Where does Howie Liu work?

Howie Liu is Co-Founder and CEO of Airtable and Founder at Etacts.

What check size does Howie Liu write?

Howie Liu typically writes checks of $5K – $50K.

What companies did Howie Liu found?

Howie Liu founded Airtable, Etacts.

Where did Howie Liu go to school?

Howie Liu studied at Duke University (Mechanical Engineering, Public Policy).

What podcasts and interviews feature Howie Liu?

Tracked appearances include "Howie Liu: Decoding Airtable's $11B Valuation; The Impending AI Revolution in Enterprise | E1053", "How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)", "Airtable’s AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu", and 3 more.

Howie Liu

Unicorn founder

Co-Founder and CEO at Airtable · Founder at Etacts

San Francisco, California

Writes $5K – $50K checks · typically $25K

FoundedAirtable$11.7B Etacts · YC

About

Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the no-code app platform that reached an $11.7 billion valuation in 2021 and agreed to sell to Bending Spoons for about $2.25 billion in equity value in August 2026. The son of Korean immigrant parents in College Station, Texas, he taught himself C++ at 13, entered Duke at 16, and sold his first startup, Etacts, to Salesforce within a year of founding it. He started Airtable in 2012 with fellow Duke alumni Andrew Ofstad and Emmett Nicholas to consumerize the relational database — growing it to 500,000+ organizations and 80% of the Fortune 100, and 'refounding' it as an AI-native platform in 2025.

Deal analysis

Airtable × Bending Spoons: who got the money home
An estimated liquidation waterfall: the late-stage pref stack took $1.29bn at ~1x, founders took ~$190m, and seed money made ~42x.
Read the analysis →

Beyond investing

Founded: Co-founded the CRM startup Etacts in February 2010 and sold it to Salesforce about nine months later, then worked as a Salesforce product manager on social CRM.
Education: Duke University, mechanical engineering and public policy.
Family: Born in College Station, Texas to Korean immigrant parents; his father earned a biochemistry PhD at Texas A&M.
More: Relaunched Airtable as an AI-native platform in June 2025 — calling it a 'refounding' — and describes himself as an IC CEO who codes daily and is Airtable's heaviest AI inference user. Agreed to sell Airtable to Bending Spoons in August 2026 — $1.285B enterprise value, roughly $2.25B in equity value counting Airtable's ~$965M net cash.

Mentioned above: the Duke University mafia → · the Salesforce mafia → · the Airtable mafia →

From published sources — common ground for a warm intro.

Co-Founder and CEO at Airtable

Intro paths

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In turn, Howie can intro founders to Airtable's investors below.

Airtable's investors · 32

BenchmarkSan Francisco · $100K – $30M checks · since 2018 Bling CapitalMiami Beach · $1M – $5M checks Caffeinated CapitalSan Francisco · $3M – $50M checks · since 2015 Coatue ManagementNew York · $1M – $20M checks · since 2018 CrunchFund CRV (Charles River Ventures)Bay Area · $250K – $5M checks · since 2018 CSC UpshotPalo Alto · $100K – $1.5M checks DCVC (Data Collective)Palo Alto · $5M – $25M checks Draft Ventures LlcSan Francisco DVCRotterdam Ethos VCSan Francisco · $250K – $3M checks Foothill VenturesLos Altos · $100K – $10M checks Founder CollectiveCambridge Franklin TempletonSan Mateo Freestyle CapitalSan Rafael · $1.5M – $4M checks · since 2015 Friends Family CapitalSilicon Valley GreenoaksSan Francisco · $1M – $50M checks HomebrewBurlingame · $100K – $500K checks ICONIQ GrowthSan Francisco Inspired CapitalNew York · $500K – $20M checks Jude GomilaLynnwood Salesforce VenturesSan Francisco · $5M – $50M checks · since 2026 Silver Lake PartnersMenlo Park Slow VenturesSan Francisco · $50K – $1M checks · since 2019 SNR VCSeattle Sound VenturesSanta Monica Summit Peak InvestmentsFort Worth T. Rowe PriceBaltimore Thrive CapitalNew York · $500K – $25M checks · since 2018 Tribe Capital FirstlookPalo Alto · $25K – $40M checks Tuesday CapitalSan Francisco WndrCoRedwood City · $100K – $10M checks

Co-founders at Airtable

Andrew OfstadCo-Founder

Emmett NicholasCo-Founder and senior engineering leader

Founder at Etacts YC W10

Intro paths

Howie went through Y Combinator (Winter 2010) — any YC alum in your network can reach them through the YC community.

→

In turn, Howie can intro founders to Etacts's investors below.

Etacts's investors · 2

SV AngelSan Francisco Y CombinatorSan Francisco · $500K checks · since 2010

Co-founders at Etacts

Evan BeardFounder

Experience

AirtableCofounder, CEOcurrent2013 — present
SalesforceProducts2011 — 2012
EtactsCofounder2010 — 2011San Francisco
Duke UniversityComputational Airfoil Design2008 — 2009

Podcasts & interviews

featuring Howie Liu

Howie Liu: Decoding Airtable's $11B Valuation; The Impending AI Revolution in Enterprise | E1053

20VC with Harry Stebbings

How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Lenny's Podcast

Airtable’s AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu

Kleiner Perkins

How Airtable Is Letting Anyone Build With AI with CEO Howie Liu

Superhuman AI: Decoding the Future Podcast

Howie Liu, Airtable CEO: A Fortt Knox Update

Fortt Knox · youtube.com

Airtable Co-Founder & CEO Howie Liu talks Creating the Connected Enterprise at CNBC Work Summit

CNBC Events

Network3

Christina BrodbeckScout

Investor at Rivet Ventures

DJ PatilScout

General Partner at GreatPoint Ventures

Ted LeonsisScout

Founder & Partner, Revolution Growth at Revolution

Investors connected to Howie in public investor directories — a warm-intro map.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Howie Liu?: Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the no-code app platform that reached an $11.7 billion valuation in 2021 and agreed to sell to Bending Spoons for about $2.25 billion in equity value in August 2026. The son of Korean immigrant parents in College Station, Texas, he taught himself C++ at 13, entered Duke at 16, and sold his first startup, Etacts, to Salesforce within a year of founding it. He started Airtable in 2012 with fellow Duke alumni Andrew Ofstad and Emmett Nicholas to consumerize the relational database — growing it to 500,000+ organizations and 80% of the Fortune 100, and 'refounding' it as an AI-native platform in 2025.
Where does Howie Liu work?: Howie Liu is Co-Founder and CEO of Airtable and Founder at Etacts.
What check size does Howie Liu write?: Howie Liu typically writes checks of $5K – $50K.
What companies did Howie Liu found?: Howie Liu founded Airtable, Etacts.
Where did Howie Liu go to school?: Howie Liu studied at Duke University (Mechanical Engineering, Public Policy).
What podcasts and interviews feature Howie Liu?: Tracked appearances include "Howie Liu: Decoding Airtable's $11B Valuation; The Impending AI Revolution in Enterprise | E1053", "How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)", "Airtable’s AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu", and 3 more.