# We Had to Reimagine Nextdoor | CEO & Co-Founder Nirav Tolia NEW ECONOMIES · 2026-06-03 Nirav Tolia, CEO and co-founder of Nextdoor, explains the company's multi-year turnaround from treading water to 14% revenue growth and 22 million weekly active users, and argues that the future lies in an AI-enabled 'age of human connection' where technology amplifies real-world community rather than replacing it. He recounts the crucible moment when a board meeting in May 2018 led to his return as CEO after a five-year absence, and how investor Bill Gurley's recitation of Rudyard Kipling's 'If' spurred him to persevere. Tolia emphasizes that Nextdoor's requirement of real names and verified addresses, built from the start, gives it a trust advantage in an AI-dominated era. He describes the importance of co-founders like Sarah Leary, with whom he has worked for 27 years, and shares specific data: one in three U.S. households are on Nextdoor, with an aspiration to reach three of three. The episode also covers his brief stint as a Shark Tank shark, the opening of a new Dallas office, and a hybrid work philosophy that prioritizes both in-person energy and remote flexibility. ## Questions this episode answers ### How does Nextdoor integrate AI to enhance human connection rather than replace it? Nirav Tolia believes the best future integrates AI with humanism, not as a choice but as a combination. He calls it the "age of human connection," where AI efficiently surfaces information (the "what") but human connections provide the unique perspective (the "who"). Nextdoor's early decision to require real names and verified addresses—adding significant friction—now positions it as a trusted, authentic local platform in an AI-driven world, fostering genuine community rather than anonymous interactions. [28:52](https://neweconomies.podhood.com/88bfe37e-aa0f-4dcb-9d68-05527f32be67?t=1732000) ### Why did Nirav Tolia come back as CEO of Nextdoor after stepping away? After a tense May 2018 board meeting where Nextdoor was "treading water," Nirav Tolia was asked to return as CEO. He was then an executive chairman at a VC firm, enjoying investing in AI companies. Despite not having a ready solution, his deep commitment to make Nextdoor succeed—fearing it would be a "missed opportunity" on his deathbed—drove him to come back and fight for the company's survival and growth. [0:18](https://neweconomies.podhood.com/88bfe37e-aa0f-4dcb-9d68-05527f32be67?t=18000) ### How did the failure of Nirav Tolia's previous startup lead to the creation of Nextdoor? Nirav Tolia's previous startup, Fanbase, failed after two years of effort. When he considered returning the remaining money to investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, Gurley slid him a copy of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If," encouraging perseverance. Motivated, Tolia and his co-founders spent summer 2010 exploring new ideas, eventually pivoting to create Nextdoor after reading a New York Times article revealing that nearly 30% of Americans couldn't name a single neighbor. [5:20](https://neweconomies.podhood.com/88bfe37e-aa0f-4dcb-9d68-05527f32be67?t=320000) ## Key moments - **[0:00] Intro** - [0:00] "Nextdoor is a company that was formed from the ashes of a failed company, believe it or not." — Nirav Tolia - [0:18] Nirav Tolia was asked to return as CEO after a tense 2018 board meeting when Nextdoor was treading water - **[2:05] The Turnaround** - **[4:20] Crucible Moment** - [6:10] Bill Gurley passed Nirav Tolia Kipling's 'If' poem to encourage perseverance after Fanbase's failure, sparking Nextdoor's pivot - [8:40] "In the moment, it's desperation. And remember, desperation is about despair, it's about struggle." — Nirav Tolia - **[9:25] Fighting Through** - [9:52] Q: How do you get through the really difficult days as an entrepreneur? - [10:14] "If it were easy, someone would have already done it." — Nirav Tolia - [11:26] Nirav Tolia credits having co-founders and community as key to enduring the entrepreneurial journey, making highs higher and lows tolerable - **[13:20] Co-Founder Bond** - [14:07] "I like her, respect her, and trust her." — Nirav Tolia on co-founder Sarah Leary - [16:03] Nirav Tolia says lasting co-founder relationships require commitment, shared vision, and enjoying each other's company - **[17:37] Coming Back** - [18:36] Q: When the board wanted a leadership change in 2018, what was Nirav Tolia's conversation with co-founder Sarah Leary? - [20:37] Nirav Tolia joked that when Nextdoor asked him to return as CEO, things must have been pretty bad - [21:48] "I had a deep commitment to trying to make Nextdoor succeed." — Nirav Tolia on why he returned as CEO - [24:28] "The solution is not to go back, ever. The solution is to move forward." — Nirav Tolia on Nextdoor's Phase 3 transformation - **[24:40] AI-Enabled Future** - [25:38] Nirav Tolia: The age of human connection is about using AI to reduce friction but not replace real human relationships, a huge opportunity for Nextdoor - [27:13] "I couldn't be more fortunate than to be at Nextdoor because the world is moving towards being AI dominant." — Nirav Tolia - [27:39] "I believe the best version of the future is one where AI is integrated with humanism." — Nirav Tolia - [29:34] "Let's be one of the factors that increases the humanness of the world through the power of AI." — Nirav Tolia - **[29:50] Human Connection** - [32:23] "AI brings the what in an unprecedented fashion, but human beings bring the who." — Nirav Tolia - [33:02] A Pew study showing almost 30% of Americans couldn't name a single neighbor sparked the creation of Nextdoor, says Nirav Tolia - [36:08] "Ultimately what (information) is only as valuable as who (the source)." — Nirav Tolia - **[36:30] Staying Relevant** - [38:02] Nextdoor's shift from 'what happened' to 'what's going to happen' in neighborhoods makes the 'who' more important because future events are subjective, says Nirav Tolia - [40:43] Nirav Tolia is building an AI agent to continuously compare Nextdoor's unique point of view on community with outside trends - [44:24] Q: How is Nextdoor going to win in the local community market? - **[44:30] Winning Position** - [47:04] Nextdoor has 20M weekly active users and 110M signups, but Nirav Tolia aspires to reach the billions of people in neighborhoods globally - [50:07] Nirav Tolia says successful communities experience a network effect that closes the market, aiming for 100% neighborhood penetration on Nextdoor - **[52:15] Rapid Fire** - [52:40] Q: What is the greatest lesson you learned from investor Bill Gurley? - [53:16] Q: Who is Nirav Tolia's favorite Shark Tank investor? - [54:36] Nextdoor's hybrid hub strategy in SF, Dallas, NY, and London reflects its belief that building real-world community starts with in-person office connections - [56:08] Nextdoor opens offices in diverse cities like Dallas and New York to understand the full variety of neighborhoods, says Nirav Tolia ## Speakers - **Ollie Forsyth** (host) - **Nirav Tolia** (guest) ## Topics Consumer & Community, AI ## Mentioned Benchmark Capital (company), Fanbase (company), Nextdoor (company), Shopping.com (company), eBay (company) ## Transcript ### Intro **Nirav Tolia** [0:00] Nextdoor is a company that was formed from the ashes of a failed company, believe it or not, but we had a board meeting in May of 2018, and it was a tense board meeting because the company was not performing, and so the company needed to make changes in leadership. It was not a great situation, but after. The company was treading water, and in some cases, when you're treading water, it's the same thing as moving backwards, and so I was asked to come back as CEO. I didn't even think that theright thing was for me to come back. I was quite enjoying looking at AI companies and being on the other side of the table, if you will. I've never come back to anything. I've only started companies, and I didn't have the solution for what was ailing Nextdoor, but what I did have was, I had a deep commitment to trying to make Nextdoor succeed, because that would feel like a missed opportunity to me if something happened and I wasn't in there fighting tooth and nail to make it survive and then thrive. When I came back, we were not in a position to dream. In reality, the crucible moment is about survival on a day-to-day basis. Is this going to be your moment where you persevere, or is this going to be your moment where you give up? To me, the key has always been. **Ollie Forsyth** [1:20] Nirav, this is a full-circle moment. Welcome to NEW ECONOMIES. This is so exciting. I actually remember when Nextdoor was first starting in 2011, I was 15 years old, and all my high school friends in the U.S. were saying, "Hey, Ollie, have you checked out this new community app called Nextdoor?" And now I'm speaking to the founder. Welcome to the show. **Nirav Tolia** [1:39] I'm not sure what's more shocking, the fact that you gave me that incredibly humbling intro, or the fact that you were only 15 when we started Nextdoor. Now, I was 16, so we're kind of of the same vintage. No, I'm kidding. I remember those days, even though it was 15 years ago, so you're roughly double your age. You know, I can do that math. But yes, it's been quite a journey, and to think that this thing we created, Nextdoor, in the summer of 2010, is now 15 years old this summer, it's hard to believe. ### The Turnaround **Ollie Forsyth** [2:09] Crazy. We've got so much unpacked, but you just had Q1 earnings. How about the audience unpacked? Where is Nextdoorright now, and where are we looking to go in the next 12 months? **Nirav Tolia** [2:20] Well, you can never stand still, particularly in the technology industry, and Nextdoor is in the midst of a multi-year transformation. Some people might call it a turnaround, and it's fine to actually call it a turnaround, but we are in the midst of taking what we believe is untapped potential and building that potential into the product to create better business outcomes and a more valuable company. Nextdoor is a company that started, I would say, humbly, because it's actually a company that was formed from the ashes of a failed company, believe it or not. It's a pivot, as we like to say in Silicon Valley, and then it grew very steadily and reliably for a number of years, culminating in a great IPO four years ago that was very successful and done by my predecessor, CEO Sarah Friar, who's now the CFO at OpenAI. But after the IPO, and more specifically post-COVID, we've experienced a lot of headwinds. The product has not performed nearly as well. The public market rewards growth, as we all know, and the company hasn't grown. And so about two years ago, I was asked to come back as CEO, and really the mandate was to transform the company or turn it around and get it back to growing. And so it's great to talk to you now, coming off of Q1 earnings, because it's one of the first quarters, maybe the only quarter, certainly in the last two years, and maybe even since we've been a public company, where we can definitively say we are starting to get back to a place where we grow. We grew revenue 14% year over year. We actually grew our audience 1%. I know these are small numbers, but when you're either standing still or when you're shrinking, it's really, really, really important to turn that around. And in many ways, and I'm sure we'll get into it, it's harder than starting a company in the first place. **Ollie Forsyth** [4:11] And it's even harder now when we have all this incredible excitement around AI. We don't know what's accurate information, misinformation. We don't really know where this whole world is going next. But Nextdoor now has 22M active weekly users,right, which actually is still pretty large. ### Crucible Moment **Ollie Forsyth** [4:30] I feel every moment and every company has that crucible moment. What was the crucible moment for you for starting Nextdoor, and why did you want to actually go on this entrepreneurial journey when it's so fricking hard? **Nirav Tolia** [4:43] Well, it's funny you bring up crucible moments, because Nextdoor is the third company that I've started, and the longer that you are at something, the longer that you're at starting a company or being in a marriage or being a parent,right, any of these things that end up being quite difficult and aren't straight linear lines, I think there are multiple crucible moments. I mean, this is a crucible moment for Nextdoor even today. The ability, if we have it, to transform and to take potential that's been lost. But as I mentioned, Nextdoor was started from the ashes of failure, so the crucible wasright there from the very beginning. I had started a company in 1999 and had had some success. The company almost went out of business, actually, which was a crucible moment, but then came back, merged with another company. The merged entity was called shopping.com, which went public in 2004, and eBay purchased it in 2005. After a few years to kind of restore myself to a natural state after being an entrepreneur for five years, I started another company, and I started it with people that I'd worked with at the former company, shopping.com, and we worked on it for about two years, and we didn't get anywhere. It was actually a failed company. It was a failure. And even though we had money in the bank, we knew that the product offering was not working. And so that was a crossroads, because when you know something's not going to work and you realize that time is your most valuable asset, you have to ask yourself the tough question, should we keep going? And we asked ourselves the question. We thought about giving the money back. I even went to our main shareholder, Bill Gurley, at Benchmark Capital, and said, "We've tried everything. This isn't going to work." The name of the company was Fanbase. "We're going to shut Fanbase down, and we're going to give you your money back." And he slid over the table or across the table this poem, "If," by Rudyard Kipling, and it's one of my favorite poems. Bill knew that. And the poem is about finding yourself and the courage to fight when things are at their darkest. And this is a poem where certain lines are shown in the locker rooms at Wimbledon. So it's about rising to become a champion and overcoming adversity. It's all about the crucible moment, recognizing it and persevering through it. And so his point of passing me the poem was to say, is this going to be your moment where you persevere, or is this going to be your moment where you give up? And it wasn't nearly that dramatic, but it felt that way. And so my co-founders and I said, "Let's give this one more summer." It was the summer of 2010. "Let's run as hard as possible against new ideas. Let's vet them. Let's learn from the mistakes of the company that didn't work. Let's incorporate some of the good things we did in the company that succeeded previously, and let's see where we come out." And that was the summer of Nextdoor. You know, the one thing I want to say, particularly for the entrepreneurs who are listening, in retrospect, it feels like this incredibly well-considered plan with a lot of intention and determinism,right? In reality, the crucible moment is about survival on a day-to-day basis without having the luxury of thinking about the long-term plan. So when you say, "Why did you do it?" Well, I did it because I felt like I had no choice. I did it because I was being challenged by one of my main investors and my greatest mentor in my professional career. I did it because I was in a new relationship with a wonderful woman who ended up being my wife. I did it because I wanted to show to her that I had some value to bring to the table, and I think my co-founders felt the same way about their lives and their families. And so to say that it was well-considered and that I did a spreadsheet where I said, "Well, here's the probability of success, and here are the ideas we can pursue, and how do I actually spit this into an LLM that at that time was only my brain,"right, and come out with a great answer, that's a misnomer. You can say that or feel that way in retrospect, but in the moment, it's desperation. And remember, desperation is about despair,right? It's about struggle. **Ollie Forsyth** [8:52] So many of these founders, you know, think, "Oh, it's so easy to start a company. We'll raise 5, 10M dollars pre-seed tomorrow, and then we'll be absolutely fine." In reality, as you say, that is definitely not how it works. And although, you know, every founder has a crucible moment, every day is like fighting for the championship. I mentioned before you came on the show, we just had Maria Sharapova on the show last night, and we were talking around, well, there's a correlation between a champion and a true founder, and in reality, at the end of the day, we're all fighting for survival. ### Fighting Through **Ollie Forsyth** [9:27] I think it's fair to say Nextdoor has had its ups and downs over the years, and that's totally fine. That's totally cool, because every company has that,right? But how do you fight through those days when, in reality, we know it's not, you know, those days are tough. You go to bed thinking about all this stuff that's going on. It's hard,right? How do you get through those really difficult days? **Nirav Tolia** [9:52] It's not an easy thing to be an entrepreneur. And while there are amazing moments that are the things that we see in movies or the things that we read in books, many of the moments are either more mundane or, even worse, they're moments that are scary, because if it were easy, someone would have already done it. And if it were obvious, someone would have already done it. And so by definition, we as entrepreneurs, as founders, we're trying to do something different, something that probably was too hard for most people to do or was a new spin on something that required a different orientation. And so you have to expect it to be difficult. In a way, you have to embrace the fact that the reason entrepreneurs can be successful is because they work harder and longer and through more adversity than most everyone else. I think that's where you start. Now, that beautifully articulated vision of courage is much easier to say than it is to actually feel. When you're in the middle of it, it's very hard. I mean, for me, beyond my own intrinsic, and I would give credit to my parents as immigrants, I mean, this immigrant mentality of, you know, you never give up. You always fight with your last dying breath, and you believe deeply that input will equal output, even if it's not on the timeframe you want. Besides that, to me, the key has always been doing it with other people. And this gets to kind of what I believe is the through line for my entire life, both personally and professionally, and that is community. And so for me, the only tolerable way to go through the entrepreneurial journey is to have co-founders and to have those early employees and to have those people who are very good at making the highs even higher, but more importantly, are really good at helping one tolerate the lows. And you do that because you do it together. And when you do it together, you realize, "I'm not alone. I may be in a bad spot, but I'm not alone." And you realize, "I don't have to solve this myself. I have other people around the table who I can link arms with, and we can do this together." But yeah, there are dark days. I mean, any number of things. You mentioned Nextdoor's had a lot of highs and lows. I can't think of any company that hasn't had lots of highs and lows. It's just that the successful ones have many more highs than they have lows, and the unsuccessful ones end up having more lows than they have highs. But whether it's losing a customer or a recruit or having to do layoffs or seeing a competitor do something that you wanted to do or having an investor say no to you, I mean, these things happen all the time. It's not just one or two moments. It's a constant process of pushing against something that's pushing back. And if you're really lucky, you move that thing a little inch, and then you get the courage to move it another inch. And then after a while, usually many years, those inches add up into something significant. But I wouldn't say entrepreneurship is something you choose because it's easy. And so you almost have to reprogram your brain and say, "I want to do something that's hard, because hard is meaningful, and hard is valuable, and hard is impactful." And that is what I truly believe. ### Co-Founder Bond **Ollie Forsyth** [13:21] You know, the journey of being a founder, like we said, people just think it's so easy,right? But as we know, it's 99.9% pain every single day. You know, thinking about like Maria Sharapova yesterday, when you're on that call, you are fighting every single day. But I feel like you can just move 1%, 2% further, faster every single day. Eventually, you know, after three, four months, hopefully, you know, you progress somewhat. And like you said, you know, having great co-founders is such an important asset, I think, to any company. It's like a family. You have your co-founders, you have your board, your investors, and all your team,right? What do you think makes it an amazing, blossoming founder relationship who really helps each other go through thick and thin? **Nirav Tolia** [14:07] I was thinking the same thing. When you said great co-founders, I thought to myself, "OK, what does great really mean? Does great mean super talented? Does it mean very empathetic? Does it mean fun?" The reality, it means all three things. I have this one co-founder, Sarah Leary, who I've been lucky enough to work with since 1999. So we are, I think, our 27th year of working together. And I always tell people, "Sarah's someone that I like, respect, and trust." I like her because she's fun to be around, and we have things in common, and we enjoy working together. I respect her because she's super talented. She's a winner. When she decides to do something, it somehow happens. And finally, I trust her. She's someone who is supportive, and she's high integrity, and she's someone who is selfless. And so if you can find someone like that to be your partner or to have multiple co-founders like that, it makes a big difference, because you need all three of those things at different moments. There are moments when you just need someone to make a joke. There are moments when you need someone to solve a really difficult intellectual problem. And then there are moments where you need to make sure that when everyone leaves for the exits, that person's going to stay, and that person's going to have your back. And when you find someone like that, and I've been lucky to find someone like that in Sarah, you don't let go. And that explains the 27 years. **Ollie Forsyth** [15:34] What, do you think, makes a lasting relationship? We've talked about the, you know, the togetherness, the trust, but I think there's more to it than that. Is it just understanding each other? Is it working out how each other work? You know, I guess when you guys were building, Sarah worked on this, you worked on that. What do you think it really is, that just that magical element? **Nirav Tolia** [16:03] You know, it starts with commitment. I mean, both people have to say, "I'm willing to invest in this." And then you go to the next thing, which is, do we have a shared vision for what we're trying to accomplish? And then the final thing, and I don't mean this flippantly, you need to enjoy being around the other person. Like, whatever your version of fun is needs to be shared by the other person, and you need to experience that, because we're just, we're human at the end of the day. And what drives us, what gets us out of bed in the morning, yes, we want purpose and we want ambition, but we also want to feel good about ourselves and our lives. And so people who make you feel that way, you're going to gravitate towards those people. And so it's really about, to me, the question is, in tough times, why do people stay together? And I think the answer is what I said. It's commitment. It's a shared vision, and it's the pleasure of each other's company, because there will be many moments where it would be easy to say, "You know what? We've had a good run, but I'm done. I'm moving on." And it happens all the time,right? And so when you finally find those people, whether it's in business or I think about my wife in my personal life, you feel really gratified. And, you know, it comes back to community. I mean, who is your community? Who is your community professionally, and who is your community personally? And how do those people build you up so that you can achieve your potential? And those are very special people. We all have them. ### Coming Back **Ollie Forsyth** [17:38] So I think this question will answer a lot about Sarah. And, OK, so every company has a tough moment,right? And in a founder's journey as well, every founder has a tough moment. And when I meet a lot of founders, I actually often say to them, "You should also figure out how long do you want to run a company for? And when are you not theright person to continue running the company?" If you raise $10M, $100M, and so on,right, I think it's totally fair to accept. There was a day about five years ago now, I think, give or take, where you got the call, and you basically had to figure out where's the company going next. When the call came in that they wanted a shakeout, being the CEO management, and you call Sarah, I assume. What was that conversation? **Nirav Tolia** [18:36] Well, it's a great question, and I don't think anyone's ever asked the question that way. You know, we had a board meeting in May of 2018, and it was a tense board meeting because the company was treading water. It wasn't moving forward. It wasn't moving backwards, but it was treading water. And in some cases, when you're treading water, it's the same thing as moving backwards. It's just a leading indicator that you are going to move backwards soon,right? And we had a board meeting, as I mentioned, and it was not great. And it became increasingly clear that there was a lack of alignment between the top with the board members and even management. And so I think I felt that too. So I would include myself as it didn't come as a big surprise to me,right? It was a conversation that all of us were having. And Sarah was actually kind of funny. She said, "Allright, you're going to go over there and talk to board members. Like, make sure they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." I remember her making that statement,right? And so I don't think she felt that it was time for a change. She felt like it was time to reevaluate the way we were doing things and maybe make some changes,right? But she was supportive, as she's always been. **Ollie Forsyth** [19:54] OK, so the company now, you come back, and honestly, I actually haven't met, while I think about this question, I actually haven't met that many founders of a publicly listed company now that found the company, they leave, you took a five, five-and-a-half-year break, and then they come back. When you come back, and again, I haven't really seen this happen before, I imagine there are a bunch of really cool colleagues who are still at the company today when you left and then when you originally started it. When you came back, were they like, "Hey, what are you doing back?" Was it a little bit awkward, or was it like, "No, we are here together, and it's time to rebuild"? **Nirav Tolia** [20:37] Well, I like to joke with people. If they asked me to come back to the company, things must have been pretty bad. And so, you know, it was not a great situation. And I believe that most people in the company knew that the company needed to make changes in leadership because the company was not performing. I didn't even think that theright thing was for me to come back. I had moved from the Bay Area where our main office was, and I was the executive chairman of a $7 billion technology venture capital firm, and I was quite enjoying looking at AI companies and other investments and being on the other side of the table, if you will. It's a very different job to be an investor, but it has a lot of attraction to it. And because I'd been an entrepreneur, it was really challenging and fun for me to try to put on the other hat. And so I was not looking to come back, and I didn't have the solution for what was ailing Nextdoor. But what I did have was history with the company. And what I did have was a very deep understanding of the DNA of what created Nextdoor. And then finally, the third and maybe the most important thing is I had a deep commitment to trying to make Nextdoor succeed, because if I were on my deathbed and someone said, "Oh, you've lived this life and you've done these things, and didn't you start that Nextdoor thing? Whatever happened to it?" That would feel like a missed opportunity to me if something happened that made Nextdoor go away, and I wasn't in there fighting tooth and nail to make it survive and then thrive. And so I came back, and you're exactlyright. There were many, many people who I'd worked with before. And because I'd been on the board during the five-and-a-half years when I was gone, it's not as if I was disconnected from the company. I was connected to the company, but just in a different way. And so I had a lot of people that I had a lot of deep respect for and actually high regard and affection. And I think the interesting thing is our relationship changed from one of, "I was the first CEO and a board member," to, "I am the current CEO and an operator next to them." And so it was less about, "Am I theright person or the wrong person?" and more about, "Hey, I've gotten used to Nirav in a certain modality, and he's gotten used to interacting with the company in a certain modality. And now the modality is going to be different. And is it going to be different, better, different, the same, or different, worse?" And so that was really the question. There were also a huge number of people that I'd never met. And so, you know, you come back. I mean, I've never come back to anything. I've only started companies. So that was a very strange feeling even for me, because you think in some ways, well, gosh, this is the company that I was so privileged to build. But by the time you come back, whether it's five months or five years, it's a totally different company. And more importantly, the company that you need to build when you come back is a totally different company. And so maybe there were people who thought, "Gosh, the old founder's coming back. We're going to go back to what we did before," whether that was good or bad,right? And I made it very clear from the very beginning, and I was telling myself this. The solution is not to go back, ever. The solution is to move forward. Now, we can learn from the first phase of the company when I was CEO, and we can learn from the second phase of the company when I wasn't CEO. But we are all in this now to create the third phase of the company. And the third phase needs to be different and better than phases one and two. And so that was a message that I think resonated, because even for everyone that I was joining or rejoining, they knew that whatever was happening wasn't working, and they wanted to be part of that phase three,right? I will say, because we talked about my co-founder, Sarah Leary, one of the first things that I wanted to do was bring Sarah back, because she had also left the company. And I was very lucky that she came back. And so we're working together again, which is just amazing. ### AI-Enabled Future **Ollie Forsyth** [24:41] So much cool. This phase three also feels the most exciting time to be building,right? I mean, everyone is heading towards AI community. We talked a little bit before we went live around this whole new media space, the way we consume information. The third act, I almost like call this, where Nextdoor is, you know, heading, I feel like there's such a big opportunity. And maybe, like, let's break this down a little bit. We know AI is big, but I actually think at some point, people are going to get so bold of AI, especially like, we don't know what's true, the misinformation, people will have their own opinions,right? The biggest opportunity I actually think is out there is community and connecting neighborhoods. And that's exactly what you guys are about,right? Nobody has got the scale you guys have, to my knowledge. And it feels like this is probably the moment to be building a community consumer type of company, and you guys are the most relevant party out there. **Nirav Tolia** [25:38] Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. And I have so much to share on this front. But let me start with something personal, which is going all the way back to talking about the Crucible Moments and some of the dark days of being an entrepreneur. That beautiful vision that you just articulated, when I came back, we were not in a position to dream. The thing we were dreaming about was not losing relevance completely. And one of my fears personally, which I have started to talk about a little bit more with my board and with the company, because thankfully, the fear has been assuaged, it's passed. But one of my fears was, gosh, is it theright thing for me personally to go from investing in AI companies, which I think is one of the most exciting, most promising, most vibrant jobs in the world? How lucky am I? To this old asset that's not AI native, that's all about real-world connections, that is not performing? Is that really, like, who would choose that from a career pathway standpoint,right? I mean, I was leaving a good time, looking for a good time, but I wasn't exactly having a good time at Nextdoor,right? I will say that two years later, understanding both the company and its opportunity more deeply and understanding or trying to understand what's going on in the outside world, I couldn't be more fortunate than to be at Nextdoor because of exactly what you said, which is the world is moving towards being AI dominant. And I think that's a really good thing. I am not at all a doomer when it comes to AI, and I'm the opposite. I'm a huge lover, believer, and I think the potential of AI is bigger than any transformation that's happened in my lifetime. And so I'm all in on AI, and I think everyone should be. I mean, my investor, Bill Gurley, says, "The best version of you is the AI-enabled version." And I believe that. I believe that's true for people as well as companies. I also believe that the best version of the future is one where AI is integrated with humanism. It's not this choice. I think that's a false dichotomy. It's not, do we pick misinformation or human information? Well, no one ever picks misinformation,right? But what we'd like is to have the efficiency and the leverage of AI, because that's what technology delivers, and AI does it in a different, better, and magnificent way. But we want to cross that with the uniqueness and the specialness of being human. And with Nextdoor, I honestly believe that an AI-enabled version of Nextdoor can do both those things. It can harness AI to make the Nextdoor product better, and it needs to be better. We have to make the product better, and we can use AI to do that. But the product needs to deliver on human connection. And so if the birth of the internet was the age of information, and the emergence of AI is the age of intelligence, I believe where we need to go is the age of human connection. Now, AI can make it more efficient and reduce friction when it comes to human connections, but it cannot replace human connections. And so we will use AI as much as we possibly can, but the endpoints, the outcomes, the goal will be human connection that is as old as time itself, because the concept of community, which is really what we're doing, we're building local community. The concept of community, I mean, tribalism is how we evolved as a species. So this is not a trend. This is baked into who we are as a species. And so we crave community. Can AI help us build community? Absolutely. Can it actually make it harder to build community? Yes, it can. So let's be one of the factors that increases the humanness of the world through the power of AI. I believe that's the real opportunity, and it's one that Nextdoor has. ### Human Connection **Ollie Forsyth** [29:51] I love how you articulate this, the age of human connection. People are lonely. They want to meet people. They want to find the most accurate information, especially like on a localized basis, which you guys are doing. And at the end of the day, they don't want these old, you know, clunky products, which maybe Nextdoor has had in the past. They want, you know, beautiful, fresh design, you know, which AI can now do. But let's talk about the AI of human connection. What do you think that actually looks like? And maybe just help the audience understand how has the product evolved from maybe this, you know, slightly old-school type of product to where we are today in this abundance of AI? **Nirav Tolia** [30:28] Yeah, it's a great question. I think that AI makes it very easy for what I'm looking for to materialize. Humanism is all about focusing on who. Both of them are important. Who and what are important. But we run the risk, and I really don't like thinking or talking as much about risks as much as opportunities. And so the risk is that we lead with what, and we forget about who,right? The great example is, if you researched a topic previously, you couldn't simultaneously read 100 books and amalgamate them into one point of view. You had to reach each of those individual books, and each of those individual books had a point of view from its author that was unique to that subject matter. And so you would not only get knowledge about the subject matter, you would get a sense of the perspective of the author. And so you would get what, but it would be driven by who,right? I mean, you look at the cover of the book, it's got the title, but it's also got the author. Both are important. And sometimes we buy books because of their titles, but most often, we buy books because of their authors,right? Then all of a sudden, AI comes along. And boy, it's pretty darn efficient, and it's high leverage if you can say, "Now, I'm going to cut to the chase, and on any given topic, I'm going to boil together all of the best thinkers on this topic and have a unified view," which makes it so fast for me to understand the core of this topic. However, you've lost the personal perspective. You've gained a more high leverage what, but you've completely lost who,right? You've completely lost it because the LLM, the agent, the AI is simply a carrier,right? It's simply a purifier of all of that content. It's not the progenitor of it,right? AI is until AGI,right? AIs are not creating new things. They're just taking things that they've actually learned and cobbling them together in very clever ways. And so AIs bring the what in an unprecedented fashion, but human beings bring the who. And so when we think about Nextdoor, when we started, the statistic that launched the company, the one epiphany moment that we had, was an article that we read in the New York Times in the summer of 2010 that was talking about the state of community in America. And the Pew Institute had done a research study, and they'd found that almost 30% of Americans could not name a single neighbor by name. Almost 30%, almost one in three Americans living in a neighborhood, because everyone lives in a neighborhood, could not name a single neighbor by name. And for the co-founders, we thought, boy, that's really different than the way we grew up. And what is that going to mean for our kids? And then we took it a step further and said, OK, we're living in San Francisco, the modern-day Florence,right? If Florence was the center of the Renaissance, the new Renaissance is centered in San Francisco. And we realized we didn't know that many of our neighbors either. Can we use technology, which has kept us inside our homes, away from meeting those neighbors, and made it easy for us to do everything without relying on those neighbors,right? So it's actually made us more lonely and isolated. Can technology do the opposite? That was the epiphany moment. But the interesting thing is, we didn't start the company because we felt like there was a vacuum of local information. The vacuum of local information, which does exist, that's what. But the not knowing our neighbors, that's who. That's where we started the company. As time went on, it's much easier to build clicks and to drive engagement on what than who. Who's more difficult? Human connection is not easy. It's not cheap. It's not flippant,right? It takes investment. It takes authenticity. It takes trust,right? And so in the race to get bigger, you may say, look, does it matter where this content came from? Does it matter if this is your immediate neighbor or a neighbor that's actually two miles away from you? Well, I mean, it actually matters to you, but we prioritize the what, the information. And the clicks came, the engagement came, the growth came. But ultimately, the soul didn't grow and became less vibrant. And so as we think about now evolving Nextdoor, the what is very important. People come to Nextdoor because they don't have an easy way to know what's going on in their neighborhood. But increasingly, those information sources are almost solely their neighbors. It's not the New York Times, because there isn't a New York Times in your neighborhood. It's not the local television news, because people don't watch that anymore. It's not the local newspaper,right? And we don't get together in physical space the way that we once did. So how can we benefit from that undigitized word-of-mouth information that is trapped in our neighbors' brains? Well, we need to have conversations with them. But technology can make those conversations much more fluid, much more efficient. And that's where Nextdoor comes in. We can connect you to the neighbors for the purposes of having conversations. And through those conversations, you not only get information, you build connection. And so the age of human connection is about remembering that ultimately what, which is information, is only as valuable as who, where that information comes from, and realizing we need both. And I'm afraid that in many cases, particularly the narrative is all about choosing one or the other. I don't think you can choose one or the other. I think you need both. But in our case, in Nextdoor's case, and I believe the most vibrant view of the future is starting with who and then moving towards what. **Ollie Forsyth** [36:29] I think also on the who, you know, it's I hear you, but on the who is also how do you say relevant,right? Like if you look at Facebook, I don't know if you use Facebook, like I barely check it anymore. ### Staying Relevant **Ollie Forsyth** [36:41] My age generation,right, 28, 30 plus, we don't use it. And I think it's so important for these marketplaces, social networks, they need to figure out how do they stay relevant. I'm sure it's like something you guys have been talking about. For my age generation and maybe the era before me, how are you going to stay relevant? **Nirav Tolia** [36:59] Well, it's a great question because in our industry, there are very few companies, trends, products, philosophies that stand the test of time. In fact, the story of the technology industry is one company eating another, which then is eaten by another company, and that's what we call creative destruction, or that's what we call evolution in our industry,right? And so the lesson, I think, of Apple and Microsoft in the current day is that we must constantly reinvent ourselves. In some ways, incumbency is a straighter path to failure than a lack of execution,right? Incumbency is actually one of the things that ultimately leads to the company being eaten. And so we need to take a step back at Nextdoor and say, allright, what is still relevant today, and what is not as relevant? And so I'll give you a very specific example. In many, many, many, many cases, Nextdoor is important because you want to find out what happened a week ago in your neighborhood. But increasingly, what happened in the past is not as relevant to people because we live in a very fast-moving world, and we have lots of demands on our time. And what we'd rather know is what is going to happen in my neighborhood. So versus the job to be done of I want to know what happened in my neighborhood last weekend, which is maybe what a newspaper would have originally done, I think the job to be done is I want to know what's happening this weekend, this coming weekend in my neighborhood. That actually is a very fundamental shift because if you are trying to provide options for something that hasn't happened, that's a much more subjective conversation than the objective conversation of last weekend, there was a farmer's market, and these people went there, and it was well attended or not well attended, et cetera, et cetera,right? Whereas, well, there's a farmer's market coming up. I don't know how good it's going to be, but I'm going to show up. And that then gets to the who being more important because if you're talking about the past, allright, the what is the whole, it's the whole value proposition. I want to know what happened objectively. But if you want to know what's going to happen, that's an opinion. That's subjective. That's uniquely human,right? If you go to an LLM and say, who's going to win the Super Bowl? OK, the LLM will tell you, I believe, based on these odds and other things that I see, this team's going to do it. But it's so much more interesting to ask a person because that person says, well, I'm a fan of this team, so I think they're going to win. Or I'm not a fan of this team, so I don't think they're going to win,right? And you get into all of these personal things that start to influence the information. And so this is an example of, I think, to analogize it to Microsoft, Microsoft says, we used to own the desktop. Now we're going to own the cloud. That was an incredible innovation for them,right? Apple says, we used to build products that were fixed to your desk. Now we're going to build products that are completely mobile. I mean, that was a complete change,right? Or we used to build products for the knowledge worker where you had to type on keyboards. Now we're going to build products for everyone that can be controlled with a finger,right? So we need to have our series of those things, and they start as hypotheses, and then you test them, and you see what kind of signal you can get. And if you're really lucky, the thing that you believe is important about your product ends up being really important for the world. I have this thing I've been thinking about recently, which is, as CEO of a public company, you're always telling your story. You're always promoting the company. You're always speaking externally. It's a big part of the job. And so you have your book. It's almost like I get on one of these podcasts and I hit play, and you hear about the importance of community and the founding of Nextdoor and the way that I think about entrepreneurship. And those things are very unique to me, but they're not unique stories because I've told them before. Increasingly, what I'm trying to do is, how do I bolster my unique position on things with something that's outside of me to gain credibility,right? Because if I'm saying something's going to happen and everyone else is saying the opposite, well, clearly, I'm either the one in a billion who can predict the future correctly, or I'm just self-interested, or I'm just going to be wrong,right? On the other hand, if I say there is a trend larger than me, larger than my company, and something that the whole world should pay attention to, and here is my theory for how we fit into that trend, I think that's actually a lot more valuable. And so I've actually been thinking about using AI, building an agent that knows everything about Nextdoor and my theory behind Nextdoor and the things that make Nextdoor unique and important, and then increasingly putting articles about things that are bigger than Nextdoor, community, humanism, local, putting those into the same agent and asking it continuously, how is my point of view different, the same,right? Or in some way contrasted with outside points of view. And I think that really forces one to think, my hypotheses, are they unique? Are they differentiated, which is one thing you need? But the second is, is there a high probability of success? Because you can say, well, yeah, this is completely unique because no one wants it. That's why it's unique,right? Or it's completely unique because it's something everyone wants that only we can deliver. And that is actually the innovation moment that gets you really excited. You know, when Apple said, well, gosh, to create a device that has a touchscreen, think about what that's going to require. But guess what? We make insanely great products. Only we can do it,right? Or for Microsoft to say, everything's going to be stored in the cloud. But guess what? Today, everything's stored on hard drives that run Microsoft software. So we're perfectly equipped to build that relationship between the cloud and the desktop,right? The same way when we think about Nextdoor, we know the product has to be better. It has to evolve. But it also has to retain its DNA. And so we ask ourselves with these hypotheses, where is the world going? And how are we uniquely positioned to deliver that in a way that's very Nextdoor and very differentiated, but takes advantage of the outside demand that exists? **Ollie Forsyth** [43:37] So many great points there. You mentioned the relevance and attention of what happened yesterday. Actually, such a great point. I think, especially like my age generation, we don't care what happened yesterday. What we really care about is what's going to happen tomorrow and next week,right? And who are we going to meet, most importantly? We don't want to be lonely. We don't want to be lonely at weekends. We want to know what's going on,right? I love the second point you mentioned around how staying relevant as part of Nextdoor and creating this kind of agent, like how cool it would be actually to install that for all of your users also to understand. That would be so cool. And again, my generation, we love trying out new technology,right? And then the third point you mentioned, which is around how are you going to win in this market? And what makes you so far apart from everybody else out there? First of all, there is actually nobody else really out there who's got your scale,right? So I think you are actually perfectly positioned. So reversing the Uno card here, how are you perfectly positioned and how are you going to win in this market? ### Winning Position **Nirav Tolia** [44:38] Well, I joke sometimes and say, you know, the opportunity has always been to build the definitive resource in local. And the big players haven't been able to do that either because it's really hard or because it's not interesting. Now, I actually believe it's because it's hard,right? Why are we uniquely positioned to win? Well, the first thing is we do actually know local and community better than anyone else because we've been at it for 15 years, and we have the most first-party data. And that's data not just on what works, but almost more importantly, data on all the things that don't work,right? So that's where you start. You have to start and say, are you actually an expert at the thing you're trying to do? Because if someone else is an expert, they can actually come up with a clever solution that's going to actually be better than yours,right? So you start there. The second is that point of looking at external trends. Are the DNA pieces of our company well-suited for those trends, or are they ill-suited for those trends? And I'll give you a very specific example. If we had started Nextdoor fully anonymous, meaning you join Nextdoor, it's a little bit like Twitter. You can have any handle or what we call X now. You can have any handle you want. You can use your name if you want. Maybe you have a verified blue check. But if you don't want to, you don't have to,right? Which is really how most of the things when we started Nextdoor existed. Even Instagram today, you don't have to use your real name. You can be anyone,right? In fact, there are great influencers, Mr. Beast. What is Mr. Beast's real name? You don't even know if Mr. Beast is a person,right? Turns out he is, but it's a brand,right? We made the decision back then, way before AI, that we would require real name and that we would verify physical address because we felt even back then that trust was the linchpin of community. There was no way that we had predicted or we had seen in the future that AI would come and that trust and identity and authenticity would end up being so important. That was just luck. Now, it wasn't luck back then because we did it for a very specific reason, but it's luck that that building block, and you mentioned 20 million people a week. You know, I think of three numbers, actually. 20 million people a week, 110 million people who've signed up for the service, and the billions of people that live in neighborhoods today. I think we should aspire for the third number. Certainly, we should take the 20 to 110 because why wouldn't you want to know what's going to happen where you live? That is a universal value proposition. If you think about what do you talk with your neighbors about, what are you doing this weekend,right? I mean, it's the first thing you talk about. You think about what the weather's going to be, and you think about what you want to do. And then the next thing you talk about is, well, who am I going to do that with,right? And you go on from there,right? But we felt that that community, which had been really in a state of erosion, at least in America, was something that would require trust. And so we put in the building blocks, even though that friction, imagine you're in the summer of 2010. No one's used to putting their real name on anything relative to the internet. And you get to this site Nextdoor, and it says, not only do you have to put first name, last name, you have to put in your physical address. And then we're going to figure out a way to verify that what you're telling us is true. That's a lot of friction. I mean, typically, best practice number one in building internet businesses, remove all the friction,right? Best practice number one, if you're a growth hacker, remove all the friction. In our case, the friction was a really good thing. So it comes back to this point that I made, which is the second point. Do you have things at your core that advantage you in today's environment,right? And so we start with, we know local and community better than anyone else. We then go to, we have assets at our disposal that will make us more valuable in today's DNA. And then the third and final thing is, what's the competitive picture? How much capital do we have? Like, what are the big rocks in front of us,right? Because it's not just execution. Execution is required, but you also need a little bit of luck. And the luck can be things like, do you have enough money? Because you may be in an environment where it's impossible to raise money. Do you have a big competitor that decides one day, I want to just completely commoditize this market and either lower the price so your business dies or create that same value proposition for consumers,right? All three of those things are playing to our favor. We do know more about local and community. We have built things from day one that will keep us very differentiated in an AI-dominated world. And the third and final thing is, this thing is ours to lose. We don't talk on earnings calls about a competitor taking our audience away. We don't talk about the need to invest $500 million and our inability to raise that. All we talk about is our own execution and our ability to take that incredible potential of being the definitive resource in local because it connects real verified people, connecting that to the product experience. And if we can do that, then I think we have every opportunity ahead of us. **Ollie Forsyth** [49:55] So on this, and there's actually a false start,right? You're currently in one in three homes in the US. Hopefully, by a couple of years, do you think? Maybe two in three homes? **Nirav Tolia** [50:07] Well, I think that the way successful communities work is they experience a phenomenon which a lot of people say they express it as closing the market. Meaning, if you're eBay,right, and you are the place that people go when they want to buy a certain thing, eBay doesn't get one out of three people that want to buy that thing. eBay gets three of three,right? I mean, that is the network effect. That is increasing returns to scale. That is what we've seen over and over and over again, particularly with social networks. And so when I was running the company the first time, and we were well on our way to this one of three households, we probably should have asked ourselves the question, when a neighborhood reaches 60% or 70% or 80% penetration, why isn't it going to 100%? Because it should,right? And so I would say aspirationally, it's not two out of three, it's three out of three,right? And as long as the trajectory makes it look like that's possible, I don't care if it's two a year from now or if it's 1.2, because I'm patient,right? Where I'm actually impatient is if people don't believe it's worth their while, even when their neighbors are on Nextdoor to join Nextdoor,right? Because the way these network effects work is there's a fear of missing out. If I'm not on Nextdoor, and that's where people are talking about what they're going to do this weekend, I'm not going to know what people are doing this weekend. And that's really important to me,right? On the other hand, maybe a lot of people said, I care about what happened last weekend, but not that much. But then there was one out of three that said, I really care deeply, and that's our audience,right? But in the future, increasingly, we are building things that have that universal appeal. And so why stop with two out of three? I mean, it can be a milestone along the way, but ultimately, we all want to build products. I mean, how many people have phones? That's not a one out of three. That's an everyone who can afford it kind of thing,right? That's what we want Nextdoor to be. **Ollie Forsyth** [52:03] This is super exciting. This is a full circle moment, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show. I remember when you guys launched when I was 14, 15, excited to see where you go next. Let's get to every household in the US. ### Rapid Fire **Ollie Forsyth** [52:15] But before you go, we have a quick-fire round, which we love to ask all of our guests. So quick questions, quick answers, and let's make it a ton of fun. So Nextdoor has been on an incredible journey, and you've had so many amazing people backing you. One of them, Bill Gurley, almost like the OG of the venture space,right? What is the greatest lesson you have learned from Bill? **Nirav Tolia** [52:40] Incredibly high expectations. No matter what we achieve, Bill believes that we need to do 10X wherever we are. And I think it's so great to have someone who not only pushes you to do great things, but believes that you can. Bill's a lover of technology, and when he finds an idea that he has faith in, he believes that it shouldn't be one out of three households. It should be three of three and beyond. **Ollie Forsyth** [53:04] Incredible. I love that so much. The audience might not know this. You were also a shark on Shark Tank during your little honeymoon stage when you had a bit of time off. Who is your favorite shark? **Nirav Tolia** [53:16] What a great question. I love Mr. Wonderful. Kevin O'Leary is a kind of infamous shark because you know he's called Mr. Wonderful, but people think he's got a bit of a salty persona and character. But he's a sweetheart in person, and he's someone who represents to me all of the best qualities of entrepreneurship. He's self-made. He cares deeply about doing theright thing. He's willing to put in whatever it requires to be successful, with integrity, of course. And he's very, very, very committed to his entrepreneurs. He likes to help other people. I think he's the gem of a human being. **Ollie Forsyth** [53:55] Mr. Wonderful, Irish origin, I think. And again, just incredible story, you know what he's done and heard great things about him as well. So see, hopefully, he comes on the show at some point. You also, I think, had just launched or announced you're launching a new office in Dallas,right? How important is it for people to be in person, especially in the Nextdoor family, your colleagues, and your team? **Nirav Tolia** [54:24] Well, I think you started to say the thing that makes it important to Nextdoor, which is if we're striving to build community in the real world, we need to start with the communities in the real world that we are invested in. And so at the same time, like saying it's not AI or humanism, it's both. It's not working from home or working in an office. It's both. Both of them can work because we want to identify and have talent wherever the talent exists,right? Even if it's not where we have an office. But in the hub cities, and that's our strategy of San Francisco, Dallas, New York, London, we want to create spaces where people love to come into the office because it's a different kind of connection than the one you and I are experiencingright now. We have a great connection virtually, and that says a lot about the power of technology. But if we were sitting in the same room together, it would be even more vibrant. And so I don't believe it's an and/or. I think that preferentially, everyone would want to meet in person. But you don't want it to be binary. I'm either in person in the office or I'm not meeting you at all,right? You want to understand when's theright time and when's an efficient time to do it virtually, and when should we do it in person? In Dallas, we just actually hosted our entire revenue team, and they are primarily located in New York, but they have different regions as well. And gosh, the energy of having a couple hundred people in a room that aren't typically together, it was magical. And it will now sustain that group for the next six or nine months until we get together again. So I think this is one where the answer is not as simple as one or the other. The answer is finding a company strategy that reflects its ambition. And you know the other reason for us to have multiple offices in multiple places, we need to understand all kinds of neighborhoods. When we started, we were just in San Francisco, but San Francisco does not have the archetypal neighborhood. It's got the archetypal San Francisco neighborhood. The neighborhoods in Dallas, where I live, are very different than the ones in San Francisco, which are different than the ones in New York. All of them are beautiful and rich and unique. And if we have people living in different neighborhoods, we can bring those learnings into the product. **Ollie Forsyth** [56:36] Well, hey, this was a magical time, magical experience. I know we're doing it virtually. Hopefully, once when I'm next in SF or Dallas, we can do this in person again. But this was super awesome. I'm rooting for you guys. I can't wait to see where it goes next. Community all the way with AI, and thank you so much for your time. **Nirav Tolia** [56:54] The age of human connection. Let's do it. **Ollie Forsyth** [56:57] Awesome. --- This library is powered by PodHood (https://podhood.com), the podcast website platform.