Joshua Lu
Partner, a16z Games at Andreessen Horowitz
Newport Beach, California
Overview
Work Experience
Partner, a16z Games
2022 - Current
Investing in + building the future of the Games industry https://a16z.gg/ GM/Program Lead, SPEEDRUN accelerator https://speedrun.a16z.com
Andreessen Horowitz is a stage-agnostic venture capital firm with assets under management across multiple funds.
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.
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.
Meta is a social technology company that enables people to connect, find communities, and grow businesses.
Raised $25,607,817,488.00 from ValueAct Capital.
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.
Blizzard Entertainment develops and publishes gaming software and computer games such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and StarCraft.
Growth Lecturer
2017 - 2019
Teaching future growth and product leaders in Reforge's Growth Series and Retention/Engagement Series
Mentor
2016 - 2018
Growth/Product mentor to companies in 500 Startups' seed program.
500 Global is a multi-stage venture capital firm that invests in founders building fast-growing technology companies.
Raised $2,271,999.00 from Abu Dhabi Financial Group.
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.)
Zynga is a mobile game developer that creates and operates social games as live services played on the Internet.
Raised $2,318,550,786.00 from Kleiner Perkins, T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity.
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!
Scopely is an entertainment and video game company that creates, publishes, and live-operates immersive games.
Raised $998,500,000.00 from Empede Capital, Maximize Capital, Veligera Capital, Nelstone Ventures and Employee Stock Option Fund.
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.
Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution offers network and engineering operations, sales, advertising, and streaming services.
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