Joe Lonsdale

Joe Lonsdale
Lonsdale in 2013
Born	1982/1983 (age 41–42) Fremont, California, U.S.
Education	Stanford University (BS)
Occupation(s)	Venture capitalist and entrepreneur
Known for	Co-founding Palantir Technologies

Joseph Lonsdale (born 1982 or 1983)^[1] is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-founded companies including Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and OpenGov, and co-founded and serves as the managing partner at the technology investment firm 8VC.

Lonsdale began his career as an intern at PayPal, then worked as an early executive at Clarium Capital, a hedge fund run by Lonsdale's mentor, Peter Thiel. In 2004, he, Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings co-founded Palantir Technologies, a data mining and defense technology company. Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009 and co-founded Addepar, a wealth management technology company. Lonsdale co-founded the venture capital firm Formation 8 in 2011, and another called 8VC in 2015.

Lonsdale has been outspoken about politics, and is an active Republican donor and fundraiser. He founded the conservative Cicero Institute think tank, and co-founded the private University of Austin.

Lonsdale grew up in Fremont, California, with two brothers.^[2][1] His father was Irish Catholic, and he was raised Jewish by his mother.^[2] He has described his family as "very, very competitive".^[1]

Lonsdale graduated from Stanford University in 2004 with a degree in computer science.^[2] From 2002–2003, he served as editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, a student-run newspaper with a predominantly libertarian and conservative editorial perspective.^[3][4] The Stanford Review was co-founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel, who would eventually became a mentor to Lonsdale.^[3][5]

Lonsdale interned at the financial technology firm PayPal while at Stanford.^[1] Although he was never a founder or executive at the company, he's sometimes described as a part of the "PayPal Mafia" due to his close connections with members of that group, which includes Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and David O. Sacks.^[1][6][7] He didn't know Thiel well while at PayPal, but the internship helped Lonsdale get a job as an early executive at another of Thiel's companies, the hedge fund Clarium Capital.^[8]

In 2004, Lonsdale began working on a prototype for the data mining and defense technology company Palantir Technologies, which he cofounded along with Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings.^[9] The company aimed to apply the types of big data and data analytics techniques used for fraud detection at PayPal to national security, military, and law enforcement problems.^[10][9] Palantir received early investment from the CIA via its In-Q-Tel venture fund, and many of its first customers were intelligence agencies.^[11] Since then, Palantir has sold access to its large shared databases and to its analysis and prediction software to government agencies, militaries, police departments, financial firms, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, and others.^[11][8]

Lonsdale made much of his fortune at Palantir,^[2] which was valued at $1 billion by 2010.^[12] Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009, though he continued to hold an advisory role and a stake in the company.^[2][8]

Lonsdale co-founded Addepar, a wealth management and data analytics platform, in 2009 with Jason Mirra.^[13] The software is targeted towards financial advisers and the ultra-wealthy, and is intended to provide a clear view into complex financial portfolios, predict future risks, and help with reporting and transfers.^[8][13][14] Early investors in the company included Thiel and PayPal veteran David O. Sacks.^[13] In 2013, Lonsdale became chairman and left his role as CEO.^[15]

Lonsdale and Zachary Bookman co-founded OpenGov, a company which offers cloud-based software for government budgeting, in 2012. He was chairman of the board until 2024, when the company was acquired by Cox Enterprises.^[16] He also co-founded and serves on the boards of Affinity, Anduin, Epirus, Esper, Hearth, LIT, Resilience Bio, and Swiftscale Bio.^[17][18]

In 2011, Lonsdale, Brian Koo, and Jim Kim co-founded the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Formation 8, which focused on investing in technology companies based in Asia.^[19] Its first fund raised almost $450 million, and the firm was described by Fortune as "the hottest new VC firm since Andreessen Horowitz".^[20] The company went on to raise a second, $500 million fund in December 2014.^[21] Formation 8's portfolio included Color Genomics, Oculus VR, Oscar Health, Plated, RelateIQ, Wish, and Yello Mobile.^[19][22][23]

Formation 8 abruptly shut down in November 2015, citing differences in investment styles between the founders.^[19] Later reporting attributed the closure to interpersonal conflicts between Lonsdale and Koo, stemming from the public sexual assault allegation and lawsuit against Lonsdale, and a failed investment by Koo.^[19][24] Koo was angered that Lonsdale had not told him about the sexual assault allegations until the lawsuit, and was concerned about their impact on the reputation of his family, which controls the LG and LS chaebols in South Korea.^[19][22] Those concerns were shared by Koo's father, John, whose LS Group had promised $50 million in early investment to Formation 8, and who chaired Formation 8's strategic advisory board. Lonsdale had grown concerned about Koo's investments in Asia, including his failed attempt to create a Korean presence for Wish that was ultimately viewed by Wish's CEO to be a competitor.^[19]

In 2015, shortly after the breakup of Formation 8, Lonsdale co-founded 8VC (originally called "8 Partners"^[25]) with 15 of the 25 employees from Formation 8.^[21][23] 8VC has invested in Anduril, Hyperloop One, Synthego, and UBiome.^[23][26] Originally based in San Francisco, Lonsdale relocated the firm's headquarters to Austin, Texas in 2020, shortly after moving there with his family.^[26]

Lonsdale has also been an angel investor.^[1] He was included in Forbes' "30 Under 30" list in 2012, "Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40" in 2016, and "Midas List" in 2021 (later dropping off the list in 2022).^[27]

Lonsdale was described as "lean[ing] right" and a "politically conservative contrarian" in Business Insider in 2017. At Stanford, he joined other right- and libertarian-leaning students at the Stanford Review. Speaking later about this decision, he said: "It's not as much about the politics as it was about being contrarian. Hopefully, I'm slightly more mature now, but I've always relished standing out from the crowd, standing up and disagreeing with everyone. If I had grown up in Arkansas, I would have joined up with the left-wing club."^[1] In 2021, The Guardian described Lonsdale as "a regular critic of 'woke' politics".^[28]

Lonsdale founded the Cicero Institute conservative think tank in 2016, and he runs it along with his wife, Tayler.^[29][30] The group has pushed for criminalizing homelessness and rejecting Housing First policies.^[29][31][32] The group publishes a template for state legislation that includes fines of up to $5,000 for repeatedly violating encampment bans and language to facilitate involuntary psychiatric commitments. As of August 2024^[update], bills based on the template have been introduced in fifteen states and passed in eight. According to Rolling Stone, the Cicero Institute "helped transform homelessness policing from a niche fixation of a segment of Silicon Valley into a rallying cry in the culture war".^[31]

In November 2020, Lonsdale announced that he was moving his family, 8VC, and the Cicero Institute from the Bay Area to Austin, Texas.^[26][33] In an opinion editorial published in The Wall Street Journal, he cited California's "bad policies [that] discourage business and innovation", worsening public safety, high taxes, and a deteriorating quality of life as the primary factors in his decision.^[34] In the editorial and subsequent interviews, Lonsdale argued that the "intolerant far left" that ran California's government and were the loudest voices in Silicon Valley companies were the root cause of these problems.^[35]

In 2023, Lonsdale, writer Bari Weiss, and others co-founded the University of Austin. Lonsdale and his collaborators described the school as dedicated to freedom of thought and discussion, and criticized academia for treating faculty "like thought criminals" and suppressing open inquiry among students.^[36][37] When asked why he created the university, Lonsdale expressed that he felt that Ivy League universities and Stanford had been "conquered" by "radical, far-left ideologues", and that people could no longer become professors or Ph.D. students at such institutions unless they acquiesced to the "woke mind virus".^[38] The University of Austin promised "Forbidden Courses" involving topics including science, religion, race, gender politics, and conservatism, with lecturers including prominent tech founders and venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen, Antonio García Martínez, and others.^[36][37] The school raised $150 million, much of it from venture capitalists and those in the tech industry.^[36]

Lonsdale is an active Republican political donor and fundraiser,^[33][31] and has been involved with the Koch network.^[39] In 2024, Lonsdale joined Douglas Leone, David O. Sacks, and other venture capitalists and tech executives in supporting Elon Musk's America PAC, a super PAC backing Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.^[40] Lonsdale has been described as a friend and "political confidant" of Musk's.^[40][41] According to The New York Times, Lonsdale is among the leaders of the super PAC, and was a major fundraiser for the committee in addition to making his own $1 million contribution.^[41]

In May 2013, Lonsdale's ex-girlfriend, Elise "Ellie" Clougherty, reported to Stanford University that Lonsdale had sexually assaulted and harassed her while she was an undergraduate, while he was her mentor in a technology entrepreneurship class. The two had begun a consensual relationship in 2012, while the class was underway, but Clougherty alleged that he had been sexually abusive throughout. In June, Stanford found that he had broken the rule prohibiting relationships between mentors and mentees, and banned him from mentoring undergraduates at the university for ten years.^[2]

Clougherty later underwent negotiations with Stanford and Lonsdale. She reached a settlement with Stanford for an undisclosed amount, and Stanford banned Lonsdale from campus for ten years after reopening their previous investigation. Lonsdale also reportedly offered Clougherty a settlement, but she refused it after objecting to a blanket non-disclosure agreement. Lonsdale denied ever offering a settlement.^[2]

In January 2015, Clougherty sued Lonsdale over the alleged sexual assault. Lonsdale denied the allegations against him, and created a website containing a denial statement and excerpts of their correspondence. Lonsdale countersued Clougherty for defamation.^[2] In November 2015, Clougherty dropped her lawsuit, and Lonsdale dropped his countersuit. Stanford lifted its campus ban, with a spokesperson stating that "new evidence that came to light during litigation" had caused them to decide he had not violated campus policy.^[42]

Julie Bort later wrote in Business Insider that the reporting on the allegations, which largely "vilified" him, had damaged his reputation. She also wrote that he had been "helped by the press" in the matter, by a longform article by Emily Bazelon for The New York Times "that depicted his ex as an emotionally fragile woman, him as an awkward bro-type, and their relationship as something that wasn't particularly good for either of them."^[1]

In September 2016, Lonsdale married Tayler Cox.^[43] Tayler, like Lonsdale, edited the Stanford Review while attending Stanford, and later worked at Palantir.^[3] They have four daughters and a son together.^[44][45] They moved from the Bay Area in California to Austin, Texas, in 2020.^[35]