My guest today is Chris Paik, who is a General Partner at early-stage venture firm, Pace Capital. Before Pace, Chris spent eight years building and investing alongside last week’s guest, Josh Kushner, at his firm Thrive Capital. During that time, he sat on the board of Twitch. Our conversation explores Chris’ frameworks for investing, from atomic value swaps to business model product fit and the seven deadly sins. We also discuss different consumer trends like the rise of virtual YouTubers, Apple’s Vision Pro, and why everyone graduates off YouTube. Please enjoy my conversation with Chris Paik.Founders PodcastFounders Episode 136 - Estee LauderFounders Episode 288 - Ralph LaurenFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here-----This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. Stretch your research budget with flexible expert calls you can trust. At a fraction of the cost of traditional expert networks, Tegus customers pay only what an expert charges – with zero markups and no confusing call credits – netting an average 70% savings. Don’t want to conduct a full hour call? Tegus offers the ability to schedule 30-minutes, an offer you won’t find anywhere else. And they don’t stop there. With white-glove custom sourcing for every project and robust compliance measures, including a dedicated 50+ analyst team that vets every call transcript, Tegus ensures your privacy and protection. As the industry innovator for qualitative insights, Tegus helps you find the right experts you need at a quality and speed that can’t be matched. For a limited time, as a listener, you can trial Tegus for free by visiting tegus.co/patrick.-----Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossusShow Notes(00:03:00) - (First question) - The history of humanity as a data storage and transfer problem and how that relates to new kinds of computer interfaces(00:14:47) - Investing strategies; knowing when to invest in new technology(00:16:39) - Assessing the gray areas of a potential investment(00:22:13) - CodeMiko and VTubing(00:32:51) - An explanation of atomic value swap(00:39:55) - The 7 deadly sins and the degrees to which each sin is monetizable (00:45:05) - Evaluating the people behind new technologies(00:50:03) - The Reddit Revolt - the current changes happening at Reddit  (00:53:09) - Business model alignment; the steps to take when determining a business’ value capture mechanism (01:03:52) - The investment decision that Chris is most proud of (01:08:14) - The consumer investing landscape today(01:11:19) - Chris’ methods for finding new content, technology and potential investments on the internet(01:14:06) - The fundamentals of value creation  (01:15:06) - The dark side of tech, how can it be more than just friction reduction(01:17:22) - Chris’ opinion on why so many innovations come from the US(01:20:37) - Defining market places and how to start and grow a successful one(01:23:23) - Chris’ thoughts on opportunities with bad business models(01:26:19) - A breakdown of Chris’ analogy “Sculptors versus painters”(01:29:34) - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for Chris

Chris Paik is a General Partner @ Pace Capital, an early-stage venture firm in NYC. Pace's first fund was $150M and their second was $250M. Before co-founding Pace, Chris was a General Partner at Thrive Capital where he spent an incredible 8 years having joined the firm when they were on their first $10M Fund. In Today's Episode with Chris Paik We Discuss: 1. From Hipster to One of NYC's Best VCs: How Chris made his way from not knowing about venture capital to being one of the most prominent in NYC? What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his 8 years at Thrive? How did they impact how he thinks about building Pace today? What are Chris' biggest lessons from working with Josh Kushner? What did Josh do to spot young talent in a way like no one else did? 2. The Core Pillars of Successful Venture Investing: "Invest in companies that can be described in a single sentence". What does Chris mean by this? How does that impact the type of companies he looks to invest in? "Business Model Fit is as important as PMF". What does Chris mean by this? How does he determine where a company has business model fit? How does Chris analyze his relationship to market sizing? How does Chris think about how willing he is to take a bet on market timing? Why does Chris believe that the more "virtuous" a company is, the less enterprise value it will have? 3. What is Wrong with Venture Capital: The Misalignments: What does Chris believe are the single biggest misalignments between VCs and Founders? What does Chris see as the biggest misalignments between VCs and LPs? Why does Chris believe we should scrap capital gains tax and all be taxed as an income tax? Why do acquisitions allow investors to be screwed over by the acquiring company? 4. The Future of Social and User Generated Content Platforms: How does Chris analyze consumer businesses according to "The Seven Deadly Sins"? Why does he call them, "The Seven Deadly Motivators"? What does Chris believe is the future for Substack? Why does it not have Business Model Fit? What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from being on the Twitch board? How did that experience impact his mindset and approach to what good is in UGC and social? What does Chris believe is the number one thing to look for in a potential consumer social investment? What do so many miss?

Chris Paik, a general partner at Pace Capital and co-founder of Thrive Capital, dives into the transformative impact of AI on venture capital. He discusses innovative investment strategies and the psychological barriers investors face in today's competitive landscape. The conversation explores the future of software development and the rise of local computation, highlighting the essential infrastructure required for AI workloads. Paik also illustrates AI model evolution, predicting a decade of groundbreaking advancements driven by these technologies.