The $157 Billion Valuation: When Sam Altman Calls, Joshua Kushner Answers

In October 2024, OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round at a $157 billion valuation. Thrive Capital led the investment, committing approximately $1 billion and securing the right to invest up to $4 billion more in 2026 at the same valuation if OpenAI hits specific revenue targets. The deal represented venture capital's largest single bet on artificial intelligence—and the culmination of a relationship between Joshua Kushner and Sam Altman that began 13 years earlier.

When Altman needed capital for OpenAI in 2022, the first person he called wasn't Marc Andreessen or Peter Thiel—even though Altman knew them both. He called Joshua Kushner, founder and managing partner of Thrive Capital. In 2022, Thrive invested $130 million in OpenAI at a $29 billion valuation, the only term sheet the organization received at that time. Two years later, Thrive led another round at $86 billion valuation through a tender offer buying employee shares. Across three investment rounds, Thrive has committed approximately $1.3 billion to OpenAI, now valued at $157 billion.

The relationship between Kushner and Altman traces back to 2011, when Kushner was launching Thrive and Altman was advising companies for startup accelerator Y Combinator. Altman observed how Kushner supported founders at companies including Spotify, Slack, Instagram, Instacart, and Stripe—not just with capital but with operational guidance, introductions, and genuine friendship. When Altman faced removal from OpenAI in November 2023, Thrive Capital was among the investors seeking his reinstatement, demonstrating loyalty that extended beyond financial returns.

The OpenAI investment embodies Kushner's investment philosophy: betting heavily on fewer companies to provide closer relationships with founders and more visibility into company operations. By 2024, Thrive Capital managed approximately $25 billion in assets under management, up from $2 billion in 2020—a 1,150% increase in four years. The firm achieved this growth through a concentrated investment strategy that defies conventional venture capital wisdom about portfolio diversification.

The Goldman Sachs Exit: How a 24-Year-Old Started With $5 Million

Joshua Kushner was born on June 12, 1985, in Livingston, New Jersey, to parents Charles and Seryl Kushner. He grew up in a Jewish family alongside his older brother Jared Kushner and sisters Nicole and Dara in northern New Jersey. His father, Charles Kushner, built Kushner Companies into a significant real estate development firm, providing Joshua with early exposure to large-scale business operations and capital allocation decisions.

Kushner graduated from Harvard College in 2008 with a degree in government, then enrolled at Harvard Business School, receiving his MBA in 2011. During his undergraduate years, Kushner served as founding executive editor of Scene, a pop culture student publication launched during his sophomore year. The experience demonstrated early entrepreneurial instincts—identifying gaps in campus media and building organizations to fill them.

After graduating from Harvard College, Kushner joined Goldman Sachs' private equity arm in 2008, working for approximately one year on distressed debt during the financial crisis. The timing proved formative. As global financial markets collapsed, Kushner observed how institutional investors deployed capital into assets trading at significant discounts to intrinsic value. The experience taught him to identify pricing inefficiencies—a skill he would later apply to venture capital markets.

In 2009, at age 24, Kushner founded Thrive Capital with approximately $5 million, focusing on media and internet investments. The firm's name reflected Kushner's ambition to help portfolio companies thrive rather than simply survive. The initial fund size was modest by venture capital standards—seed funds typically ranged from $10 million to $50 million in 2009—but Kushner compensated for limited capital with exceptional network access and operational support for founders.

The early Thrive portfolio targeted companies at the intersection of media, technology, and consumer behavior. Kushner identified a secular trend: internet platforms were disaggregating traditional media businesses, creating opportunities for new entrants to capture specific audience segments or content categories. This thesis led to investments in companies like GroupMe, a mobile group messaging app that Skype acquired one year after Thrive's investment, and Twitch, a gaming streaming platform that Amazon acquired for nearly $1 billion in 2014.

The Instagram Miracle: Doubling Money in 72 Hours

In 2012, Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley's most successful investors, introduced Kushner to Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom via email. Systrom was 28 years old and raising Instagram's Series B funding round. Major venture capital firms fought over allocations in the hot consumer social app. Systrom recalled being relatively unknown in Silicon Valley's established networks, but "The one person who was consistently there anytime I needed to ask a question, or work on things, or just as a friend, was Josh."

Thrive became one of three firms to invest in Instagram's $50 million Series B round in April 2012, valuing the company at $500 million. The investment represented a significant portion of Thrive's early funds—a concentrated bet on a mobile photo-sharing app with explosive user growth but no revenue model. Instagram had launched in October 2010 and reached 30 million users by April 2012, growing at approximately 1 million users per week.

Seventy-two hours after Instagram closed its Series B round, Facebook announced it would acquire Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. Thrive doubled its investment in three days. The transaction demonstrated both Kushner's ability to access highly competitive deals and the occasionally random nature of venture capital returns—even Kushner could not have predicted a same-week acquisition when he committed capital to Instagram's Series B.

The Instagram exit validated Thrive's investment approach but also highlighted a challenge: venture capital returns increasingly depended on late-stage valuation expansion rather than early-stage risk-taking. Instagram's rapid acquisition meant Thrive captured a 2x return but missed the potential for 100x returns if Instagram had remained independent and grown to Facebook-scale valuations. This experience influenced Kushner's subsequent strategy: invest early but also participate in growth rounds to maintain ownership in breakout companies.

The Barbell Strategy: $5 Million Seed Checks and $2 Billion Growth Rounds

By 2014, Thrive Capital had evolved from exclusively early-stage deals to a "barbell strategy" that combined seed-stage startup investments with growth rounds in breakout companies. This approach allowed Thrive to maintain relationships with founders from company inception while also deploying larger capital amounts in later rounds to sustain ownership percentages.

The firm's capital funds illustrate this evolution: Thrive II raised $40 million in 2011; Thrive III raised $150 million in 2012; Thrive IV raised $400 million in September 2014; Thrive V raised $700 million in 2016; Thrive VI raised $1 billion in 2018; Thrive VII raised $2 billion in 2021; Thrive VIII raised $3 billion in 2022; and Thrive IX raised $5 billion in 2024 across two funds—$4 billion for late-stage investments and $1 billion dedicated to early-stage ventures.

The fund size progression—from $5 million to $5 billion over 15 years—represents a 100,000% increase, one of the fastest capital accumulation trajectories in venture capital history. Comparable growth rates include Andreessen Horowitz (founded 2009, managing $42 billion by 2024) and Founders Fund (founded 2005, managing approximately $12 billion by 2024). Thrive's growth occurred despite operating with a small team of nine investors, compared to larger firms that employ dozens of investment professionals.

Thrive's concentrated investment philosophy differentiates it from traditional venture capital portfolio construction. The firm invests heavily in fewer companies—typically 10 to 15 portfolio companies per fund—compared to industry norms of 20 to 40 companies. This concentration creates closer founder relationships and more visibility into company operations, but also increases risk from individual company failures.

The strategy delivered exceptional returns during the 2020-2024 period. Fresh data from UTIMCO, the investment management organization for the University of Texas System, shows that Thrive Capital substantially outperformed other venture funds over the past three years. The firm's core strategy resulted in performance metrics far surpassing industry averages—including an 11 percentage point higher exit rate and a 25% internal rate of return (IRR) from 2022 to 2024. Thrive Capital Partners IX Growth achieved a net IRR of 34.5% and a TVPI multiple of 2.8x.

The Stripe Conviction: $2 Billion at $50 Billion Valuation

In 2023, Thrive Capital committed $2 billion to Stripe at a $50 billion valuation through its eighth fund. The investment represented approximately 61% of Thrive VIII's $3.3 billion fund—a concentration level that would be considered reckless by traditional portfolio management standards. Venture capital firms typically limit individual investments to 10-15% of fund size to manage risk. Thrive allocated more than 60% of a single fund to one company.

The Stripe investment embodied Kushner's conviction-driven approach. Stripe had previously traded at a $95 billion valuation in 2021 during peak technology valuations. By 2023, as interest rates rose and technology valuations compressed, Stripe's valuation fell to $50 billion—a 47% decline from peak. Many investors viewed fintech companies as overvalued. Kushner saw an opportunity to acquire ownership in a market leader at a significant discount.

The bet paid off rapidly. By September 2024, Stripe was valued at $70 billion. By November 2024, the valuation reached $107 billion—a 114% increase from Thrive's entry price in just 18 months. Thrive's $2 billion investment theoretically appreciated to $4.28 billion, generating $2.28 billion in unrealized gains. For context, this single investment delivered returns equivalent to most venture capital firms' entire portfolios.

Thrive maintains stakes in multiple enduring unicorns beyond Stripe and OpenAI: GitHub (acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion in 2018), Warby Parker (public at $6.8 billion valuation in 2021), Figma (attempted $20 billion acquisition by Adobe in 2023, blocked by regulators), Robinhood (public), Affirm (public), Nubank (public), Databricks (valued at $43 billion in 2024), Ramp, Airtable, Plaid, Anduril, and Skims (Kim Kardashian's shapewear company).

The firm's portfolio generated 35 unicorns (companies valued at $1 billion or more), 12 IPOs, and 50 acquisitions through 2024. Thrive Capital, Ribbit Capital, and Benchmark achieved the highest unicorn batting average among venture capital firms, with Thrive particularly strong in direct-to-consumer brands including Warby Parker, Harry's, and Glossier, as well as consumer healthcare brands Oscar, Hims & Hers, and Capsule.

The Oscar Health Gamble: Co-Founding an Insurance Company

In 2012, while running Thrive Capital, Kushner co-founded Oscar Health, a health insurance startup aimed at millennials that promised to use technology to provide more affordable healthcare options. Kushner became vice-chairman of Oscar Health, balancing operational responsibilities with his role as Thrive's managing partner—an unusual dual role in venture capital, where most investors avoid operating positions to prevent conflicts of interest.

Oscar Health launched in 2013 as a technology-driven health insurance company targeting individual and small business markets. The company's user interface emphasized simplicity and transparency, contrasting with traditional health insurance companies' complex benefits structures and frustrating customer service experiences. Oscar offered features including telemedicine, digital ID cards, and transparent pricing tools that helped consumers understand healthcare costs before receiving care.

The company raised significant venture capital: $2.7 billion valuation in 2016, growing to $3.2 billion by 2018. Thrive Capital invested in Oscar across multiple rounds, creating potential conflicts of interest—Kushner's role as both Oscar co-founder and Thrive managing partner meant he effectively invested his limited partners' capital into his own company. Most venture firms prohibit this practice, but Thrive's governance structure allowed it with limited partner disclosure and approval.

Oscar Health went public in March 2021 at a $7.9 billion valuation, pricing its IPO at $39 per share. Thrive Capital's stake was valued at $1.21 billion at IPO. However, the public markets proved less enthusiastic than private investors. Oscar's stock price declined to $13.50 by November 2024—a 65% drop from IPO pricing. The company struggled with profitability, reporting net losses of $540 million in 2020, $422 million in 2021, $330 million in 2022, and $321 million in 2023.

In November 2024, Kushner purchased 1,055,478 shares of Oscar Health's Class A common stock over three consecutive days at prices ranging from $13.5779 to $13.7369, totaling approximately $14.4 million in personal capital. The insider purchase signaled Kushner's continued conviction in Oscar despite public market skepticism, but also highlighted the company's challenges—insiders typically buy shares when they believe the stock is significantly undervalued.

The Family Divide: Brothers on Opposite Sides

Joshua Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, who married Ivanka Trump in 2009 and served as senior advisor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. The brothers' political differences created one of Silicon Valley's most unusual family dynamics—one brother advising a Republican president, the other funding Democratic causes and maintaining relationships with liberal-leaning tech entrepreneurs.

A representative for Joshua told Esquire that he is a lifelong Democrat who did not support the Trump campaign in either 2016 or 2020, despite his sister-in-law being Trump's daughter. Joshua was photographed at the Women's March on Washington in January 2017, a protest against President Trump, though he told march participants he was there "observing" rather than actively protesting.

The political divide intensified following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Joshua's wife, supermodel Karlie Kloss, posted on social media expressing her views, igniting a public skirmish between the Kushner family branches. The incident highlighted the tension between maintaining family relationships while holding fundamentally different political beliefs.

Despite their political differences, the brothers reportedly remained close. Joshua told Forbes that he and Jared "still speak every day." The relationship demonstrated Joshua's ability to compartmentalize personal relationships from political disagreements—a skill that proved valuable in venture capital, where maintaining relationships with founders, co-investors, and limited partners often requires navigating conflicting viewpoints.

Joshua married Karlie Kloss in October 2018 in a small Jewish ceremony with fewer than 80 guests in upstate New York. The couple has three children: Levi Joseph (born March 2021), Elijah Jude (born July 2023), and a third child announced in March 2025. Kloss, a former Victoria's Secret model, brings significant media attention to the Kushner family, creating both opportunities and challenges for Joshua's venture capital career.

The family's political divisions occasionally impacted Thrive Capital's business relationships. Some liberal-leaning entrepreneurs expressed concern about working with Joshua due to his family connections. However, his consistent support for Democratic causes and refusal to financially support Trump campaigns largely insulated Thrive from political backlash that might otherwise have damaged deal flow in Silicon Valley's predominantly liberal ecosystem.

The Network Effects: Building Relationships That Compound

Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley's most successful angel investors, became an early mentor to Kushner. Conway introduced Kushner to Instagram's Kevin Systrom in 2011, leading to one of Thrive's most profitable investments. The relationship illustrated how older technology investors helped Kushner build credibility and access deals despite his youth and relative inexperience.

Kushner's low-key charisma attracted support from established technology leaders. Older moguls wanted to counsel and guide him. Young founders thought he was the kind of person you'd want to have a beer with. He seeded relationships that paid off for Thrive years later—founders who declined Thrive's investment in their Series A introduced Kushner to other entrepreneurs raising capital, or accepted Thrive's capital in subsequent rounds after observing Kushner's support for other portfolio companies.

One of Kushner's competitive advantages is his reputation for not being difficult. In venture capital, where deal flow depends on founder references and reputation, being known as supportive and founder-friendly creates compounding returns. Founders who had positive experiences with Kushner recommended him to other entrepreneurs. This network effect allowed Thrive to access competitive deals despite operating with a smaller team than firms like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, or Benchmark.

Thrive benefited from Kushner's deliberate investment in founder relationships beyond capital deployment. The firm provides operational support including executive recruiting, customer introductions, strategic guidance on pricing and go-to-market strategies, and assistance navigating conflicts with co-founders or board members. This hands-on approach differentiates Thrive from venture firms that take a more passive, board-observer approach to portfolio company involvement.

The 2024 Expansion: $5 Billion Fund IX and Media Ambitions

In August 2024, Thrive Capital closed Fund IX at $5 billion across two separate funds: Thrive Capital Partners IX at $1 billion for early-stage investments and Thrive Capital Partners IX Growth at $4 billion for late-stage growth rounds. The combined $5 billion fundraise represented one of the largest venture capital funds closed in 2024, demonstrating limited partners' continued confidence in Kushner's investment approach despite broader venture capital market challenges.

The fundraising environment in 2024 proved difficult for most venture firms. Rising interest rates reduced technology valuations, decreasing paper returns on recent investments. IPO markets remained largely closed, limiting exit opportunities. Many limited partners—pension funds, endowments, and family offices—reduced venture capital allocations in favor of other asset classes. Against this backdrop, Thrive's $5 billion raise signaled exceptional limited partner conviction.

Princeton University served as a significant limited partner across multiple Thrive funds, reflecting institutional investors' willingness to concentrate capital with Kushner's firm. The relationship between Thrive and Princeton illustrates how elite university endowments seek exposure to top-performing venture capital managers, often committing capital across multiple fund generations to maintain relationships and secure access to future funds.

Beyond venture capital, Kushner expanded into media in 2024. His company Bedford Media, which he operates with his wife Karlie Kloss, announced plans to revive Life magazine in an agreement with Dotdash Meredith. The first print issue was scheduled for early 2025. The move into legacy media seemed counterintuitive for a venture capitalist who built his career backing digital platforms that disrupted traditional media, but it reflected Kushner's broader cultural ambitions beyond pure financial returns.

In August 2024, Kushner and Kloss purchased the Wave House in Malibu, California, for $29.5 million, demonstrating the personal wealth accumulation that accompanied Thrive Capital's success. As of November 2025, Forbes estimated Kushner's net worth at $5.2 billion, primarily from his ownership stake in Thrive. This made Joshua the first billionaire in the Kushner family—not his older brother Jared, whose net worth Forbes estimated at approximately $800 million.

The AI Portfolio Thesis: Betting on the Infrastructure Layer

Beyond OpenAI, Thrive Capital assembled a comprehensive artificial intelligence portfolio spanning infrastructure, applications, and tooling. The firm invested in Isomorphic Labs, an algorithmic drug discovery company founded by DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis that applies AI to protein folding and pharmaceutical development. Thrive backed Anysphere, the company that built Cursor, an AI coding tool that reached 35,000 paying customers by November 2024 and generated approximately $40 million in annual recurring revenue.

Thrive invested in Databricks, a data analytics and AI platform valued at $43 billion in September 2024 after raising $500 million in Series I funding. The company provides infrastructure for enterprises to build machine learning models and AI applications on top of their existing data infrastructure. Thrive's investment thesis centered on Databricks becoming the data layer that enables enterprise AI deployment at scale.

The firm backed Scale AI, a data labeling and annotation company that provides training data for machine learning models, valued at $13.8 billion after raising $1 billion in May 2024. Scale AI's customers include OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and government agencies, reflecting the company's position as critical infrastructure for AI model development. Thrive participated in Scale AI's growth rounds, viewing data quality as a key bottleneck in AI model performance.

In 2024, Kushner announced the launch of Thrive Holdings, a separate vehicle from Thrive Capital that will acquire and build businesses that could benefit from artificial intelligence over the long term. This expansion beyond pure venture capital into private equity-style buyouts reflected Kushner's conviction that AI will transform existing industries, creating opportunities to acquire legacy businesses and modernize them with AI-powered processes.

The A24 Investment: Betting on Cultural Influence

In July 2024, A24 Films secured a funding round led by Thrive Capital that valued the independent film studio at approximately $3.5 billion. Kushner joined A24's board of directors, adding to his portfolio of board positions. The investment puzzled some observers—A24 is a media production company in an industry known for challenging economics, inconsistent returns, and limited scalability compared to software businesses that dominate venture capital portfolios.

A24 achieved cultural influence disproportionate to its size, producing critically acclaimed films including "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (which won Best Picture at the 2023 Academy Awards), "Moonlight" (Best Picture 2017), "Lady Bird," "Hereditary," "Midsommar," and "Uncut Gems." The studio cultivated a distinct brand identity associated with auteur-driven filmmaking, artistic risk-taking, and millennial cultural sensibilities.

Thrive's investment thesis likely centered on A24's brand value and expansion beyond theatrical film releases into merchandise, streaming content, and potential acquisition targets. The $3.5 billion valuation reflected optimism about A24's ability to monetize its cultural cachet across multiple revenue streams—similar to how Supreme built a multibillion-dollar brand from a skateboard shop, or how A24 itself evolved from a film distributor into a diversified media brand.

The investment also reflected Kushner's personal interest in culture and media beyond pure financial returns. The Bedford Media partnership with Kloss to revive Life magazine, combined with the A24 board position, suggested Kushner sought to shape cultural conversations while generating investment returns—a playbook similar to Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective or Steve Ballmer's Los Angeles Times acquisition.

The Portfolio Construction Philosophy: Concentrated Conviction vs. Diversification

Thrive Capital's investment approach violates traditional venture capital portfolio management principles. Academic research and industry practice generally recommend venture firms construct portfolios of 20 to 40 companies to manage the high failure rates inherent in startup investing. Most venture capital returns follow a power law distribution where one or two companies generate the majority of fund returns, making diversification critical to ensure exposure to potential breakout companies.

Thrive deliberately concentrates capital in fewer companies—typically 10 to 15 portfolio companies per fund. This concentration creates substantial risk: if multiple portfolio companies fail, the fund lacks sufficient diversification to offset losses. However, concentration also creates advantages: deeper founder relationships, more information flow about company operations, and the ability to meaningfully influence strategic decisions through larger ownership stakes and board representation.

The strategy requires exceptional judgment about which companies will succeed. Venture capitalists with average selection skills benefit more from diversification—casting a wider net increases the probability of capturing breakout companies despite limited ability to predict which specific startups will succeed. Kushner's track record suggests above-average selection ability: Instagram, Stripe, OpenAI, Twitch, Warby Parker, and Robinhood all became category-defining companies.

Thrive's concentrated approach also reflects Kushner's personal investment philosophy. He studied government as an undergraduate, not computer science or engineering, giving him less technical background than investors like Elad Gil or Daniel Gross who can evaluate technology architectures. Instead, Kushner focused on founder quality and market timing—identifying talented entrepreneurs addressing large markets at inflection points where technology enablement creates new solutions.

The firm's performance metrics validate this approach. Thrive Capital achieved a net IRR of 34.5% from 2022 to 2024, substantially outperforming the Cambridge Associates US Venture Capital Index which returned approximately 15% annually over the same period. The 11 percentage point higher exit rate compared to peer firms suggests Thrive's concentrated portfolio enabled better company-building support, increasing the probability that portfolio companies achieve successful exits.

The Founder Loyalty Test: Sam Altman's Reinstatement

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board of directors fired Sam Altman as CEO, citing a loss of confidence in his leadership. The announcement shocked Silicon Valley—Altman had built OpenAI into the world's leading AI research organization and successfully launched ChatGPT, the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Within hours, OpenAI employees threatened to resign en masse unless the board reinstated Altman.

Thrive Capital was among the investors seeking Altman's reinstatement, joining Microsoft, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and other major shareholders in pressuring OpenAI's board to reverse course. The intervention demonstrated investor influence over nominally independent nonprofit board governance—OpenAI's corporate structure separated the nonprofit board from investor interests, but in practice, investors exercised significant informal control.

Five days later, on November 22, 2023, OpenAI announced Altman would return as CEO with a reconstituted board. The episode revealed the depth of Kushner's relationship with Altman—when Altman faced the most significant professional crisis of his career, Kushner actively worked to support him rather than protecting Thrive's investment by remaining neutral or backing the board's decision.

This loyalty created reciprocal benefits. When OpenAI raised its October 2024 funding round at $157 billion valuation, Thrive secured the lead investor position and the right to invest up to $4 billion more in 2026 at the same valuation if OpenAI hits revenue targets. This provision essentially gave Thrive a call option on OpenAI's future growth—if the company continues scaling rapidly, Thrive can deploy additional capital at a below-market valuation locked in from 2024.

The Political Navigation: Surviving Trump Without Supporting Him

Joshua Kushner's political position created unusual challenges for Thrive Capital's fundraising and deal flow. His brother Jared served as senior advisor to President Trump from 2017 to 2021, creating guilt-by-association risks in Silicon Valley's predominantly liberal ecosystem. Simultaneously, Joshua's vocal Democratic affiliation and refusal to financially support Trump campaigns created tension within his own family and conservative circles.

Kushner navigated these competing pressures by maintaining clear boundaries: he neither publicly criticized Trump (which would damage family relationships) nor supported Trump's campaigns (which would alienate Silicon Valley). This careful positioning allowed him to preserve relationships on both sides while maintaining credibility as independent from his brother's political activities.

The strategy largely succeeded. Thrive Capital continued accessing competitive deals throughout the Trump presidency, suggesting Joshua's political positions didn't significantly damage founder relationships. The firm raised increasingly larger funds: $1 billion in 2018, $2 billion in 2021, and $5 billion in 2024, indicating limited partners maintained confidence despite political complications.

However, the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot created a moment where silence became untenable. Karlie Kloss publicly distanced herself from the Kushner family's association with Trump, creating a visible family rift. The incident demonstrated the limits of Joshua's political balancing act—certain moments require taking positions that alienate one constituency or another.

The Competition: Comparing Thrive to Benchmark, Sequoia, and Andreessen Horowitz

Thrive Capital competes for deals against larger, more established venture capital firms with longer track records and deeper networks. Benchmark, founded in 1995, pioneered the equal-partnership model where all partners receive equal economics, creating alignment that helped the firm back eBay, Uber, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Sequoia Capital, founded in 1972, backed Apple, Google, Oracle, Cisco, and more recently Airbnb, DoorDash, and Stripe. Andreessen Horowitz, founded in 2009 (the same year as Thrive), grew to $42 billion in assets under management by backing Facebook, Airbnb, Instacart, and Coinbase.

Thrive differentiated itself through concentration and founder relationships rather than brand recognition or investment team size. While Sequoia employs dozens of investment professionals across global offices, Thrive operates with nine investors focused primarily on US markets. This small team size creates limitations—Thrive cannot evaluate as many deals as larger firms—but also advantages: faster decision-making, clearer communication with founders, and more consistent investment philosophies across the partnership.

The firm's New York location also differentiates it from Silicon Valley-based competitors. While most elite venture capital firms maintain headquarters in Menlo Park or San Francisco, Thrive operates from New York, creating geographic proximity to East Coast entrepreneurs and financial services companies. This positioning helped Thrive back Oscar Health, Warby Parker, and other New York-based startups that might receive less attention from West Coast investors.

Thrive's performance metrics suggest the firm competes effectively despite structural disadvantages. The 34.5% IRR from 2022 to 2024 exceeds industry benchmarks and matches or exceeds returns from larger, more established firms. The firm's 35 unicorns, 12 IPOs, and 50 acquisitions demonstrate consistent deal access and company-building capabilities comparable to top-tier venture firms.

The Future Challenges: Maintaining Performance at $25 Billion Scale

As Thrive Capital's assets under management grew from $2 billion in 2020 to $25 billion in 2024, the firm faces deployment challenges that accompany fund size increases. To generate 25% IRR on a $5 billion fund requires creating $6.25 billion in net value for limited partners—a more difficult task than generating the same IRR on a $500 million fund, which requires only $625 million in net value creation.

Large fund sizes limit early-stage investment opportunities. Writing a $5 million check into a seed-stage startup generates negligible returns for a $5 billion fund—even if the company achieves a 100x return ($500 million value creation), it contributes only 10% to fund performance. This math pressures large funds to write bigger checks into later-stage companies, increasing capital competition and reducing potential returns.

Thrive addressed this challenge by splitting Fund IX into two separate vehicles: $1 billion for early-stage investments and $4 billion for growth rounds. This structure allows the firm to maintain early-stage discipline—writing $5 million to $20 million checks into seed and Series A rounds—while deploying larger capital amounts in growth rounds of breakout companies. However, the structure creates coordination challenges: the early-stage fund and growth fund have different limited partner bases and economic terms, potentially creating conflicts about which fund participates in follow-on rounds.

The OpenAI investment illustrates both the opportunities and risks of Thrive's scale. The $1.3 billion committed to OpenAI represents approximately 26% of the $5 billion Fund IX—a concentration that could generate extraordinary returns if OpenAI continues scaling, but could also create significant losses if the company's valuation declines. Traditional portfolio management principles suggest this concentration level is imprudent, but Thrive's historical performance suggests Kushner's concentrated approach has merit.

The Succession Question: Can Thrive Survive Without Joshua?

Thrive Capital's investment strategy centers heavily on Joshua Kushner's personal relationships with founders, creating succession risks if Kushner reduces involvement or leaves the firm. Unlike Sequoia Capital, which successfully transitioned leadership from Don Valentine to Michael Moritz to Doug Leone to the current generation of partners, Thrive lacks a clearly articulated succession plan or a developed next-generation partnership.

The firm's small team size—nine investment professionals—limits bench depth compared to larger firms with dozens of partners and principals who can assume senior roles. If Kushner were to transition away from active investing, Thrive would need to either recruit senior partners from other firms (which creates culture integration challenges) or promote junior team members who lack Kushner's track record and network (which could damage limited partner confidence).

This succession risk typically pressures founder-led venture firms to institutionalize investment processes, decision-making frameworks, and partnership structures that enable continuity beyond individual partners. Benchmark addressed this through equal partnership economics that prevent any single partner from dominating the firm. Andreessen Horowitz built a large investment team with clearly defined career progression paths from analyst to general partner.

Thrive has not publicly articulated how it will manage this transition. The firm's limited partners—Princeton University, family offices, pension funds—presumably evaluate succession risk when committing capital to each new fund. Their continued investment despite this risk suggests either confidence in Thrive's institutional durability or acceptance of key-person risk in exchange for access to Kushner's investment opportunities.

The Broader Impact: Reshaping Venture Capital Concentration

Thrive Capital's success with concentrated portfolios influenced broader venture capital industry practices. Traditional venture capital wisdom recommended portfolio diversification to manage startup failure rates—construct portfolios of 30-40 companies to ensure exposure to the one or two breakout companies that generate the majority of fund returns. This diversification strategy assumed venture capitalists cannot reliably predict which companies will succeed, making a shotgun approach more rational than targeted betting.

Thrive's concentrated approach—10 to 15 companies per fund—demonstrated that exceptional founder relationships and market timing can overcome diversification benefits. The firm's 34.5% IRR and 35 unicorns across a relatively small portfolio suggest concentrated conviction, when combined with operational support and follow-on capital deployment, can generate superior returns compared to diversified approaches.

This performance attracted imitators. Several venture firms launched concentrated funds in the early 2020s, citing Thrive's success as validation for building deeper relationships with fewer companies. However, most firms lacked Kushner's network access and founder relationships, demonstrating that concentrated investing requires differentiated deal flow and company-building capabilities—not just willingness to write bigger checks into fewer companies.

The shift toward concentration also reflected changing venture capital market dynamics. As startup valuations increased and capital abundance created competition for deals, investors differentiated through value-add services rather than just capital provision. Concentrated portfolios enabled deeper operational support—executive recruiting, customer introductions, strategic guidance—that helped portfolio companies build faster and achieve successful exits.

The OpenAI Endgame: What Happens at $500 Billion Valuation?

In September 2024, media reports indicated OpenAI was exploring restructuring from a nonprofit to a for-profit corporation, potentially resolving governance complexities that contributed to Sam Altman's temporary removal in November 2023. The restructuring discussions included Microsoft negotiating its equity stake in the newly structured entity—Microsoft had invested approximately $13 billion in OpenAI but held a complex profit participation arrangement rather than traditional equity ownership.

Thrive Capital's $1.3 billion investment and the right to invest up to $4 billion more in 2026 at $157 billion valuation positions the firm to capture substantial returns if OpenAI continues scaling. OpenAI reportedly projects $11.6 billion in revenue for 2025, implying a 13.5x revenue multiple at current valuation. For comparison, Salesforce trades at approximately 7x revenue, while high-growth software companies typically trade at 10-15x revenue.

If OpenAI achieves $50 billion in annual revenue by 2028—a plausible scenario given ChatGPT's adoption trajectory and enterprise sales momentum—and maintains a 15x revenue multiple, the company's valuation could reach $750 billion. At that valuation, Thrive's current stake would theoretically appreciate 377% from the $157 billion entry price. The additional $4 billion investment option at $157 billion would generate even higher returns—effectively buying $12.9 billion in value (calculated at $750 billion valuation) for $4 billion in cash.

However, multiple risks threaten this scenario. OpenAI faces intense competition from Anthropic (backed by Google and other investors), Google DeepMind, Meta's Llama models (open-source), and numerous startups attacking specific AI use cases. The company's costs remain extraordinarily high—compute expenses for training and running AI models consume the majority of revenue. Regulatory scrutiny of AI safety, copyright issues related to training data, and potential antitrust concerns about Microsoft's influence create legal risks.

The restructuring from nonprofit to for-profit also creates uncertainty about investor equity stakes. The existing structure gives investors profit participation rights rather than traditional equity, complicating valuation and exit scenarios. If OpenAI converts to a traditional C-corporation, existing investors might receive equity grants based on negotiated conversion ratios—creating opportunities for disputes about fair value between early investors (who invested at lower valuations) and late-stage investors like Thrive (who invested at $157 billion).

The Legacy Question: First Billionaire or Footnote to Sam Altman's Story?

Joshua Kushner's net worth of $5.2 billion makes him the wealthiest member of the Kushner family—richer than his older brother Jared ($800 million estimated net worth) and representing wealth created independently of his father's real estate business. This financial success establishes Joshua as distinct from his family's primary business and political identities.

However, Kushner's ultimate legacy depends substantially on outcomes beyond his control: whether OpenAI achieves its stated mission of artificial general intelligence, whether Stripe continues dominating online payments infrastructure, whether Oscar Health achieves profitability and validates the health insurance technology thesis. These portfolio company outcomes will determine whether history remembers Kushner as a visionary investor who backed the most important technology companies of the 2020s or merely as a well-connected venture capitalist who benefited from access to competitive deals.

The relationship with Sam Altman creates particular legacy entanglement. If OpenAI achieves transformative impact on the global economy and society, Kushner will be remembered as Altman's closest investor partner—the person Altman called first when he needed capital. If OpenAI fails to achieve artificial general intelligence or faces catastrophic safety incidents, Kushner's concentrated bet will be studied as a cautionary tale about venture capital concentration risk.

Beyond financial returns, Kushner's influence on venture capital industry practices may represent his most durable impact. Thrive Capital demonstrated that concentrated portfolios, deep founder relationships, and willingness to deploy large amounts of capital in follow-on rounds can generate superior returns compared to traditional portfolio diversification approaches. This lesson influenced how venture firms construct portfolios, engage with founders, and deploy capital across company lifecycle stages.

Fortune magazine included Kushner in its inaugural list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business in 2024, citing Thrive's early investment in OpenAI. TIME magazine included him in the 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025. These recognitions establish Kushner's position among technology industry leaders, but also highlight how his reputation depends heavily on OpenAI's continued success—remove the OpenAI investment from Kushner's track record, and his profile resembles many successful but not extraordinary venture capitalists.

The next five years will determine Kushner's legacy. If OpenAI achieves $50 billion in revenue and maintains its technology lead, if Stripe successfully executes an IPO at a $150+ billion valuation, if Oscar Health reaches profitability—these outcomes would establish Kushner among the most successful venture investors of his generation. If these companies struggle, the concentrated portfolio approach that generated exceptional returns on paper could produce modest actual returns, relegating Kushner to a footnote in the broader history of artificial intelligence development and technology investing.