Before
Twins at Stanford, class of 2016. No finance family and no venture connections.
The move
In their junior year they co-founded Cardinal Ventures, a student-run incubator writing five thousand dollar non-dilutive checks on campus. Running a small incubator in a place investors already watch made them visible before they had credentials of any kind. Olivia's account of it is the useful part: everyone in venture wanted to meet them even though, by her own description, they had no idea what they were doing. That visibility produced internships at First Round and Cowboy Ventures.
The turn
A general partner at CRV who had met Justine through Cardinal Ventures hired them both into investing roles. They later moved together to Andreessen Horowitz, where Justine works on artificial intelligence infrastructure and Olivia on consumer applications.
Timeline
- 2014 co-found Cardinal Ventures at Stanford
- 2016 internships at First Round and Cowboy Ventures
- 2016 to 2017 analysts at Goldman Sachs
- 2017 hired into CRV
- Now partners at Andreessen Horowitz
What this route asks
Proximity to a place investors already look, and the initiative to run something there rather than apply to something. They are often described as former Sequoia scouts; no source supports that, and the incubator route is both documented and more copyable.