JL

Joshua Lu

Investing in the games industry @ a16z Games, Program Lead @ SPEEDRUN

Newport Beach, California

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $500,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $40,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $20,000,000.00

Work Experience

  • Partner, a16z Games

    2022

    Investing in + building the future of the Games industry https://a16z.gg/ GM/Program Lead, SPEEDRUN accelerator https://speedrun.a16z.com

  • Board of Advisors

    2021

    Carina partners with teams building programs, products, and organizations that reveal and nurture hidden math genius. Let's send more kids from more communities to the frontiers of science and technology.

2021 - 2022

  • Director of Product Management, Horizon/Metaverse

    2021 - 2022

    Hired as the PM lead for Horizon Worlds, Meta's flagship Metaverse product. Interim GM to get the product and team ready for launch. Launched Horizon Worlds live from private beta.

  • Vice President, Commercial Leader

    2018 - 2021

    VP - Commercial Leader, Incubation Business GM for a portfolio of unreleased mobile and cross-platform titles (starting with Diablo Immortal). Built the PM discipline from scratch and also led publishing/community. VP - Head of Global Insights Led an amazing team of game analytics, data science, engineering, consumer insights, and program management professionals to help Blizzard learn from our players.

2017 - 2019

  • Growth Lecturer

    2017 - 2019

    Teaching future growth and product leaders in Reforge's Growth Series and Retention/Engagement Series

2016 - 2018

  • Mentor

    2016 - 2018

    Growth/Product mentor to companies in 500 Startups' seed program.

2013 - 2018

  • Franchise/Studio GM, Games With Friends

    2013 - 2018

    $250M P&L owner, franchise GM, and head of product for Games With Friends, the largest division at Zynga by DAU and revenue. Increased engagement and revenue by >20% in 6 quarters and achieved 3 consecutive record revenue quarters on Words With Friends, a franchise that's >9 years old. Sr. Director, PM I lead the Central Product Management and Growth teams at Zynga. Director, Product Management Zynga's head of product management leading Central PM, responsible for best practice sharing/experimentation across the portfolio, product strategy (including M&A and slate), and oversight of Zynga's 100+ headcount PM organization (discipline leadership, recruiting, training, etc.) Lead Product Manager Led the growth team, responsible for launch strategy for all new games + new platform R&D Sr. Product Manager Product owner for Zynga's Apple/Google platform strategy (ASO, charting, notification/CRM strategy, etc.)

2011 - 2013

  • Founding PM

    2011 - 2013

    Senior PM and Employee #1 Launched 3 consecutive #1 iOS top free mobile games, as well as 30x DAU and Revenue as the senior PM on Dice with Buddies. Creator of the Bonus Roll!

  • Product Manager

    2010 - 2011

    Ideation, spec'ing, and implementation of growth features/feature roadmap management/analytics for 15 game studios @ Playdom, a division of DIMG.

2009 - 2010

  • Associate Product Manager

    2009 - 2010

    Playdom was acquired by Disney for $763M in August 2010. - Growth PM top 15 Facebook game Social City! (apps.facebook.com/socialcity) - Growth and Virality consulting across Playdom's entire portfolio