4min chapter

Uncommon Core 2.0 cover image

Interview with Zee Prime Capital, Part 1 - with Su Zhu and Hasu

Uncommon Core 2.0

CHAPTER

How Do You Define Your Investments?

Z prime is an investment firm based in San Francisco. Founder and chief executive of the company has been involved with a number of high-profile tech projects, including Twitter's eponymous 'iReport' It was founded by two friends who have worked together for more than 20 years on various Silicon Valley startups. Z Prime invests in companies that are related to cryptocurrencies such as "synthetics," which allows people to transfer money from one currency to another without paying transaction fees.

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Speaker 2
For me, the one example i can provide for, i mean, i wil super bully on sinthatic lon owdespite it has many design flaws, i still saw that there is much more potential. And the temis like in a beast moat, building fast and growing om and the community was great. But my, my most e popular article was actually criticism on on syntheticsnd how it is getting wracked by by various design exploits, such as oraclefont running. And, you know, at that time i was actually one of the ivan of the ascenic spartans. I would say, i got a lot of followers who were fans of synthetics. But it it worked out well, like everyone was was taking it e very seriously that this is actually happening. There was no like, e, you know, back lash from the community that, you know, iam i dare to fat their backs. So this was pleasant rise fromfor me at least,
Speaker 1
we already got like a glimpse at your investmentsten how you think about different projects. But so listener can really get an idea of what conasips dos as a firm. So how d you describe your investment stin and what like, what are some of your proudest beds? So i think that maybe i could sort of tell youthe story of g prime, or maybe, you know, how it can evolve. Yes, excellently. That's, you know, the best way to get an idea. So we don't really have likea fancy thesis u we do have fancy means thouh, i think a. So, i, i left the previous criptof funt because, you know, i thought that it was, that was the end of two thousand and 18 and am. I thought that the industry is changingd and it requires this kind of liki et of mine said, soand thit is one that is not so much based on the process, but on something that i would call substance and em it was sort of convenient to believe that, of course, because, you know, i have an unconventional background for an investor life, in terms of nationality, location, et cetera. So so when i say substance, i mean like this this one o thing. So a, you know, the process is based on my patern recognition, a, but substanc is tislike abstract, spur of the moment thing, a, something that people say, computer, computers cannot do. So i think that a, you know, invester process, in criptr v c is, you know, you need to be in san francisco, new york, you have to speak a certain way, ah, you have to wear patagonia ves or something. You know, like perhaps this is a caricature, but you get the gist. It works, right? So, you know, yor yor oure copying these surface attributes, and i think the substance cannot be imitated. So, you know, i felt like, i want to do things differently. I know it's appreciatething to say, buta, this is how it was. And i was lucky that a friend of mine, a michael me a. So we boutes from from the university days a, and we started investing together. And, you know, later on, a jacob a joined an an an an fisky. And, you know, this is how z prime sort of came to be. And, you know, the very brand am the veb side, et cetera. It had this like, non serious look. A, i really felt like, a, i don't want to take myself too seriously, but doesn't mean that now we don't take our work seriouslyd, you know, i was very happy with that. Like, a, we did not define the investment thecis, like, we didn't write like, a ina long paper or anything like that. We just, we just say, like, crypto and crypto related. So, a, that was kind of the beginning. And a, our fir, like, one of our first investments was, was hive?

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