Partner

Alex Taussig

The single activity I've practiced more than any other is asking the best possible question and listening hard to the answer.

Alex joined Lightspeed in 2016 as a partner on the consumer investment team and has spent 12+ years in venture capital. He is passionate about partnering with founders who are reimagining major categories of commerce using technology.

At Lightspeed, Alex has led investments in startups disrupting massive industries like food (All Day Kitchens, Daily Harvest), retail (Archive, Faire, Zola), education (Outschool), and banking (Found). He also co-leads Lightspeed’s Latin America practice and is responsible for the firm’s investment in Frubana and Muni, among others. Prior to joining Lightspeed, Alex was a partner at Highland Capital Partners, where he supported over a dozen companies, including thredUP (IPO TDUP, 2021), Carbon Black (IPO CBLK, 2018), 2U (IPO 2014, TWOU), and RentJuice (acquired by Zillow, 2012).

Alex is a trained research scientist and breaks down business problems with deductive logic and analytical rigor. He originally studied physics at Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude, and then went on to receive a Master’s degree in materials engineering from MIT, where he was part of a research group building the first fully optical computer chip. Alex also received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, an honor given to the top 5% of the graduating class.

Alex publishes a popular weekly(ish) newsletter called Drinking from the Firehose, in which he writes about recent trends in commerce, media, tech, climate, science, and popular culture. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children and enjoys baking, anime, and heavy metal music.

 

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