Moving to Substack

Welcome to the new home for my blog, with a decade of archives

This is Joe Lonsdale. I’m a technology entrepreneur, venture investor, philanthropist, husband, father of four girls, and now…

I’m on Substack!

Many close friends and colleagues have been on the platform for a few years now and are doing great things — like Bari Weiss and

The Free Press

I have immense respect for the Substack product, not just as a piece of network technology, but also because it’s creating the environment of open discourse that our country needs. The ability to speak and write on controversial subjects in a public forum is critical for a free society.

Some parts of the corporate world have given up on those values, but Substack hasn’t. I’m proud to be here. If you’d like to subscribe to the blog going forward, please do so.

If you don’t know me, you can read more here.

The short version of the story is that I founded businesses like Palantir and Addepar, and run a leading venture capital firm, 8VC. I am the founder and chairman of The Cicero Institute, a non-partisan policy group that fights special interests, unaccountable bureaucrats, and dysfunctional governance. I am also a founding trustee and the chairman of the University of Austin (UATX), a new university dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.

As for the long version… I suggest the blog archive, which goes back well over a decade. I plan to put all new writing here, whether they’re blog posts or things I write and publish elsewhere on the Internet. Subjects include technology, entrepreneurship, policy, a bit of philosophy, and more.

Some of my favorites over the years:

• In Defense of Us - an essay about the defense of Western civilization originally published in the American Mind (a fantastic online publication)

• Capture the Flag - an essay about the battle between capitalism, crony capitalism, and populism in America.

• Love it and Leave it - a piece I did for the Wall Street Journal about my move from California to Texas in 2020

• Why We Built Palantir - a blog post I did in 2020 to celebrate the public listing of my first company.

• Libertarianism is Dysfunctional, but Liberty is Great - an essay on the differences between “Liberty,” properly understood, and the modern libertarian movement.

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This page will also be the new home base for the audio version of my podcast, American Optimist. I encourage you to check out the awesome American Optimist website for video, as well as a teaser for Season 3, which drops early next year. As before, you can listen to AO on YouTube and all major audio platforms — now including the Substack mobile app.

As we’ve said to investors, portfolio CEOs, and colleagues at Palantir, 8VC, and elsewhere for nearly two decades of building and investing…

Thank you for your partnership.

See you on Substack! You can also Tweet me, as always, @JTLonsdale. And please share the blog with others!