It felt lighthearted at Initialized Capital this week—more than I had expected it to. After all, Garry Tan, who had been the last remaining of three cofounders still at the firm, is heading over to Y Combinator in just a matter of weeks.
Tan’s successors, Jen Wolf and Brett Gibson, are now facing the inherent tension of any successful venture capital firm whose funds outlive the stay of the investors who initially raised them. Now a VC firm with $3.2 billion in assets under management, Intialized’s brand has always been closely intertwined with its top investor and its last remaining cofounder, Tan, who has achieved enormous returns for limited partners through early bets on startups including Instacart, Coinbase, and Cruise.
