Rob Hayes

Who they are

Rob Hayes is a Board Partner at First Round Capital — one of Uber's first investors, he came to venture from early mobile computing stints at Palm Computing and GO Corporation.

Person

Rob earned a BA at UC Berkeley before getting his MBA at Columbia Business School (Class of 1995), then spent the following decade inside the early mobile and handheld computing wave — product management roles at GO Corporation, Geoworks, and Palm Computing, each of them betting on computing moving off the desk before it was obvious. He later ran a corporate venture fund, then joined Pierre Omidyar's Omidyar Network as Head of Venture Capital, which was the bridge into full-time early-stage investing. He joined First Round Capital in July 2006, when the firm was only a year old and seed-stage investing was still a fringe practice — he's been there nearly two decades, now as Board Partner. His portfolio bets tell the story: Uber (first investor), Square/Block, Mint, and TaskRabbit — all consumer-facing, all attacked large incumbents from below. Possibly — his long arc from mobile hardware to consumer internet suggests he looks for platforms before the platform moment is obvious.

Network

No specific named colleagues or co-investors surface from the available claims. His portfolio record places him in sustained proximity to founders like Travis Kalanick (Uber) and Jack Dorsey (Square/Block), though no current co-investor relationships are documented in the claims.

How they likely show up

Nearly two decades at First Round Capital (joined July 2006) → thinks in long conviction cycles, not deal-by-deal opportunism.
Early product management roles at GO Corporation, Geoworks, and Palm Computing → enters conversations with an operator's instinct for what actually ships, not just what pitches well.
Portfolio anchored in consumer platforms (Uber, Square, Mint, TaskRabbit) → pattern-matches on large, underserved markets where incumbents are slow, not on incremental SaaS.
Ran a corporate venture fund before joining First Round → has seen both the strategic and financial sides of investing, likely sensitive to alignment and incentive structures.
Possibly — occasional public writing and a TWiST appearance suggest he's comfortable being on record but doesn't default to high volume; he's selective about what he publishes.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific portfolio bet — the Uber first-check story or the Square investment — and ask about what he saw that others missed; he'll have a real answer.
→ Come in with a point of view on the consumer market you're discussing, not just a question; his content themes signal he engages with founders who have conviction.
→ His Palm/GO Corp background is a real differentiator — connecting a current trend to that era of mobile computing (what worked, what didn't) will signal you've done the homework.
→ He's a long-tenured partner, not a GP managing a new fund's deployment pressure — don't frame conversations around urgency or FOMO.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Uber first-check story — he's credited as one of Uber's first investors at a time when ride-hailing seemed legally and logistically implausible; ask what the thesis actually was at that moment.
Reference his Palm Computing and GO Corporation days — both were early bets on mobile computing that didn't fully pay off commercially, yet he parlayed that operator experience into spotting the next wave; that's an unusual through-line worth pulling on.
He promoted Kinema, a film distribution platform, on LinkedIn — a niche, specific bet that signals where his consumer attention goes outside the mainstream; it's a low-competition opener that shows you read past the headline portfolio.

Discovery questions

You backed Uber, Square, and Mint when each looked like a regulatory or market-structure problem — is there a common signal that told you the friction was temporary rather than fatal?
You came from product roles at Palm and Geoworks before the consumer internet took off — how much does that operator background actually change how you evaluate a founding team's product instincts?
After nearly two decades at First Round, how has the Board Partner role evolved — are you spending more time with portfolio companies post-investment now than you were as a General Partner?

Avoid

Don't pitch broad market size as your lead argument — his pattern of backing Uber, Square, and Mint suggests he bets on specific structural inefficiencies, not TAM slides.

Make it yours