In 2019, Ben Horowitz published one of my favorite blog posts, The Map and The Terrain. The post highlights the importance of a tight relationship between a CEO and their CFO. In early-stage startups, having a finance leader who complements the CEO in planning and executing the business is absolutely essential. As I often joke (although it’s also true), the number-one reason companies go out of business is running out of money.
For many CEOs, the CFO is more than just the money person — they are the consigliere, the one other person in the company who knows everything going on and can be a sounding board or weigh in on important decisions. And there are few people you’d rather have in that role than Brian Roberts.
Our firm has had the privilege of knowing Brian for more than a decade. While we knew him earlier as a friend of the firm, we began to closely work with Brian in 2014 when he became Lyft’s CFO. You have to remember what the world was like back then: Today, we all know Lyft as a great company that went through an IPO, but 10 years ago was a different time. Lyft was a capital-eating machine that needed to navigate some incredibly challenging moments before ultimately becoming a global mobility company. Thankfully, Lyft had Brian to guide it through all of these critical moments.
He also helped the company scale revenue from less than $50 million to more than $3.5 billion, and raise more than $7 billion in capital — including its 2019 IPO. Growing that kind of revenue and raising that kind of capital is uncharted territory for all but a few CFOs.
More recently, as CFO at Splunk, Brian helped more than double free cash flow to $1 billion and grow ARR to $4.2 billion. This performance culminated in Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk for $28 billion earlier this year.
Brian’s experience spans more than 30 years, including key roles at Microsoft and Walmart. At Microsoft, Brian led the corporate development organization that was responsible for global M&A. At Walmart, he led strategy and business development for Walmart’s eCommerce business. He also spent more than a dozen years as an investment banker, most recently as senior managing director at Evercore.
Brian Roberts occupies rarified air as an expert executive and company-builder, and we’re thrilled to announce he is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a General Partner working across our American Dynamism and AI Apps funds. We’re even more pleased that founders will be able to work with Brian as a board member as they build category-defining companies.
