Eventbrite co-founders discuss walking away after two decades

It’s a classic story. She worked at MTV. He was a Silicon Valley founder. And after Kevin Hartz switched nametags at a wedding reception in 2003 so he could sit next to his future wife, Julia, the rest was pretty much history.

“In Hollywood speak, that’s our meet-cute,” Julia said.

The Hartzes started dating, and eventually began building what became the online ticketing giant Eventbrite (along with co-founder Renaud Visage). In 2006, they launched the company and were married five months later.

They vowed never to fight in front of employees. They refused to call the company a “family.”

By 2011, according to the company, Eventbrite was generating ticket sales in over 170 countries. In 2016, Julia became sole CEO as Kevin stepped aside to serve as executive chair. She took the company public in 2018 with a $1.76 billion valuation and weathered an 82% drop in paid tickets in May 2020 during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Then, they walked away. In December 2025, it was announced that Eventbrite would be acquired by Italian holding company Bending Spoons for $500 million, officially ending the couple’s involvement with the company.

The Hartzes spoke with Founder Brew about no longer owning the startup they built and what they’d tell today’s founders focused on in-person events.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You recently sold Eventbrite. What is it like to walk away?

Julia Hartz: It’s never easy to walk away. I mean to have your two-decade-long livelihood and community and mission and purpose. So, not easy. But, I had enough time to prepare emotionally for it…There’s a process of mourning, and everybody has to go about that their own way. I just happen to go through it fast.

Kevin Hartz: I hope I’m through it.

Julia: Maybe it’ll rear its ugly head.

You both know a lot of people in Silicon Valley. Did anyone give you advice on letting go?

Kevin: We saw [former Blue Bottle CEO] Bryan Meehan a couple days ago and he had some wise words. Because when you completely separate from something, everyone wants to ask you what you’re doing next. He would say, “No fucking idea.” And then they’ll be like “Ok, I’m not going to pepper them with questions.”

Julia: We have so many wise voices around us…There’s a healthy detachment…For me personally, I don’t want to fall into any trap of going and acting like I know everything because that’s just not the point. The point is to be able to go back to square one and learn and do it again.

There’s been a new wave of startups in events and IRL experiences, especially as Gen Z grapples with the wide-ranging impacts of social media. What insights about the industry do you have now after 20 years?

Kevin: We were coming from a place in time where it seemed like we were moving toward this dark future of isolation—that we would all be in our homes, in our rooms with a VR headset on. It seemed very isolating. This was a way to bridge that—to use technology and build a platform that actually brings people together. This is just like the phenomenon you’re seeing today...It comes in cycles.

Julia: Now I know that when something is as innate to the human experience as live gathering and connectedness in real life, you shouldn’t be lackadaisical about it, but that is something that people want. If you build a product that meets those needs from a consumer discovery perspective and an event organizer monetization perspective, if you make it easy, you don’t overcharge, you don’t get out over your skis, you’re going to have a winning combination.

Julia, you were still running day-to-day operations as CEO. What do the next six months look like for you now with more downtime?

Julia: Everything I’m going to say is going to sound like a cliché of somebody who’s in between jobs, but I’m reveling in the fact that I have time to be with people that I love and help people. I’m doing a lot of vibe coding side projects. There’s literally nothing I won’t try to vibe code, and I’m just learning a lot...I also think that what we created at Eventbrite was really special. I think that sometimes people fall into this trap of thinking they could just do it again, and I’m not saying never, but I think it was lightning in a bottle.