Keith Rabois

Keith Rabois graduated from Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He then studied law and received a J.D. with honors from Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry.⁠[1][2]

In 1992, while still a student at Stanford Law SchoolStanford Law SchoolStanford Law School is Stanford University’s law school. Its law curriculum began in 1893, and it offers JD and advanced law degrees. Its alumni include technology-media entrepreneur Michael Arrington.Open the full entry, Rabois sparked a campus controversy by directing anti-gay slurs outside a faculty member’s residence. At the time, he defended himself as challenging the university’s speech restrictions. Then-President Donald Kennedy condemned the conduct; the university did not discipline him under its Fundamental Standard. Rabois subsequently left Stanford Law School and continued his legal studies at Harvard.⁠[1][3]

From August 1994 to August 1995, Rabois clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. From October 1995 to March 1999, he worked as an attorney at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, practicing litigation.⁠[4][2]

From April to October 1999, Rabois served as policy director for Dan Quayle’s presidential campaign. From February to November 2000, he was Vice President of Business Development at Voter.com, after which he joined PayPal.⁠[4]

From November 2000 to November 2002, Rabois worked at PayPal, most recently as Executive Vice President responsible for business development, public affairs, and policy. This experience formed the professional background for his later move into internet company management and the investment industry.⁠[4]

In 2003, Rabois was an entrepreneur in residence at Clarium Capital; from December of that year to December 2004, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Epoch Innovations.⁠[4]

From January 2005 to May 2007, Rabois was Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at LinkedIn. Beginning in September 2005, he also served on Yelp’s board of directors; Yelp disclosed this directorship and his prior career in its 2011 IPO registration statement.⁠[4]

From May 2007 to August 2010, Rabois served as Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Slide. GoogleGoogleGoogle is an American technology company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and incorporated in 1998. It became an Alphabet subsidiary in 2015. Its businesses include internet search, advertising, software platforms, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence.Open the full entry acquired Slide in August 2010.⁠[4]

In 2010, Rabois joined the payments company Square as Chief Operating Officer and took part in the company’s expansion. His earlier experience in internet business development and management thus extended to payment products for merchants.⁠[1][4]

Rabois served as a RedditRedditReddit is an online platform that organizes content and discussion around interest-based communities, founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. Users take part in communities by posting, commenting, and voting; its operating company, Reddit, Inc., listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2024.Open the full entry director from 2012 to 2019 and also took part in board work at Yelp and Xoom from their early stages through their IPOs. His institutional profile also lists early personal investments including YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry, AirbnbAirbnbAirbnb is a travel platform for booking stays, experiences, and services, co-founded by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk and headquartered in San Francisco, United States; its Class A common stock trades on Nasdaq under the symbol ABNB. The business began with hosting guests in the founders’ home in 2007, then joined YC’s Winter 2009 batch, and gradually expanded into local experiences, services, and boutique hotels.Open the full entry, PalantirPalantirPalantir is a U.S. enterprise software company founded in 2003 that provides data and artificial intelligence platforms including Gotham, Foundry, Palantir Apollo, and AIP, serving government and commercial organizations. The company went public through a direct listing in 2020 and now trades on Nasdaq under the ticker PLTR.Open the full entry, Lyft, Udemy, and Eventbrite.⁠[2]

In January 2013, Rabois resigned as Square’s Chief Operating Officer after an employee made sexual harassment allegations. He denied harassment and said he left to keep the dispute from continuing to affect the company; Square said at the time that he had shown poor judgment. At the time, lawyers representing Rabois and the company said the investigation had so far found no evidence of harassment. No related lawsuit had been filed at that point. These records reflect the allegations, responses, and status of the investigation at the time.⁠[1][5]

After leaving Square, Rabois joined Khosla Ventures in 2013 and stayed until 2019. At the firm, he led the first institutional investments in DoorDashDoorDashDoorDash is a local commerce platform co-founded in 2013 by Tony Xu and others that connects consumers, merchants, and delivery couriers, with its business expanding from restaurant delivery to groceries, retail goods, merchant software, and on-demand logistics. The company went public in 2020, and its businesses include Wolt, Deliveroo, and SevenRooms.Open the full entry, Affirm, and Faire, and invested early in Stripe. He also served as an Affirm director from 2013 to June 2025.⁠[6][2]

Rabois is one of the co-founders of the real estate transaction platform Opendoor, working with Eric Wu to move the home buying and selling process online. The company’s 2016 announcement and current investor FAQ give 2014 as the founding year, with the earlier announcement specifying March 2014; a 2025 board announcement states that the two co-founded the company in 2013. The two official records differ on the year.⁠[7][8][9]

In 2014, Rabois lectured on company operations in the How to Start a Startup course. He compared managers to editors: helping teams cut down complex tasks, clarify problems, allocate resources, and keep a consistent voice. On delegation, he emphasized adjusting management style to an employee’s familiarity with a specific task, while weighing both the consequences of a decision and the manager’s confidence in their own judgment.⁠[10][11]

In the same lecture, he used the metaphor of “barrels and ammunition” to describe teams, emphasizing the search for leaders who can take an idea through to delivery and bring others along. He advised focusing on the most critical problems, using paired metrics to reduce the bias of any single metric, and checking calendars to see whether time allocation matches priorities. These are management positions he put forward based on his own experience.⁠[11]

In November 2016, Opendoor announced a $210 million Series D round led by Jeff Crowe of Norwest Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to more than $320 million. The company was then operating in Phoenix and Dallas–Fort Worth and planned to expand to 10 cities in 2017; this plan was an expansion goal at the time of the announcement.⁠[7]

On June 2, 2017, Rabois set out a startup approach on his public account: find a large industry with fragmented participants and a low Net Promoter Score, then use vertical integration to offer a simpler product or service. He called this approach the formula for startup success; it is a personal view.⁠[12]

In March 2019, Rabois moved to Founders Fund as a general partner, remaining until January 2024. During his time at the firm, he led investments in Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven.⁠[6][13]

Rabois co-founded OpenStore. Co-founder Matt Lanter said in a DTC POD interview that the team also included Jack Abraham, Jeremy Wood, and Michael Rubenstein, and that Rabois was then serving as CEO. The business serves owners who want to sell their ShopifyShopifyShopify is a commerce software company that originated in Ottawa, Canada, providing merchants with tools for online stores, physical retail, payments, orders and inventory management. The business began with Snowdevil, an online snowboard store founded in 2004 by Tobias Lütke and others, and the standalone e-commerce platform launched in 2006. The company went public in 2015 and now trades under the ticker SHOP on Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange.Open the full entry stores, uses a pricing engine to generate offers, and has built an operating platform to take over and grow the brands it acquires.⁠[14][15]

In January 2024, Rabois returned to Khosla Ventures as a Managing Director. An article Vinod KhoslaVinod KhoslaVinod Khosla is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, the founder of Khosla Ventures, a co-founder of Daisy Systems and Sun Microsystems, and Sun’s founding chief executive officer. His investments and public commentary span computer networking, clean energy, health care, and artificial intelligence; after his family acquired the Seattle Seahawks in 2026, he became the team’s Chair.Open the full entry published that year records that Rabois values thorough debate among partners and concrete support for portfolio companies; the article places his return within the firm’s long-standing practice of venture assistance.⁠[6][16][2]

In July 2025, OpenStore sharply cut its funding valuation and replaced its CEO.⁠[15]

On September 10, 2025, Opendoor announced that Rabois and Eric Wu were rejoining its board, with Rabois as Chairman; the same announcement named former Shopify executive Kaz Nejatian as CEO. The company also announced equity investment agreements totaling $40 million with Khosla Ventures and Wu. In the announcement, Rabois backed using AI to transform the company’s operations and the home transaction experience, a direction he set out at the time.⁠[9]

As checked in September 2026, Khosla Ventures still listed Rabois as a Managing Director, and Opendoor listed him as Chairman. Opendoor’s 2026 proxy statement positions him as independent Chair, separate from the CEO role; public institutional profiles also list his board seats at Ramp and Faire.⁠[2][13][6]

Khosla Ventures: Rabois is a Managing Director. Official website: https://www.khoslaventures.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

Opendoor: Rabois is a co-founder and Chairman. Official website: https://www.opendoor.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]

OpenStore: Rabois is a co-founder and former CEO. Official website: https://open.store/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14][15]

X: Public account: https://x.com/rabois (opens in a new window).⁠[17]