SG 2016: Parker Conrad, Founder & Wartime CEO of Zenefits

Before he joined Silicon Valley’s Unicorn club at a $4.5 billion company Zenefits, before press field days in NYT and Buzzfeed, before quarters in which the company doubled every 8 weeks, Parker Conrad already had a unique claim to fame: his now infamous 2:37-long pitch video has become a shining example after Zenefits’ acceptance to Y Combinator. We couldn't be happier to announce Parker Conrad is joining us on February 23rd & 24th for the Startup Grind Global Conference.

See Parker Conrad at the Startup Grind Global Conference

What YC and Re/Code see in Conrad is hustle -- the kind of hustle that has become the cultural backbone of Zenefits, which is gunning for the ancient human resources & employee benefits industry. Since grinding through 70 hour weeks as managing editor of The Harvard Crimson and teaching himself Python to launch Zenefits after being ousted from his previous startup SigFig, Conrad is a founder that just doesn’t give up.

Conrad is what Zenefits investor Andreessen Horowitz would call a wartime CEO: he’s going up against giants of industry in business and healthcare, all the while dealing with internal growing pains. But with a fresh $500 million, hundreds of hires that hustle almost as hard as he does, and the fastest growth rate of any tech company since Uber and AirBnB -- possibly ever -- Parker has the momentum and the ammunition to win.

Want to hear how the rest of this story unfolds? You’re in luck.

Get your early bird ticket now for this master class in hustle.

You’ll also hear from Marc Andreessen (a16z), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), Chamath Palihapitiy (Social+Capital), Clayton Christensen (Innovator's Dilemma), Guy Kawasaki (Canva & Apple), Steve Chen (YouTube), and more.

And now, for your pleasure, here's Conrad’s YC application video: