On this episode of Invested, Michael sits down with Henry Ward, the CEO and co-founder of Carta. Carta is trusted by more than 50,000 companies, over 8,500 investment funds and SPVs, and over 1.6 million equity holders to manage cap tables, compensation, valuations, liquidity, and more. The company has been included on the Forbes World’s Best Cloud Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies. Prior to Carta, Henry was founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. He also held leadership positions at software companies including Reddwerks Inc. and BetweenMarkets. Henry graduated from University of Michigan with a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science and holds a MSC in Market Finance from EDHEC Business School.

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KEY TOPICS

00:00 – Intro

01:24 – The Value Proposition of Carta

03:56 – Disrupting Traditional Professional Services

09:18 – How Carta Implements AI

17:16 – The Future of Accounting and Determinism vs. Stochasticism

20:39 – Branding vs. Product Quality in Professional Services

24:46 – Competing, Copycats, and Execution at Scale

27:02 – Core Values: Transparency and EQ

28:48 – Missionaries vs. Mercenaries: Carta’s Hiring Philosophy

31:37 – How to Find Missionaries: Recruiting Strategies