Build It Anyway: Julia Hartz on Courage, Community & Staying Present in the Moment

Thank you for having me, Tommy.

Thank you so much. It's been such a gift. And I agree. Those people in your life who do so much for others, when they make that call, you do not hesitate. It is so magical because I feel like this whole week has meant something different to me. My whole house was lit up with your light and your warmth and it was all because of that one call.

Yeah.

I am not 25.

Thank you.

Wow. Well, you're already making me cry. So, you know, when I look back on the 25-year-old me, I'm so grateful that my parents taught me the value of working hard. And I just I think about that all the time now. And honestly, not to keep gushing about you, but I met so much of your family yesterday. And you can just tell when you meet people. At least I can tell the energy, the vibe, the values, and teaching. I believe that you have taught your family how to serve, how to be grounded, how to be thoughtful, how to shine the light on others. And that just comes so naturally.

And I think my parents taught me how to put my head down, work hard, and that, you know, not to expect anything. And I think that's what I was doing at 25. I was working in a totally different industry. I was in the television industry. So, this feels very comfortable or reminiscent of that. And I, you know, I met a guy, not a guy. Met a guy at a wedding. It's about as meet cute as you can get. And cut to, you know, two years later, I'm moving to San Francisco where I'm from. I'm from the Bay Area.

And we're starting a company together. And I skipped a lot of details in that bridge, but I remember very specifically the first day moving into this windowless closet basically as our first startup office for Eventbrite, opening a laptop and going, 'Okay, how might we do this?' And I was googling how to create a search engine campaign for Google, you know. And so I mean, I'll never forget that moment because I thought, is this it? Is this what we're doing? Is this how you do it? You know, and thankfully Kevin was a multiple time entrepreneur, big risk taker, big ideas guy. You met him yesterday. His middle name is Ernest. E-A-R-N-E-S-T. So I feel like the namesake was, he is a human golden retriever and he just came at it with such energy and just an aura that it was going to work out. I have now 20 years later realized he just wasn't born with the chip that says this may not work out in his brain. So it was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. But just putting my head down and working hard got me to that point and then got me to this point.

You're too young to retire.

Well, speaking of ingredients, two days ago, I came into my kitchen and there was this goddess standing there very quietly unpacking some ingredients to what became one of the best, if not literally the best bread pudding I've ever had in my life, which Kevin called pie. But then we educated him. Your presence and your focus in the midst of this crazy week of this, you know, just this is sort of American opulence at its best. But in the eye of the tornado, I observed you standing there very quietly and very thoughtfully and I think almost you were excited to hide in my kitchen doing something that you love. And I'll draw sort of your question back to what I observed in you, which is when you love what you do and when you know what you're doing, you are really, really patient. And it's all about that timing, right? Of that opportunity meets timing meets patience meets focus. My personal motto is she who lasts the longest wins. And many times people feel like they're walking through a desert with only a backpack on their back and no one else. The most amazing successes have been many years in the making and they if they're in tune with what's really going on know that it seems like an overnight success, you know, 10 plus years in the making or 20 plus years. And so I just think that it's about remaining focused and having that fortitude and then also knowing what you love to do and knowing what you need, you know. And I think that that's been what's kept me going through many different chapters of this era that, you know, I think it definitely would have been the easier path to sort of shimmy out the side door and not stay in the kitchen as it were.

I mean I feel like the best part about this journey and continuing on this journey is being able to help others, right? So along the way I've had so many micro, you know, inspirations and these moments where somebody said just the right thing to me at just the right time. And I always feel like instead of looking for a great mentor who, let's face it, there's not one mortal being on this planet who is perfect in every way and putting people on pedestals is a dangerous board. So I always think about it as can you create an amalgamation of inspirations? Can you keep your eyes and ears open and your heart open to receive little bits of feedback? Maybe it's something that you don't want to be. An observation of maybe something that you want to gut check yourself on and make sure you don't become that. Maybe it's something that you do want to become. Or maybe it's somebody who just quietly put their hand on your back and said, 'You can do that. You can do this, girl.' And when I woke up this morning thinking about Burke Elementary and the fact that it's an indelible impact that won't fade. Maybe the excitement of this week will be talked about obviously memorialized in pictures and videos but the impact will live on forever beyond this period of time. It will be something that sets this school and these teachers on another path and how meaningful that is. And I mean truly I feel like I know I'm fangirling but you are such an inspiration in just that quiet centered fortitude. You know exactly what you're doing. And I think that's what others need to know is that you don't have to have done it before to know exactly what you're doing. Do you know what I mean? Where you're going or what you need to do.

I mean, a few things came to mind when you asked me this question. The first thing, I'll just be honest. First thing that came to mind is a sense of humor. I literally have taken nothing too seriously except for when it comes to my people, to Brightings, and to our customers. The second thing is to delve deeply into our customers' lives. Right. For us creators and people who bring others together like you did yesterday are who we obsess about. We are I mean slightly stalkerish about our customers, you know. So that's what I plow all my energy and my time into. And the third thing is I'm a master compartmentalizer. So I have always had I mean I think it's really my dad who's always this voice in my ear of like really proud of me but also don't get you know like take it all with a grain of salt. We're all hardworking. We're all, you know, and so I think that I try to compartmentalize some of the bigger moments and think about what's funny about it, that it is just a moment. We all put our pants on the same way. And then maybe as I get older that it's a great memory. I should probably save that clipping for my kids or something like it's a great thing to look back on and really appreciate and say, 'Hey, mom and dad did this.' We just recently celebrated our 20th anniversary for Eventbrite. Our marriage anniversary comes next in a few months.

20 years. So Eventbrite 20. Yep. And so but we gathered our former Brightlings, current Brightlings from all over the country. It was a long road back to each other because we had been working remotely pretty much since the pandemic. And there's not a word that I think has been created to describe the feeling in the room. It felt like home. It felt so right. And I'm most proud of creating a culture like that where people are just literally doing back flips to be together that it was just like one big group hug. And I think that's my greatest accomplishment, right, is to have been a part of that and to continue to cultivate that kind of spirit at the company. So I think about one moment where I was walking up there's this tiny little staircase to get up to the New York Stock Exchange balcony where you ring the bell when you take your company, you ring the opening bell. And I remember so many things had gone wrong during our road show. This was back before COVID when you'd go and fly all over the country to get people to invest in your public offering. So many things had gone wrong. And when we finally got there, our bell had been stolen by another company. They had slotted in a different company. So we had to move our go public date, which was crazy. And I remember walking up those stairs and I almost fainted. I lost my breath, which I'm a performer, so that doesn't happen often. I grew up dancing, so that doesn't happen often. And I had to stop and my best friend who was our head of communications put her hand at my back and said, 'You're going to have to walk up these stairs like you got to keep going.' And I'm like, 'I know.' But it was this magical moment where I literally almost collapsed because it was such a big moment. And then she put her hand on my back and I was like, 'Yep, we got to go do this. We've got to go.' Like this most surreal moment, right? And I just I almost didn't make it. She was like, 'Nope, you're going to keep going. You're going to keep going up these old non-compliant stairs that we could have, you know, killed ourselves on.' And then after humor, they said, 'We took the photo, we looked through all the archives, and there has never been as many women on the podium as there was today.' And we didn't It's not like we stacked the deck. This was just our team.

And it was bittersweet, but also really epic, you know? And so I'm glad I made it up the stairs. I'm glad she pushed me up. She looks enough like me. She could have rung the bell for me, but alas, we made it. So stay a while. The name itself and the meaning behind it is this idea of getting people to be comfortable. Comfortable enough that if you feel like you're in my home that you could kick off your shoes, you could let your hair down, we can wipe our makeup off, take off our jewelry, and just stay a while. And so when you think about that, what do you do in your life today that gives you the opportunity just to stay a while?

I did. I wish I should. I could have shown you. This is my absolute 365 day ritual is the bathtub.

I take a bath every night. Sometimes if I'm feeling royal, I'll take a bath in the middle of the day, you know? I mean, who knows? I'm always open for a quick dip. But my bath is my religious whether it's 5 minutes or 65 minutes, it is my religious moment of just me in quite literally scalding hot water. So that's an interesting, you know, personality trait just sitting. And my family knows not to when they know that I'm in the bath, they leave me alone. Like it's just a moment of I guess reflection, you know, and in a way prayer. But when I get into the bath, I mean, something religious happens to me where I just feel like I can stay a while.

And you know, that to me has just been kind of the backbone of I guess my own personal ritual.

Oh, I mean, if we want to get into details, there's a different there's like a playlist of baths that I have. So, there is the standard just I'm getting in. I'm washing my face off, right? This is your five minute and some hot towels, thus the hot water. And I'm doing that. That's my five minute routine. All the way to I've got magnesium. I've got CBD salt. I've got little things that melt over time and make the bath a different thing where I step out and I'm moisturized for days. I can definitely rock an iPad and watch, you know, I'm binging Land Man right now, so I can do that. And I think that it's just something for me. I don't do group baths. I used to with the kids and that you know what I mean like we're all getting in and that's not in my older years I have decided not to do that anymore. I am now it's just me.

It might be a little convenient, but you know, babes, for confused viewers, I have teenagers and babies. Obviously, the teenagers, they take their own baths. I have taught them. Well, but and then it's actually gotten I think like as maybe an older I keep talking about age, but like now I check to see if the hotel room has a bathtub. Because I realize that when it doesn't have a bathtub, I get I'm a little bit less great.

That's it.

I mean, I love it.

You know, I hate to sound so obvious, but San Francisco is back. And it takes someone who's lived here for a cycle at least to understand what that means. It doesn't mean that the nerds are back. They never left. It doesn't mean that the money's back. It kind of never left. You know, we hope in the future that the money continues to flow and be used in better and better and better ways so that we can feel the sense of community. It means that this is an incredibly vibrant city full of ideas and opportunity, caring, inclusiveness. It is a city that quite literally runs on the idea of anything is possible. It's a gold rush city. For decades and decades, people came here, they made their fortune, and they left. So there's a certain part of that cyclicality to San Francisco that the bay itself actually expects and is prepared for.

We have the money. We have the humility. We have the kindness. And we have strong leadership. And so I feel so proud to live here and I'm so excited everybody's here. It's really nice. And it's funny because you hear people say, 'Oh, it is back.' And I'm like, 'I told you it's like a year ago, but okay, let the Super Bowl prove it.' You know, so we're quite happy and energized and we have a lot of hard work to do.

Yes. Yes. I now am a proud owner of that book.

I did zero prep for this. This feels like a question I should have been prepped for. And I'm so delighted that I didn't cuz butter is the only thing that came to mind for me. Butter needs to be in every dish. But I'm going to take it to where I think you wanted where you maybe thought I should go. Like chef's grit. No, but seriously like I have my as my daughter said, you have never met anything that couldn't have butter on it. You know, you've never met something. I think that there is an authenticity and a warmth to everything that I do and everything that I'm attracted to where life is just too short for us to take it all too seriously, for us to overthink things, for us, you know, the kind of person I am hard pressed to meet a person that I can't find something in common with or some interest. The actual archetype of person that I definitely just don't gel well with is someone who's always strategizing and thinking about the next 10 steps to their own benefit where like I'm always the last one in on that where I'm like, 'Oh, got it. Okay, you were actually wanting something from me like seven hours ago that I just thought we were vibing.' I don't do well with those personality types because that's just not who I am. And so I think about the tables being one where I mean obviously laughter coupled with butter, authenticity and warmth, right? And a humility to know that you don't have to know all the answers and you don't have to be the expert. You definitely have to be willing to laugh at yourself to be at my table.

Thank you. I appreciate that.