Jack Altman – The Early Stories Behind Billions
Episode #1 of ORIGINS:
Jack Altman is the founder of Lattice, a multi-billion dollar company that creates people management software. Now, he manages Alt Capital, a 150M early-stage venture fund.
He’s one of the most thoughtful and genuine people we’ve had the privilege of sitting down with, and a good friend of ours and Origins.
In this episode, we discuss Jack’s early upbringing, time in college, and going from Princeton to investment banking. Soon quitting, he invested as a venture capitalist and joined the fastest-growing YC startup which later failed.
This led to the formation of Lattice, a multi-billion dollar company, and now Alt Capital.
Sponsors:
• SemiAnalysis is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts. They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect. From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic. If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:38) - Childhood and growing up
(00:05:23) - Parents, school, and brothers
(00:13:33) - Getting into banking
(00:15:29) - Jack's wife
(00:17:40) - Career & investing
(00:28:52) - Building Lattice
(00:35:25) - Strengths, weaknesses and tradeoffs
(00:36:55) - Hobbies and children
(00:41:48) - Alt capital
(00:43:42) - What drives you?
(00:45:50) - Today’s youth
(00:49:33) - Intuition
(00:50:35) - Predicting the future
(00:52:25) - Cold email, rejection, and competing
(00:58:27) - Kindness and helpfulness
(01:00:15) - Day trading and stocks
(01:02:00) - What people don’t know about Jack
