Julia Hartz — Co-founder & CEO of Eventbrite on Taking the Company from Idea to IPO
The Casey Adams Show
Listener.com Podcast Network
4.8 • 634 Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on The Casey Adams Show, I sat down with Julia Hartz, the Co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. Julia is one of only 21 women who have co-founded a company, taken it public, and still lead as CEO, an extraordinary accomplishment in the business world.
Before founding Eventbrite in 2006, Julia began her career in television as a development executive at MTV and FX Networks, contributing to hit shows like Friends and Jackass. In 2016, she became CEO and helped take Eventbrite public in 2018, leading the company to become one of the world’s leading platforms for ticketing and live experiences. Outside of Eventbrite, Julia serves on the board of directors for the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and the University of California, San Francisco, and is an active investor in companies like Minted, Chairish, and Color Genomics.
In this episode, we dive into Julia’s journey from idea to IPO and explore the realities of entrepreneurship, from the early days of bootstrapping Eventbrite to scaling it into a global platform. We also discuss the challenges of leadership, building company culture, and how she navigated one of the most pivotal moments in 2020 when the live events industry came to a halt.
Follow Julia Hartz:
Follow Casey Adams:
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by an incredible founder and entrepreneur, Julia Hartz, the co-founder and CEO of Vemprite. Thank you so much for coming to show today. |
| 0:12.6 | Thank you for having me. I'm so excited for our conversation. Of course. Well, I appreciate you hosting myself and the crew here today at the headquarters here in NSF. Very excited to be here. |
| 0:22.9 | My pleasure. You know, when I was, when I first reached out, you know, I think seeing you |
| 0:28.8 | have conversations on other podcasts and understanding your journey. And for those that are watching, |
| 0:33.8 | you know, Eventbrite was started, 2006, you and your co-founders, |
| 0:38.8 | your husband, co-founded the company, bootstrapped it for two years. |
| 0:43.1 | I remember you saying, like $250,000 lasted two years in the early days, to now being |
| 0:48.6 | one of the only, and quote, your CC, one of 21 who are female-led that have co-founded, CEO of a publicly traded |
| 0:59.3 | company, you have quite the journey. And I'm very inspired by you. So thank you so much for |
| 1:04.4 | taking the time to come on the show today. Thank you. I think one story that I've never talked about |
| 1:10.2 | before that just happened this morning is I was |
| 1:13.6 | contacted by our HR team who was helping me fill out an employment verification form |
| 1:20.6 | for something totally unrelated to a event, right? |
| 1:22.6 | And they said, we're confused because we know that we're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary, |
| 1:29.4 | but your employment date and workday says April 1st, 2008. |
| 1:35.6 | And when we looked up Kevin, and we looked, who's my co-founder and my husband, |
| 1:40.1 | and we looked up Renovisage, who's our third co-founder and CTO. They also have this April |
| 1:46.3 | first date. And I sat with it for a minute and I thought, oh, it must be an admin error. And then I |
| 1:51.1 | realized, no, that was when we started taking salaries. So bootstrapping the company meant that we |
| 1:57.0 | weren't paying ourselves until April 1st of 2008. And that's when we became officially paid by the company. |
| 2:04.4 | I guess I say that. |
| 2:05.6 | I share that story only because I just don't know if that happens anymore. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Listener.com Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Listener.com Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.