Youngrok Kim is a Partner at GREE LP Fund, a Fund of Funds operating in the US and Japan. Previously, he held the position of SVP at Recruit Strategic Partner, the strategic investment arm of Recruit Holdings, a major internet company in Japan. Youngrok began his career as an engineer at Goldman Sachs before transitioning to a VC career at ARCH Venture Partners in Chicago. He earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and received his degrees in Information Technology from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo.
You can find Youngrok on his socials here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/youngrock46
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/youngrok-kim/
And huge thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
Brought to you by Alchemist Accelerator.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[04:10] How did Youngrok find himself in Japan?
[09:29] Picking up the Japanese language
[20:29] How did Youngrok go from Japanese guitarist to being an LP?
[26:50] From pitching LPs on a fund-of-funds to getting a job offer from a prospective LP
[33:21] GREE LP Fund’s hiring process
[37:40] The three sources of data that helped Youngrok’s fund-of-funds thesis come together
[44:17] Superpowers and where to reference check them
[48:57] Simple versus nuanced questions for fund managers or reference checks
[56:12] One thing that many GPs think is special but actually isn’t for an LP
[58:52] What makes a good LPAC member?
[1:00:26] What are typical questions GPs have for their LPACs?
[1:05:28] Why GP friendships with other emerging managers might be becoming less important?
[1:11:55] A fun fact about Youngrok’s name
[1:12:55] Playing a number game with Youngrok
[1:16:05] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring!
[1:18:41] Like, comment, or subscribe if you enjoyed this episode!
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- GREE LP Fund
- VC Lab
- Upfront Ventures
- NFX
- Behind Genius Ventures
- Hustle Fund
- Arch Venture Partners
- Eric Clapton
- Metallica
- X Japan
- LG Electronics
- mkdir (make directory) command
- Hide (from X Japan)
- Pata (from X Japan)
- Mark Suster
- Pitchbook
- Crunchbase
- DGQ (damn good questions) that David collects
- James Beard Awards
- Paige Finn Doherty
- Linus Liang
- Kyber Knight Capital
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Reference calls have a lot of nuance. No one wants to say bad things about their investors. And no one wants to say something bad about their co-investors. So my job is to find out the subtle nuances.”
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