The other Kushner escapes from the shadow of the White House

For most of its 12 years, Thrive Capital has been known as a fast-growing venture capital firm that struck some savvy deals, most famously an investment in Instagram that doubled in value within days.

But for the past four years or so, the firm and its 35-year-old founder, Joshua Kushner, have become just as well known for something unrelated to the fortunes of the fund: Kushner’s older brother, Jared, a top adviser and son-in-law to former President Donald Trump.

Joshua Kushner and wife Karlie Kloss. Kloss has been openly critical of Trump, from elliptically referring to disagreements with her in-laws on talk shows to holding up a 2020 ballot while wearing a Biden-Harris face mask.Credit: Getty Images

And though having one’s brother in the White House may seem like a benefit, for Thrive, the questions mostly arose about whether the Trump connection would hamper its ability to invest in startups, especially those run by liberally minded entrepreneurs.

That filial bond had put Joshua Kushner in an awkward position, subject to calls to push his brother and sister-in-law, Ivanka Trump, to change administration policies. But he steadfastly refused to do so, at least publicly.

Now that Trump is out of office, that complication may be reduced. But don’t expect Joshua Kushner to say much about the challenges of the Trump years or whether there are any lingering effects on Thrive, good or bad.

He declined to comment for this article.

The Family

The Kushner brothers are close. Associates say the two drew even tighter after their father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, was imprisoned for two years after pleading guilty to illegal campaign donations and witness tampering in 2005. The brothers have also done business together, co-investing in ventures like Cadre, a real estate technology startup. (Joshua Kushner has never formally worked for the family’s real estate business.)

Jared Kushner divested his holdings in Thrive before joining the White House, and no member of the Trump family has invested in the firm, according to a person briefed on the matter. After leaving the White House, Jared Kushner has not invested in Thrive.

In public, Joshua Kushner has said little about his feelings regarding the Trump administration, unless one counts appearing at protests like the Women’s March in 2017 and the March for Our Lives the next year. He has also mostly donated to Democrats over the years, including Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker.

His wife, model Karlie Kloss, has been more openly critical of Trump, from elliptically referring to disagreements with her in-laws on talk shows to holding up a 2020 ballot while wearing a Biden-Harris face mask. (When a Twitter user pressed Kloss to chide her in-laws over the January 6 Capitol riot and Trump’s baseless election conspiracy theories, the model responded, “I tried”.)

In private, Joshua Kushner has made his feelings clearer. Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, recalled that shortly after the 2016 election, Kushner, whose fund invested in the workplace messaging firm earlier that year, called him.

Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was a top adviser in the Trump administration.Credit: AP

“I don’t remember what he said exactly,” Butterfield said, “but it was a tactful way of saying, ‘These are not my positions.’”

Kushner espouses socially liberal ideals, associates say, with interests in causes like racial justice. “He understands that we have a real challenge of racism,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, which has invested in several of Thrive’s funds. He praised Kushner’s work with Black entrepreneurs like Ryan Williams, CEO of Cadre.

There are also business-related disagreements. Trump’s efforts to unwind the Affordable Care Act threatened the existence of Oscar, the health insurance provider that Kushner co-founded, which draws the majority of its revenue from plans built around Obamacare. At a private event for Oscar in 2018, Kushner concluded a recap of the year’s challenges by quipping, “We survived Donald Trump.” He then added, “Don’t tweet that.”

But those who know Kushner say that he tends not to talk much about politics or his brother, particularly in business settings.

“Unfortunately, he has had to defend his brother — not with me, I don’t talk about that with him — but that has occasionally put him on the defensive,” Walker said.

The business

Since founding Thrive in New York in 2009, at the age of 25, Kushner and his team built a reputation as low-key, nerdy investors who prefer sifting through balance sheets and strategy documents than pontificating on social media.

Kushner has also benefited from a high-powered network: Early backers included Princeton University and Peter Thiel, and in 2013, Thrive hired Jon Winkelried, a former president of Goldman Sachs who is now co-CEO of investment giant TPG, as a senior adviser. Employees include former staff members in both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Thrive’s investments include early-stage startups and so-called growth rounds in older, more established companies. Unusually, it also incubates companies, including Cadre and Oscar (which is named after Kushner’s grandfather).

Thrive controls around $US9 billion ($11.6 billion) in assets, having raised $US2 billion for two new funds last month. The firm declined to comment on its financial performance. “They have been consistently a high performer in our portfolio” is all that Walker of the Ford Foundation would reveal.

The future

Although the political clouds hanging over the firm may have lifted, Kushner and his businesses are not necessarily in the clear.

Take Oscar, in which Thrive has a stake worth more than $US1 billion. Despite its heady initial offering last week, raising $US1.4 billion at an $US8 billion valuation, the insurer’s shares fell in their first day of trading and only recently retraced their ground. The company has warned that it may not turn a profit for some time. Sceptics say its core insurance business is too small and limited to justify its valuation.

“Oscar’s philosophy doesn’t seem very different than the others,” said Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at E Squared Asset Management who focuses on health care investments. “After looking at their financials, their execution hasn’t been spectacular.”

Kushner also recently lost a longtime business partner at Thrive, Miles Grimshaw, who was involved in startups like software company Airtable. In December, Grimshaw joined Silicon Valley giant Benchmark, though the split was not acrimonious.

And then there is the possibility that politics could intrude once again: Trump has hinted he may run for president in 2024, and Jared Kushner could again serve as one of his top advisers. That would renew the tests of loyalty and related complications that Joshua Kushner may have thought were behind him.

The New York Times

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