Twenty years ago, Julia Hartz ditched a budding career at MTV and FX, drove up the coast of California, and bootstrapped ticketing platform Eventbrite with her two cofounders. Now, the longtime CEO wakes up to a blank outlook calendar; Hartz sold her company in a $500 million exit, and is deciding on her next chapter in the wake of parting ways with her brainchild. “It’s not unlike what I experienced when I had my baby. I feel a little postpartum…I’ve been literally not without a job since I was 15,” Hartz tells Fortune. “I have a really deep passion for learning and starting from zero.” The entrepreneur has been booked and busy for more than three decades. As a teen, she made her first buck working in cafes and driving kids to after-school activities; and while studying at Pepperdine University, she worked as an intern on the sitcom Friends, later joining MTV’s series development department. Four years into her stint developing shows like Jackass and The Shield, Hartz made a break for entrepreneurship. Eventbrite has been her path ever since; she’s led the business through nearly $350 million in funding, an IPO, the COVID-19 shutdown, and a $500 million sale
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