a firm: David Haber: "People want to raise venture capital from places like Andreessen, not just for the dollars, but to hopefully be part of the extended organization and family." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  8. On pounding the table: David Haber: "If that’s still uncomfortable and you’re not willing to pound the table in that conversation, then you’re probably not there yet." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  9. On firing off emails: David Haber: "I didn’t have much fear and I just started firing off emails to all the people." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).

On Fintech

  1. On parallel universes: David Haber: "I think for too long, FinTech and traditional finance were these parallel universes that didn’t talk to each other enough." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  2. On opportunities between fields: David Haber: "One of my lines that I often repeat, but I genuinely believe, which is why I say it often, is that opportunities live between fields of expertise." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  3. On the intersection: David Haber: "I think there’s a tremendous amount of problems and a lot of opportunity at that intersection." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  4. On leveraging third-party technology: David Haber: "However, there’s a lot of other areas where they recognize that they can leverage third party technology to drive efficiencies, to deliver better customer experiences, and to simplify the organization for their clients." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  5. On faster credit decisions: David Haber: "Ultimately, the hope is to be able to deliver a better customer experience to the entrepreneur and make credit decisions much more quickly and efficiently." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  6. On leading with software: David Haber: "I would say my bias for fintech investing, are those that lead with software; lead with what I would call a network." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  7. On an infrequent transaction: David Haber: "The challenge with that product was it was a very infrequent transaction." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  8. On institutions changing culture: David Haber: "It’s been really interesting just to see the culture of these institutions change and their willingness to adopt new, third party technologies." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  9. On workflow challenges: David Haber: "I’m sure we’ll get into this in more detail, but the other place that we’ve been spending quite a bit of time is on companies that are solving workflow challenges for large financial institutions." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  10. On network effects and platforms: David Haber: "It’s hard to find, but I think many of the most interesting fintech companies of the past decade are those that have true network effects or really have become platform businesses." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  11. On embedded lending: David Haber: "I think there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for lending to be embedded within an existing software product or the workflows we were talking about." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  12. On rate-dependent fintechs: David Haber: "Obviously, with this current rate environment, FinTech companies that are more balance sheet intensive or more rate dependent are going to have a more challenging time as the unit economics get squeezed by higher costs of capital." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  13. On the cost of acquiring a customer: David Haber: "And ultimately, the cost of acquiring that customer in that very narrow window of time was high." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  14. On debt capacity: David Haber: "We raised something like $11.5 million in equity, but $900 million in debt capacity — so a tremendous amount of debt capital." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  15. On data becoming available by API: David Haber: "And yet in that moment in 2013, a lot of the data that we thought we would need to understand the financial health of these small businesses was just becoming available online via API." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).

On Investing and Venture Capital

  1. On domain experts: David Haber: "It has been, I would say, a particularly fun way to invest here at Andreessen Horowitz where we have such deep domain experts across different industry verticals." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  2. On pattern recognition: David Haber: "I think I learned a lot of the pattern recognition of investing in what makes a good company from that experience and big credit to them and their amazing firm and great pickers." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  3. On lived experience and founders: David Haber: "So that’s certainly something that is, from my own lived experience, something we look for in the founders we back." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  4. On being the bridge: David Haber: "And so one of the big areas of focus here at Andreessen is really trying to be a bridge between those two universes." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  5. On which ones to pursue: David Haber: "I think it’s always been much harder to figure out which ones to pursue." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  6. On seeing a deal with a partner: David Haber: "I honestly think if I would have seen it alone, I might not have understood the gaming thing." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  7. On introductions that matter: David Haber: "Venmo became one of Plaid’s first customers after we introduced them to them and they ripped out Yodlee and inserted Plaid." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  8. On being the bridge physically: David Haber: "And in many ways, being in New York City, I try to physically be the bridge between Silicon Valley and New York or Wall Street in particular." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).

On Team Building and Culture

  1. On the value of a team: David Haber: "From the Bond Street experience, your company is really only as valuable or successful as the quality of your team." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  2. On an equal voice: David Haber: "And so, while I may not have had an equal vote, I tried to have an equal voice sitting around the table and we’d see every investment and debate the merits of any deal." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  3. On seven general partners in me: David Haber: "I’m really grateful for that opportunity because it was basically seven general partners in me." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  4. On bringing expertise together: David Haber: "I think we’ve been able to deliver hopefully unique value to the business by bringing both of our areas of expertise together." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  5. On learning from a hard business: David Haber: "I think, in retrospect, it was a challenging business, so you learn a lot being in it versus the theory." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  6. On a collaboration: David Haber: "Really excited for the company, and it was a good example of a collaboration between Jon and I." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).
  7. On being proud of the team: David Haber: "We built an amazing team, which is what I’m most proud of by far, many of whom are now actually fintech entrepreneurs themselves, which is just incredible to see." — David Haber, General Partner at a16z: Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor (Wharton FinTech; his answers).

Learn more:

  1. David Haber, General Partner at a16z— Fintech through the lens of an operator, entrepreneur & investor | by Kailee Costello - Medium