From Entrepreneur to Crowdfunding Executive: How Arnie Katz Built a Career Helping People Help Each Other

The path from a small Israeli village to the C-suite of the world’s leading fundraising platform may seem unlikely. For Arnie Katz (MBA ’09), Chief Product and Technology Officer at GoFundMe, however, it reflects a career shaped by relentless curiosity, continuous learning, and a deep commitment to human-centered values.

Katz’s interest in technology began at age five, when he was first introduced to computers. “I started experimenting with them,” he said. “I mostly played games, but I soon discovered you could program them, too.”

By eleven, he was writing code in BASIC and later in Pascal.

Around the same time, Katz launched his first business after realizing he could type faster than most adults. He charged customers $1 per page to type their work, then started delegating to friends whom he paid 50 cents per page. “I understood that I could scale my business if I managed a team versus doing it all myself,” he said.

Katz worked throughout middle school, high school, and college, building a parallel education grounded in hands-on experience. As a teenager, he joined one of Israel’s early internet service providers, answering customer calls and later managing shifts. While studying computer science at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology he worked in quality assurance engineering and later in programming.

Why Darden—and Why It Worked

By the time Katz considered an MBA, he had a decade of work experience. “I worked nearly full-time throughout my undergraduate years not only because I needed the income, but also because I didn’t learn much from traditional lectures,” he said. “After a year or two, I stopped attending them altogether.”

His frustration with passive learning ultimately led him to Darden. When he encountered the case method—and realized Darden was at the forefront of it—the alignment was immediate. “I learned to voice my opinions in class,” said Katz. “Sometimes I was right, sometimes wrong—but you often learn most when you’re wrong and someone challenges your argument. The Socratic dialogue encourages the sharing of ideas and the acceptance of constructive criticism. This experience has shown me that failure is an essential part of learning.”

Darden’s emphasis on business ethics profoundly shaped Katz’s leadership philosophy. Edward Freeman’s stakeholder theory—which holds that companies must account for all stakeholders, not just shareholders—became a cornerstone of his thinking.

“At Darden, you learn how to become a successful business leader and move your company forward,” Katz explained. “At the same time, you learn how to care for customers, employees, partners, and communities—not in ways that detract from shareholder value, but in ways that strengthen and sustain it.”

Several professors became lifelong friends and mentors. Tim Laseter’s influence was particularly consequential: he introduced Katz to a fellow UVA graduate who would later become his co-founder at Relay Foods.

From Failure to Billion-Dollar Success

After graduation, Katz went all in on building Relay Foods. The Charlottesville-based startup set out to transform online grocery shopping for healthy, sustainable food—years before the concept went mainstream. Katz devoted five years to the company as president and COO. While Relay Foods gained devoted fans and regional traction, it never reached the growth Katz hoped for. It merged with another online grocery business before going bankrupt.

“From a business standpoint, Relay Foods was a failure,” said Katz. “It was ahead of its time, and we made fundamental mistakes. The customers were telling us something, but we weren’t able to listen because we believed in our founding ideas too much. I learned to challenge everything, including my own beliefs about the world.”

When Katz left Relay, he was one of the few people in the country with deep expertise in the emerging online grocery sector.

In 2015, Walmart came calling. The retail giant wanted experienced operators to lead its eCommerce charge. Katz joined as Senior Director of Customer Experience and Innovation.

“I was able to be an entrepreneur even within Walmart,” he said. “I leveraged what I learned building Relay Foods to help Walmart create a massive online grocery business. We took it from zero to one billion run rate in less than two years. By far, that’s the biggest business success I was a part of.”

Two years later, Katz was promoted to Vice President of Technology for International eCommerce, where he oversaw global platforms, scaling the U.S. model and translating its success across international markets.

What followed was a stint as Chief Product and Technology Officer at StubHub, the ticket marketplace owned by eBay. “It was a short and successful tenure,” said Katz. “We sold that business out of eBay in 2020 just before the Covid pandemic hit, halting ticket sales.”

Shepherding GoFundMe into the AI Era

By late 2022, the world was changing fast. In November, OpenAI released ChatGPT, initially based on GPT-3.5. Within weeks, millions of people were using it to write, code, learn and explore ideas.

When Katz joined GoFundMe in August 2023, he recognized the moment immediately. “ChatGPT was making waves,” he said, “and it was clear I needed to help shepherd GoFundMe into the AI era, the LLM era.”

As Chief Product and Technology Officer, Katz leads product, engineering, design, data, and research. Under his leadership, GoFundMe has deployed AI tools to help fundraisers succeed.

As Chief Product and Technology Officer, Katz leads product, engineering, design, data, and research. Under his leadership, GoFundMe has deployed AI tools to help fundraisers succeed.

“When someone creates a campaign—whether for a medical emergency, disaster relief, or community cause,” said Katz, “they’re rarely experienced fundraisers.” His team has built AI-powered tools—which have been used more than 70 million times—to help people write compelling stories, set optimal goals, and create shareable assets.

AI at GoFundMe is not limited to customer-facing applications. Katz is pushing the company to implement AI to enhance employee productivity.

“AI used to function almost like advanced autocomplete,” said Katz. “Now we’re entering the era of agentic AI.” In this model, engineers won’t spend their time writing code line by line. Instead, they’ll specify what the system should do and oversee agents that generate and evolve the code. The engineer’s role is shifting from coder to orchestrator and reviewer of intelligent agents. And the shift isn’t limited to engineering—it’s reshaping all business functions.

Democratizing Charitable Giving: GoFundMe Giving Funds

Among Katz’s proudest achievements at GoFundMe is Giving Funds, launched in June 2025. It’s a modern take on a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF)—a charitable giving account through which individuals can donate assets, receive an immediate tax benefit, and direct grants to charities over time.

GoFundMe Giving Funds removes barriers to entry: there are no fees, no minimum balance, and contributions start at $5. “Every American can participate meaningfully in charitable giving and feel confident about the impact they’re having on the world,” said Katz. He has a theory about where DAFs are headed. “Only about 1% of Americans have one today,” he said. “30 to 40 years ago, very few people understood what a 401(k) was, yet today roughly 60% participate in one. I believe we’re on a similar trajectory with DAFs.”

Katz has found an ideal match at GoFundMe. “It’s a truly mission-driven company,” he said. “Knowing that our work enables people to support one another makes me excited to show up every day. I’m also inspired by a culture that values experimentation—testing new ideas, learning from setbacks, and continuously improving.”

Breaking Into Tech: A Playbook for Darden Students

For current Darden students aspiring to break into tech, Katz offered the following guidance:

First, actively leverage the alumni network. “Most Darden graduates are open to sharing how they broke into tech, what skills mattered most, and how they navigated early career decisions,” said Katz. “Those conversations often lead to mentorship, internships, or interview opportunities.”

Second, invest in becoming tech-literate, though not necessarily technical. “You don’t need to be an engineer,” said Katz, “but you should be comfortable speaking the language of technology—understanding how products are built, how data is used, and how engineering, design, business and product decisions intersect. Today, you can build real products using LLMs without writing a single line of code.”

Finally, once inside the industry, stay relentlessly focused on the customer. “The best people in tech across product, engineering, design, strategy, finance, operations, and marketing,” said Katz, “spend an outsized amount of time understanding customer pain points, frustrations, and unmet needs. If you consistently anchor your decisions in customer impact and repeat that cycle, career growth and success in tech tend to follow.”