Martín Escobari

There's always binary risk around the geopolitics.

There's just so much innovation.

There's so much entrepreneurial zeal.

The one thing I learned, I actually learned over drinks with a Chinese entrepreneur.

So I've done business in 19 countries and I love to connect on a human level with the entrepreneurs.

So much, even at growth stage, so much of the assessment of the company and of the partnership is about chemistry.

And it was very hard for me to build chemistry with the Chinese entrepreneurs.

One night, I'm having a long dinner with lots of good food and alcohol with an entrepreneur who was an anthropology PhD at the University of Arkansas.

And I said, if someone can explain to me the Chinese mentality, it's this man.

He said to me, like any oversimplification, it's unfair, but there's a grain of truth.

And he said, what you have to understand about the entrepreneurs you're dealing with, he said, these generation of entrepreneurs, the people who are in their 30s and 40s,

They're all children of the Cultural Revolution.

Everything was taken away from these families.

Everything.

And they are scarred, and they have something to prove because they think something was stolen, and they will get it back.

So there's a level of drive and ethic, work ethic,

That probably matches the refugees of World War II that came to the States and these great businesses after World War II or other people that have had hardship in their life.

But this applies to 98% of the entrepreneurs.

They side with their parents.

We're all products of our traumas and our adventures and our dreams is my worldview.