Scott Kupor on A16Z Origin Story, White House Role and Office of Personnel Management

Intro

Scott Kupor was the first employee at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest venture capital firms in the arena today with over $90B in AUM. The firm started with the ambition to build a product to serve founders and with Michael Ovitz joining the board, it took inspiration from how talent agencies operated. Today, it is part a media company with venture capital as a business model and part recruiting firm for the startup ecosystem. Scott shares the story of how it possibly could have been Andreessen Horowitz Kupor.

He worked with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz for 25 years before leaving for his current role as Director of the Office of Personnel Management at the White House, which oversees the 2 million of the government employees that don’t serve in the military, which has over $2 trillion in budget and is probably the largest workforce/HR department in the world. In our conversation, he shares the story of how he got involved in politics and the current admin, the challenges in running an organization of this size and scale, what he hopes to accomplish and more.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction & OPM Overview00:36 A Lifer with Ben Horowitz & Mark Andreessen01:29 The Origin & Founding of A16Z03:43 Deconstructing Venture Capital via the CAA Agency Model06:43 Scaling a Modern VC Firm Vertically09:16 Centralization vs. Decentralization in Operations11:09 Building Long-Term Trust with Executive Talent13:50 Cultural Precepts: First-Class Business Only16:42 Organic Firm Evolution & Partner Autonomy20:35 Saying No to Rollups & PE Buyouts23:12 The Intersection of Public Policy and Tech26:01 Transitioning into Public Service29:42 Startups, Immigration, and National Security32:17 OPM’s Scale & Enforcing High Performance35:45 Permissioned Innovation & IT Overhauls40:05 Breaking Institutional Status Quo41:59 Silicon Valley Root-Cause Math in Government47:53 Flat Communications Within a Bureaucracy50:04 Reforming Civil Service Promotion Rules54:36 The Shift Toward Skills-Based Hiring57:21 Rethinking the Value of Credentials01:00:20 Solving the Government Tech Talent Gap01:02:51 Ending the Over-Outsourcing Crisis01:04:55 The "NASA Forces" Public-Private Exchange01:08:45 A Personal Journey Through the Study of Happiness

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us