I think about being a venture capital (VC) investor every day.
I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about what I want to do for the rest of my life. Instead of sitting on those thoughts, I took action. I reached out to 200 to 500 people a day cold emailing and cold calling (I would start at 5:45am and keep tally marks trying to beat my record day in day out, kind of like the way people do in prison). I reached out to everyone from all the big bulge bracket banks (GS, JPM, MS, etc.) to large venture funds (Sequoia, Bessemer, Battery, Lux, Thrive, etc.). I even reached out to the biggest tech firms (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.) and up and coming startups. You name it, I’ve contacted them (VPs, associates, and partners). I would never forgo an opportunity to learn more. Despite every conversation filled with new information and advice, I always came back to one thought. I want to be a VC.
I have told my story more than a thousand times, but every time I tell it, it just reminds me once and again, I want to be a VC investor. So, I am going to tell it one more time. At the end of this, I am sure I will be reminded again just how much I want to be a VC.
My mother and I immigrated from China to America when I was four years old. From the time I was four I wanted to go to Harvard, and I wanted to be a doctor – basically, every Asian mother’s dream for her child. With my native mandarin background, I could not read English until I was in the second grade, but once I learned to read, everything changed. I read everything and was interested in every book that crossed my desk. Reading helped me distinguish between what I was taught to think and thoughts and opinions of my own. I never stopped wanting to be a doctor throughout the course of adolescent years, but I started thinking much more about why this was my goal. Even though I did not recognize it during my high school years, I wanted to be a doctor because I thought it was purposeful. It was easy to work towards because, at my core, I wanted to help people. I care about being real, and more importantly, I care about people as individuals. When a person finds something that is meaningful he or she is called to do that thing. Once you find that thing, it gives you drive, perseverance, and an unlimited supply of energy. The thought of caretaking and making someone well again was a deep feeling of content I could not even begin to describe. It became very simple very quickly: becoming a doctor was not my mother’s dream for me, it was my own.
It was not until my senior year of high school did I become a bit irresolute. I took a course called biomedical innovations, a year-long course where you build something (basically anything you want) that solves a problem in medicine. You can do anything from testing the probability of getting cancer from high levels of casein in milk to building a robotic arm as a prosthetic. I wanted to do something big but also practical. I wanted to get into programming, so this was the perfect opportunity to build my project and learn different coding languages. After doing lots of research and completing a literature review, I found that shockingly one of the causes of high mortality rates in hospitals were doctor’s handwriting in the U.S. Another reason for those mortality rates was that doctors in the U.S. interface a lot less with electronic medical records (EMRs) than other countries in Europe and Canada, which have lower mortality rates from handwritten medication mistakes. Also, I volunteered in the cardiothoracic surgery unit the summer after my junior year in high school, and I remember the horror of organizing handwritten patient files in binders and piling the large stacks in a file closet. I was on a mission to build the most effective EMR for every hospital in this country that would also include easy-to-use patient portals.
Long story short, my electronic medical record ios app was designed during the year but never finished or launched. This project, however, led me to do hours and hours of research on a startup health insurance company called Oscar Health, backed by Thrive Capital. It was the first time I had heard of the term“venture capital.” Then after reading article after article about the fund, the founders, and venture capital itself. I felt this undeniable interest paired with focus and calm. I knew then and there, even though I did not know how I was going to make it happen, there was nothing I wanted to do more than to become a VC investor.
I thought long and hard about it from the time I was a senior in high school five years ago, to now. If I became a doctor, I would help one person at a time and become frustrated with the lack of advancements and the major obstacles doctors face in implementing change for the well being of their patients. Especially with the crushing hours of residency, how would I ever get to put time into creating new innovations that would not only help my patient but all patients who struggle with the same illness? No, I want to do more. People deserve more than that. The world deserves more than that from me. I am going to give it everything I have. I am going to be backing s**t that matters.
I’ve been asked, “Why not just join a healthcare startup?”Or “what do you find so fulfilling about VC?” Christian Hernandez from White Star Capital completed my thoughts perfectly in the link above on backing s**t that matters.
He says “It struck me again when visiting a VC on Sand Hill road and looking at the clustering of firms around the Rosewood Hotel. The names a short walk from the hotel, by quick math, represent over $45 billion of assets under management (without including another $40B from Silver Lake in the bottom right or $150B from KKR). What struck me was how much of the future of our world was being decided upon by (mostly) white men in fleece in that square mile. From which robots we would interact with, to what “transportation” would mean in the decades ahead, to whether we would eat soy-based or lab-grown meat in our burgers, to what type of rockets we might ship into space… to also what games we would spend money on, or what virtual reality headset we would use for Ready Player One-style escapism.”
I want to be a VC because I think that is where I can have the most impact, where I can make a difference. I do not want to help build only one company focused on one product. I am interested in the commercialization of many companies and products in healthcare. I want to change the game in the femtech space by massively improving technology that improves the health and wellbeing of fertility for women. I want to help build technology that gives hope to those who are struggling with their mental health through companies like these here. I want to venture off and take an active role in biotech companies that are transforming the game in microbiome research, which could bring more innovative treatment to those struggling with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and even Parkinson’s disease. These are only a few spaces I have a deep interest in. There are many more.
I love the intellectual challenge of medical school and medicine, and I love the deep thinking that comes with working in traditional finance, as well as all the driven smart people you work with day and day out. However, for me, purpose goes deeper than day to day satisfaction. It is about working with the most interesting people who can see the world differently and want to change it for the better.
As cliche as it is for someone who is interested in tech to like Steve Jobs, I cannot deny the wisdom of his words.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes … the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. … You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. … They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
I may not be a VC yet, but I am certainly connected to a lot of them. If you are building something that matters, please reach out here, and let me know how I can help.
@TheHungryVC 