Kevin Hartz
Co-Founder & General Partner, A* · 3 appearances on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
founderinvestorexecutive@kevinhartz ↗LinkedIn ↗a-star.co ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗
Kevin Hartz is an entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Eventbrite, serving as CEO for 11 years, and co-founded Xoom. As an angel and venture investor, he made notable early investments in breakout tech companies including PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, SpaceX, and Ramp.
8 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 9 not checkable as stated how the 19 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
7 predictions · 12 assertions · 9 opinions · 16 insights · 14 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 19 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 10 are resolved, and 9 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Kevin argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Their most notable contradicted claim
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →
redirected or did not address 2 of 25 assessed questions (8%). Watch them ▸
This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →
How they sound: speaking style how? →
220 words/min while actually speaking · 20.8 um and uh per 1k words · 27.2 false starts per 1k · 41.8% of pauses land inside a clause
Measured by listening to the audio itself: 10,085 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 3 rated episodes:
Everything Kevin Hartz said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
The other half of the tape: Kevin Hartz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 67 times in 15 episodes on 20VC. 8 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 45Miles Dieffenbach 7Julia Hartz 7Maggie Hott 2Dylan Serota 2Joe Lonsdale 1Elad Gil 1Andrew Dudum 1
Statements about Kevin Hartz, by other people (8)
Every mention by year
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2024 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2022 2 mentions in 1 episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Sequoia's Roelof Botha on His Biggest Lessons Working Alongside Don Valentine, Mike Moritz and Doug Leone, Leading Sequoia's US Business and What Sequoia Do To Retain Their Edge at the Top & The Crucible Moments That Define Startup Success
- 20VC: Cyan Banister on Her Relationship To Money, Risk, Her Investment Decision-Making Process, Why We Will See A Reckoning in the Early Stage Market, Her Biggest Takeaways from HQ Trivia & The Future of Silicon Valley
- 20VC: Gusto Co-Founder, Tomer London on Why Most Founders Approach Fundraising With The Wrong Mindset Today, How To Construct A Values/Motivation Alignment Test To Determine The Right Investors For You & Why Delight Is So Crucial To The Success of Any Con
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2018 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Why Founders Must Use VCs as a Barometer, How to Make Distributed Teams Work Successfully & The Biggest Mistake People Make Early In Their Career with Dylan Serota, Founder @ Terminal
- 20VC: Hims' Andrew Dudum on The Scaling Playbook of The Fastest Growing Mens Wellness Brand, How To Be Truly Innovative In Today's World of Online Marketing & Raising at a $200m Valuation within Year 1
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 39 mentions in 3 episodes 13 per episode
- 20VC: Eventbrite Founder, Julia Hartz on The Lessons Learned Scaling Eventbrite to Unicorn Valuation & $3Bn in Gross Ticket Sales
- 20VC: Founders Fund's Chief Scientist on Why AI Is Mostly A Scam, Why The Value of Large Datasets Is Mostly Overplayed & The Societal Effects of 4m Truck Drivers Being Unemployed with Aaron Vandevender
- 20VC: Elad Gil on Becoming One of Silicon Valleys Top Angels, Why Most People Get Market Sizing Wrong & Should VC Services Always Be Bundled Together?
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
Appearances (3)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Kevin Hartz: "How I Lost Airbnb at Seed Because of an Exploding Term Sheet" | E1180 · 20VC | Jul 22, 2024 | 45m |
| 20VC: SPACs. What Are They? Why Now? How Do They Change The Venture Landscape? Are They Be | Aug 31, 2020 | 19m |
| 20VC: Founders Fund's Kevin Hartz on Why Investing In Silicon Valley Is Broken & Why Fearl | May 22, 2017 | 12m |