20VC: Thrive Capital's Kareem Zaki on The One Rule That Drives Investment Decision-Making and Focus at Thrive, Why Every Large Institution Will Enter Venture Capital Over the Next Decade and How To Create a Firm Culture That Attracts The Best Young Talent

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kareem Zaki is a General Partner @ Thrive Capital, with a portfolio including Stripe, Instacart, Instagram, Nubank, Github, Glossier and many more, they have cemented their position as one of the leading venture firms of the last decade. As for Kareem, he is a co-founder and board member to Cedar, Nava, Scope Security and Cadence and has invested in the likes of Affirm, Lemonade, Ramp and Trade Republic. Prior to entering venture, Kareem spent 3 years in private equity with Blackstone.

In Today’s Episode with Kareem Zaki You Will Learn:

1.) How Kareem made his way from the world of private equity to backing some of the most innovative next-generation companies with Thrive Capital?

2.) Portfolio Construction: What is the one rule that drives all decision-making at Thrive? How does Kareem think about maintaining focus with such a broad mandate? How do Thrive think about asset allocation internally with such a broad mandate? How does incubating companies also help Kareem be a better investor?

3.) Investing Style: How has Kareem's investing style changed over the last 10 years? What does he focus on now that he did not before and visa versa? How does Kareem assess his own relationship to price? Through what lens does Kareem approach market sizing and timing? Where do many investors make mistakes here?

4.) The Landscape: How does Kareem respond to the activity and cadence of Tiger? In what way does Kareem believe the venture landscape will have changed most significantly in the next 10 years? How do the existing incumbent firms need to change in the wake of this? How do Thrive respond to the pace and cadence of check writing today?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Kareem Zaki

Kareem’s Favourite Book: How Will You Measure Your Life

Kareem's Most Recent Investment: Cadence

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we feature a guest in a firm who do not do interviews often.
0:03.3	In our extensive research preparing for this episode, we discovered over 15 different founder
0:07.8	interviews.
0:08.5	This guest has a top three NPS out of over 3,000 VCs we've had on the show since inception.
0:14.2	And I'm very touched that he was willing to do the show today and have the conversation.
0:17.7	And so with that, I'm very, very excited to welcome Karim Zaki, general partner at Thrive Capital, with a portfolio including Stripe, Instacart, Instagram,
0:25.6	New Bank, GitHub, Glossier, and many more incredible companies. They've cemented their
0:30.0	position as one of the leading venture firms of the last decade. As for Karim, he's a co-founder
0:34.7	and board member to Cedar and has invested in the likes of a firm,
0:38.3	lemonade, ramp and trade republic, to name a few.
0:41.1	Prior to entering venture, Karim spent three years in private equity with Blackstone, and
0:45.0	I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Josh at Thrive, Brandon at Narva, Jordan at Rightway,
0:49.2	and Chris at Cadence, some amazing questions suggestions today, a real team effort with the
0:53.3	schedule. But before we dive into the show stage, you employ or pay workers in other countries.
0:58.2	Yes, well, you need remote.
0:59.8	Remote makes it easy for companies of all sizes to employ global teams.
1:03.8	They take care of international payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance.
1:07.9	Remote helps you onboard full-time employees or contractors in countries
1:12.0	all over the world in minutes on its simple, easy-to-use platform. They own full local legal
1:17.0	entities in all their covered countries, guaranteeing you never have to deal with a third
1:20.8	party ever. And to save you money, remote never charges any fees or salary percentages. You
1:25.5	get access to everything remote offers for one low flat rate.
	...

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