Concentrated Investment Strategy and Prioritizing Excellent Breakout Companies

Today we're joined by Kareem of Thrive Capital for one of the most extensive conversations we've had on the show—we cover the core insight that drove Thrive to invest in late-stage companies like Stripe and Slack, how they approach thinking about fund size and timing, the benefits of a concentrated portfolio, and more. If you’re looking to improve your sourcing, tracking, and due diligence, check out: https://synaptic.com/turpentine

---

SPONSORS:

🧲 Learn why Craft, Bedrock, NEA and 100s more trust Harmonic’s data to source deals. Harmonic is the most complete startup database, finding new companies as soon as they incorporate and tracking them through IPO. Head to https://bit.ly/harmonicturpentine and make sure to mention Turpentine VC during your demo.

Synaptic unifies over one hundred real-time company performance metrics across alternative datasets like user traffic, employee data, app downloads, product reviews, and more. It’s your all-in-one source for alternative data that helps you make better investment decisions. To learn how Synaptic can improve your sourcing, tracking, and due diligence, visit https://synaptic.com/turpentine

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds; offers one consistent price, instead of variable regional pricing; and of course nobody does data better than Oracle. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/turpentine

---

Join our free newsletter to get Erik's top 3 insights from each episode every week: https://turpentinevc.substack.com/

---

RELATED SHOWS:

If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The Limited Partner with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://link.chtbl.com/thelimitedpartner

---

RECOMMENDED PODCAST: 

Every week investor and writer of the popular newsletter The Diff, Byrne Hobart, and co-host Erik Torenberg discuss today’s major inflection points in technology, business, and markets – and help listeners build a diversified portfolio of trends and ideas for the future. Subscribe to “The Riff” with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg: https://link.chtbl.com/theriff

RECOMMENDED PODCAST: LIVE PLAYERS

Join host Samo Burja and Erik Torenberg as they analyze the mindsets of today’s most intriguing business leaders, investors, and innovators through the lens of their bold actions and contrarian worldviews. You’ll come away with a deeper understanding of the development of technology, business, political power, culture and more. LIsten and subscribe everywhere you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/liveplayers.

---

X / TWITTER:

@kareemszaki (Kareem)

@ThriveCapital (Thrive Capital)

@eriktorenberg (Erik)

@TurpentineVC

---

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Intro

(3:03) How does Thrive balance an opportunistic vs a focused approach

(07:01) Thrive's structure and core insights

(14:57) Sponsor: Synaptic

(15:50) On Thrive's DNA

(18:06) Kareem's insights on selling

(24:01) Thrive's history

(29:45) Sponsor: Oracle

(33:10) Kareem's insights on the impact team 

(36:21) On incubations

(39:45) On regulated or capital intensive industries

(43:06) Thrive and healthcare

(49:37) How does Thrive think about macro?

(53:14]) The future of Thrive

(55:25) Kareem on making bets on young people and cultivating talent

---

This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.