Investors are facing one of the most challenging backdrops in recent years

amid slowing economic growth, rising inflation, and geopolitical conflicts.

I'm Allison Nathan and this is exchanges at Goldman Sachs, great investors.

In this special series, Allison Mass, chairman of our investment banking division, and Katie Koch, Chief Investment

Officer of Public Equities in our Asset Management Division, speak with the

world's most respected investors about their investing strategies, career trajectories, and their outlook for markets and economies.

I recently sat down with Katie Kach who spoke with Erie Kim, general partner at Forerunner Ventures, which is an early stage venture capital firm.

Here's a bit of our conversation.

Kitty, Forerunner has made its name by being one of the earliest investors focused on direct

to consumer businesses.

But what would you say was the biggest takeaway

from your conversation with Yuri

about how that space has evolved?

Allison, what was really interesting to me

about this conversation is just how incredibly dynamic and shifting the consumer space is.

So Yuri and Forerunner were early investors in a number of direct to consumer brands, but what I learned

from the conversation is it was not just the act of going direct to the consumer, but it was

the way that these brands, like Bonobos or Warby Parker used new distribution routes and social media to actually build

community around those brands and we talked a lot about that and then I asked her the question

so what's next for the consumer and I was asked her the question, so what's next for the consumer?

And I was really interested to hear her view that the next opportunities are going to go

beyond this idea of product and community to actually experience and services.

...