Joe Lonsdale

Joseph Lonsdale (born ) is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-founded Palantir, Addepar, and OpenGov, and co-founded and works 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, and three others co-founded Palantir. Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009.

In 2009, he co-founded Addepar, a wealth management technology company. In 2011, Lonsdale co-founded the venture capital firm Formation 8, and in 2015, he founded the technology investment firm 8VC.

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.

Early life and education Lonsdale grew up in Fremont, California, with two brothers. The Stanford Review was co-founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel, who would eventually become a mentor to Lonsdale.

Career

Early career Lonsdale interned at the financial technology firm PayPal while at Stanford. 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. Although Lonsdale did not know Peter Thiel well during his time at PayPal, his internship led to a position as an early executive at Thiel's hedge fund, Clarium Capital.

Entrepreneurship 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. 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. Palantir received early investment from the CIA via its In-Q-Tel venture fund, and many of its first customers were intelligence agencies. 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. Lonsdale left Palantir in 2009, though he continued to hold an advisory role and a stake in the company. 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. Early investors in the company included Thiel and PayPal veteran David O. Sacks.

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. He also co-founded and serves on the boards of Affinity, Anduin, Epirus, Esper, Hearth, LIT, Resilience Bio, and Swiftscale Bio.

Investment 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. Its first fund raised almost $450million, and the firm was described by Fortune as "the hottest new VC firm since Andreessen Horowitz". The company went on to raise a second, $500million fund in December 2014.

Formation 8 shut down in November 2015, citing differences in investment strategies among its founders. Subsequent reports linked the closure to personal conflicts between Joe Lonsdale and Brian Koo, including tensions related to a public sexual assault allegation and lawsuit involving Lonsdale, as well as a failed investment by Koo. Koo was reportedly upset that Lonsdale had not informed him of the allegation before the lawsuit became public, and was concerned about the potential impact on his family's reputation; Koo's family is affiliated with the LG and LS chaebols in South Korea. with 15 of the 25 employees from Formation 8.

Lonsdale has also been an angel investor.

Political views Lonsdale is an active Republican political donor and fundraiser, and has been involved with the Koch network. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute. 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. Lonsdale has been described as a friend and "political confidant" of Musk's. 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 $1million contribution.

In 2016, Lonsdale founded the Cicero Institute conservative think tank, and runs it along with his wife, Tayler. The group has pushed for criminalizing homelessness and rejecting Housing First policies. 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. , 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". 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. 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.

In 2021, The Guardian described Lonsdale as "a regular critic of 'woke' politics". He criticized men for taking paternity leave.

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. 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. The school raised $150million, much of it from venture capitalists and those in the tech industry.

In April 2025, Lonsdale convened a closed-door meeting of University of Austin faculty and staff in which, according to Politico, he articulated a sharply partisan vision for the institution, asserting that staff and faculty should adhere to a set of ideological principles and warned that those uncomfortable with his views should consider leaving. Faculty accounts characterized his remarks as a significant departure from the university's public branding as a politically open, free speech-oriented institution. Critics accused Lonsdale and the University of ideological double standards, for engaging in the same "cancel culture" the institution was established to fight.

During the 2026 U.S. immigration enforcement protests, in Minneapolis, Lonsdale decried the protesters as being an "organized illegal insurgency" and compared it to being a rebellion. Lonsdale has advocated for publicly hanging criminals to demonstrate "masculine leadership". He has also promoted the opinions and lectures of Peter Thiel about the Antichrist.

In 2026, following the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Lonsdale reposted another person's tweet that "Commies... should be blown up", writing, "Exactly. What did you think founding Palantir was supposed to be about?" His comments have led to public criticism for endorsing extreme political rhetoric and promoting fringe ideological views.

In September 2016, Lonsdale married Tayler Cox. Tayler, like Lonsdale, edited the Stanford Review while attending Stanford, and later worked at Palantir. They moved from the Bay Area in California to Austin, Texas, in 2020.