Hernan Kazah, Kaszek: Building LatAm’s $100B+ Companies

Hernan Kazah is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kaszek Ventures — Latin America’s largest venture firm, backing Nubank, Kavak, Gympass (Wellhub), and 100+ other LATAM companies. He previously co-founded MercadoLibre, now a $100B public company. In this Season 5 premiere, Hernan shares how Kaszek evaluates founders, why the default outcome in venture is failure, the venture power law behind generational returns, and how AI is reshaping the future of software in LATAM.We cover the early strategic decisions that allowed MercadoLibre to win, why the default outcome for founders is failure, how Kaszek evaluates founders and investment opportunities, the venture capital power law and why investors must be right only a few times, what it takes to build a generational venture capital institution in Latin America, the impact of AI on software and the future of SaaS, how great founders actually get identified, and the evolution of the Latin American tech ecosystem.Hernan also explains why building a startup in Latin America is like “climbing Everest on top of a rollercoaster” — and why the next generation of iconic companies is still ahead.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.