Hey U World
My friend asked me a big question in Costa Rica: What's your primary motivation for doing anything?
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I answered: To understand more about myself and explore my relationship with the world.
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A bit about me: Anthropologist at Heart, Investor in Practice. Lucky to be part of the crew that built a new type of travel experience (Airbnb), a university (Minerva), and an investment firm (currently at Fresco Capital). Continuously learning and iterating on world patterns and contexts through positive-sum games.
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Current interests:
- Positive feedback loops for humanity in technology, creativity, and entrepreneurship
- Underlying patterns and emergent properties in the complex system
- All formats of thoughtful creation
- Topics around creator economy, holistic wellness, and sustainable loops
Things I am currently working on
Venture Investing
- Partner at Fresco Capital, investing at the intersection of people and technology; documenting the journey at The Creator; researching good business across private and public markets; and reading books with club members.
- Selective personal investments: AirAngels Syndicate & Fund (LP), Outlier, Trela, Seabound, Zerion, and unannounced ones
Investment hypothesis: Vitality—the power of evolution from emergence, including both change and change-makers. Constructing humanity as the context in technology development and business can generate consistently high returns in the long run.
*Excited by:
1) Great people to learn from and work with
2) Ventures that unlock individual creativity and humanity's progress with quality
3) World-class "interfaces" with the mechanism that drives positive feedback loops
4) Approach: Time Capitalist, optimizing for good time spent
Behavioral Science
Cognitive neuroscience research with digital context to advance human development with Stephen Kosslyn, contributor and reviewer of Active Learning with AI, and Learning to Flourish in the Age of AI(the summary)
New Community, New System
Contributing to a new system for lifelong learning and craftsmanship
- Board member of San Francisco Design Week
- Supporting the alternative talent development path at Pier
- Guest instructor at:
National University of Singapore (MBA: Venture Capital)
University of Michigan (Taubman College: Urban AI)
University of California, Berkeley(Haas School of Business: Marketplace)
Past experience that shaped my mindset
(or bias)
I am rooted but I flow
I started moving to different cities almost every three years since I was three. Currently based in San Francisco, but I also spend time in Asia and Nordic.
Alternative Education
Founding class student at Minerva, a new liberal arts school (mostly learning how to learn, though I studied finance and computational science, I know!) Being the change agent in a complex system is a continuous journey.
"Cereal Entrepreneur"
Joined Airbnb in 2014 to work across the product (user research), ops (China market entry), and strategy (business intelligence). I got lucky to be part of the journey and learned that entrepreneurship is about designing/executing external and internal systems to create something people need and love.
Business and Design
Experienced top-down and bottom-up strategies during my time at Bain and IDEO. Business and design are not the trade-off but could be complementary for further value creation.
Journalism
Began my exploration of the global economy as a contributing editor at The Economist, where I learned the importance of asking the right questions, choosing the right words, and, most importantly, being open.
Things I got into randomly and might explore more in the future
Cognitive Science
Narrative
Algorithm
Jazz Bands
Candle Making
Urban Design