Demystifying the Chinese Startup World with Paul Chen

Berkeley SkyDeck

Paul Chen is a former senior investment manager at Alibaba and tech banker at Goldman Sachs who has brokered many deals between Chinese and Western companies, focusing on AI, Big Data, healthcare, robotics, autonomous cars, and other deep tech. He continues to invest in startups and stocks with his personal portfolio. He also regularly advises startups including those at SkyDeck.

In this episode we learn about the following...

- How Paul argues that the West should learn from Chinese innovation, so we not only can benefit from Chinese ideas, but also not lose our technology leadership.

- About how Paul’s unique upbringing in China, the American South, and how his education at UVA, Stanford, and Harvard have helped give him a global perspective that has aided his investment career.

- The ways China’s startup ecosystem has evolved over the years and how it differs from the United States.

- How international entrepreneurs that want to take advantage and get in on China’s economy should get involved and the key lessons that American founders can learn from the Chinese ecosystem.

- The differing regulations that Chinese companies have to face and how they can affect growth.

- His take on the recent US-China trade war, its impact, and why we should pay attention to what is happening between the two countries.