Riley Newman was one of Airbnb's first 10 employees and its first data scientist, where he built the data function from scratch and later ran the entire data science team, giving him deep expertise in marketplace dynamics and growth. At Wave Capital, he focuses specifically on marketplace investments and actively leverages the Airbnb alumni network to back founders from that ecosystem, bringing both rigorous data-science evaluation methods and unusual access to Airbnb's talent and knowledge base.