Hi, I'm Tommy Vincent, your host of Stay a Wild podcast, recording live from Radio Row at Super Bowl 60. This season, we have some phenomenal guests that are joining us at the Stay a Wild table. So, pull up a seat, get comfortable, and come and stay a while. Tune into our conversations to receive nourishment for your mind, your body, and your soul.
Hi, this is your personal invitation to come take a seat and stay a while. I'm your host Tommy Vincent recording live at Radio Row at Super Bowl 60. And today I have joining me at the table, Julia Hartz. Julia is the co-founder and CEO and executive chair of Eventbrite. Julia has nearly over 20 years of bringing people together through live experiences around the world. She believes deeply in the power of real life connection, especially in today's digital age. As the Super Bowl comes to the Bay Area, a place she calls home, it feels especially fitting to reflect on the power of gathering. Today we'll talk about the ingredients to build lasting success and the resilience behind the journey. Julia, thank you for coming to stay a while.
Thank you for having me, Tommy.
It's been such a pleasure getting to know you through relationship. We're talking about connecting and you know, I'm always grateful when relationships come together even when the other people didn't know each other. And you allowed for my husband and Troy and I to come into your world. And because of the relationship that made the connection, you didn't blink, you didn't pause. And I'm grateful for connection. So, thank you.
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.
Thank you. So, thank you, Ryan.
So, you were just 25 years old when you co-founded Eventbrite and now 20 years later...
You're not 25. And it's but you look amazing.
You're celebrating everything it's become. When you look back on that version of yourself, what do you feel most proud of and what would you want her to know now?
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.
Now I'm ready to just retire.
You're too young to retire.
The story. So for women quietly building something right now and something that's meaningful, what do you want them to know about timing, patience, and trust? What ingredients are needed for that?
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.
No, I can totally relate to, you know, when I ask that question about someone, you know, building something meaningful. I feel like that has been my life's journey. You know, everything that I pick up, I pick it up with great intentionality. And it is really grounded in something that means a great deal to me. And for me, the space I've traveled in where I recognize today like, no, this is my lane. It's women. And so, I'm fully committed to that. And the process sometimes requires not only trusting a team around you, but also trusting myself, trusting that I'm on the right path. I'm doing what it is that I need to do. And so it's always nice to encounter other women who have done it and done it well. Like obviously I don't know the details of your journey. I don't know all that it took for you to accomplish what you've accomplished, but you did it successfully. And so it's just nice to be able to have that type of engagement and encounter you in this path when I'm in that space where I feel like, you know, I've been doing something now for 13 years and I feel like I'm at the place where it's like in one minute it's just going to take off. And so it's I think the timing of even our engagement was right on time for me just so I could see someone that has gone beyond where I desire to be. So thank you.
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.
Absolutely. Absolutely. No, that is I can feel that statement, you know, because I feel like that's the day-to-day. You don't know what it's going to hold, but you do know what you see and what you desire to accomplish. And so the goal is to get up and work towards that. Just go towards that. And then it just opens up. And maybe I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I had to figure it out because here it is. And now I got to work it out and I got to do what I need to do. Right. So, yeah, absolutely.
So, how do you stay present in moments that are big or considered high stakes without losing yourself in them? A company, you know, I don't know who doesn't know Eventbrite, right? Um I have a friend actually Chef Taio who is I think he's in part does some type of partnership with Eventbrite because his events are featured on that platform. And so like people I know that are using your platform actively to build their business and it's a high stake but you have to have the moment to be present to even celebrate where you are in this. Yeah. 20 years later.
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.
