Spotlight: AngelList
Learn about what it's like to work at AngelList
What is it really like to work at the fastest-growing companies?
We try to answer that question in the next play Spotlight. In particular, we try to find interesting companies and highlight what makes working at them unique. Our hope is that documenting these sorts of behind-the-scenes details — which rarely make it to press releases — can help you: (a) discover more interesting opportunities and, (b) inspire you to think creatively (for your own endeavors).
Spotlight: AngelList
This spotlight is on AngelList. Thanks to the AngelList team for sharing behind-the-scenes details and supporting next play.
If you work in tech, you probably have heard of AngelList. AngelList first launched in 2010 as an angel investor matchmaking email list that helped the likes of Uber raise their seed round. Since then, they’ve evolved into a leading fintech startup that builds infrastructure that powers the startup economy. They offer software focused on Funds (fund formation & scaling), Equity (cap table management, Roll Up Vehicles), and Capital (Limited). As of 2024, they have $124 billion in assets on their platform, as they support 85k+ investors, 12k+ active startups, and 23k+ funds and syndicates.
So how does an organization like AngelList do it? How do they keep innovating, or as one of their founders calls it: “innovating on innovation.”? And perhaps the question of this essay — what type of culture have they created internally such that they are able to sustainably launch new industry-leading products? What is it really like to work at AngelList?
AngelList has done a uniquely great job attracting entrepreneurial talent: “AngelList is a meta-startup of sorts and tends to attract really entrepreneurial people. About one quarter of the engineering team has founded companies in the past, with many others on the team with aspirations to bring their ideas to life in the future. We have a high trust and high ownership culture where you're expected to operate as a CEO of your own domain in the company, which works really well with the entrepreneurial view.”
Hiring former founders — and generally people who: can operate without needing micro-instruction, take accountability for their work, tackle ambiguous problems, and build solutions quickly — is perhaps AngelList’s secret ingredient that enables their ability to scale the business from an angel investor / job board to a fintech leader.
It is not like they are building lightweight tools – many of their products involve very complicated backend plumbing. “This domain has a steep learning curve as many new hires first experience the venture industry, accounting to tax to private fund law, etc.”
To build the right products, their team has developed a clear understanding of exactly how something works under the hood. But it’s not enough to merely accept the status quo. If you ask Avlok Kohli, CEO at AngelList, he’ll tell you that you can’t simply go and hire people with lots of experience in a particular domain and expect to create great products: “You don't build anything interesting by building a slightly better version of the past. We focus on building products where we have a unique insight and unique viewpoint on how the world should work, and that we are best suited to build.”
To form your own, first-principled opinion around how a product should work requires getting into the weeds. Doing this to any degree of scale requires hiring people who can think for themselves; who operate with agency and can think through complicated problems and arrive at clear-minded solutions. That’s exactly what AngelList has done–and what nearly every person on the team we’ve spoken with both mentioned and embodied in one way or another:
“Entrepreneurially minded individuals that have a high degree of agency, creativity, drive, and openness.”
“Past founders or people who aspire to start their own company will likely find AngelList to be a great fit.”
“Remove your title from your identity. You are not a software engineer/designer/ops person – you are someone who will help the company (& our customers) win. Everything boils down to agency. You have a lot of agency at AngelList and you can make an impact on anything. If you think the help center isn't doing a good job - build a better one and push it live.”
The organization rewards people who share these qualities through autonomy, responsibility, and compensation.
A great example of this is with AngelList’s Roll Up Vehicles, a first (and only)-of-its-kind innovation that allows startups to raise big and small checks from up to 250 investors in a single line on their cap table. The team that built this product was composed of a single engineer. They decided what infrastructure to use, how to build it, how it would work for customers, and how to launch it. There was no big committee making decisions - the product owners were empowered with that responsibility.
Another practice that makes AngelList excel in fintech innovation: it’s typical for engineers to work directly with customers. “Most teams have standing weekly meetings with customers (like accountants, lawyers, and tax professionals). In those meetings, we trust our teammates to hear customer pain points and work with them to find solutions.”
Another example (you are starting to get the point):
“AngelList is radically transparent. Attending our weekly company all hands in a masterclass in startup strategy. All employees get direct access to key financial metrics and the thinking behind executive decisions.”
If you have ever worked at startups, you would know that building a culture of trust rarely happens. Let alone unintentionally. Yes, you need to hire people who share your values, but you also need to set-up the right processes and systems that truly enable people to do their best, collaborative work.
Where startups typically go wrong is by adding too much - too much process, too many meetings, and generally just too much red-tape that slows progress and collaboration.
People at AngelList tend to believe in the team and organization as a whole, as well as the systems in place:
“AngelList is a meeting-light company. We have few recurring meetings and keep adhoc ones short. We have very effective async communication processes. The flip side is everyone on the team is available for quick chats and jam sessions.”
“I find our CEO to be creative, open, driven, and holds himself to a high standard. I love working with him. He takes the time to listen, seeks to understand, and is decisive.”
“Meetings are generally focused around solving problems (e.g. working) or unblocking work. Not a lot of wasted time to plan a meeting for a future meeting.”
“Minimal meetings. Lots of written docs.”
“40% talking with customers (doing customer support or sales), 30% writing code against our roadmap, 20% writing code for customers,10% planning & internal work”
“The organization is relatively flat. Leaders are approachable and deeply involved. Leadership is great at Accountability, Creativity, and Execution.”
“Our head of engineering, Xinran, is the clearest thinker I have ever worked with. He is also in the trenches, coding and handling on-call tickets. He does all of it while injecting a high dose of fun in our day to day work.”
People tend to learn by doing and collaborating very closely with one another.
“We don't believe in career ladders, it's more a path for you to carve.”
“Not the type of place I would recommend someone consider joining if they need a lot of structure and a career ladder to climb.”
“Best way to either learn how to start a company without actually doing it or best way to keep your founder skills sharp while you don't.”
It seems like people stay at the company, often after many years of tenure, because it’s an amazing place to solve lots of interesting problems:
“I think the same reasons I joined still hold true but I love the way we solve problems. You can tell a lot about a company when something isn't working. I've found we tend to engage others, riff on a solution, and often produce a simple and effective outcome that wasn't initially obvious.”
“I’ve been here for eight years and still have fun every day, mostly because we don’t let politics get in the way”
“Candidly, I'm surprised that I'm still having so much fun after a few years. It still doesn't quite feel like a job. More like an adventure.”
“AngelList is a rocket ship and possibly one of the best run scale ups out there. We are at the center of the startup economy and get unparalleled access to the latest and greatest innovations.”
AngelList is hiring for nearly every department: customer success, operations, business, engineering, marketing, and product design. If you think you may be a fit, you can apply here and mention next play in the “Additional Information” section.
And if you are working on a new company, consider building it on AngelList. You can use their all-in-one software suite for equity management and create a Roll Up Vehicle. You can sign up for AngelList here.