Kareem Zaki - Small Ideas Attract Competition - [Invest Like the Best, EP.392]
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How did Kareem Zaki first get involved with Thrive and what early lessons shaped the firm’s strategy?
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My guest today is Kareem Zaki. Karim is a general partner at Thrive Capital and has been at the firm for a decade. In an episode last year, Thrive's founder Josh Kushner told me that he thinks Kareem is the best healthcare investor in the world. Kareem has co-founded three healthcare businesses worth over $1 billion. He also has expertise in financial services, where he's led the firm's investments in companies like Ramp and Robinhood. It's a timely moment to have this discussion, with Thrive announcing a new $5 billion fund in August. We talk about how Thrive identifies category-defining companies, what concentration means to them, and how startups should approach the healthcare industry. Please enjoy this great discussion with Karim Zaki.
So I have heard this story a couple times from you, not on the record, from Josh obviously, and from others here at Thrive, Miles included. Maybe you could just give your long version. Feel free to meander a little bit in your answer here. Your version of Thrive's story as a business. And I'd love for you to bake your own motivation and experience in here about as Thrive has grown, the parts of it that you're most proud of and enjoy the most, because obviously you've been a key part of building it. So I guess it's a two-part question, like your story. at Thrive as a way of talking about Thrive story overall and what you're trying to do. I think it's not a good thing.
Just so interesting about the Thrive stories. If you looked at us from the outside, and our first fund being a $40 million fund, all the way now to our most recent being a $5 million fund, and a lot of different sized funds in between, you'd look at it from the outside and be like, wow, things have changed a lot at Thrive. And there's definitely some things we've gotten better at, and we've grown up and been smarter about certain things. But if I actually look back to the early days, joining Thrive about a decade ago. When we had a $150 million fund, I'd actually say the most surprising thing about the journey is just how consistent the strategy's been. But Josh in the early days, even with Princeton, which was our first institutional investor, and we had a $40 million fund, was talking about Thrive being a firm that wanted to back these category-defining companies that were really shaping not just tech, but every industry.
Now that's a common thing. That every industry is going to change by tech. Over a decade ago, that wasn't a common idea. And that we were gonna do it across stages, that we're gonna do it in different ways.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How did Kareem Zaki first get involved with Thrive and what early lessons shaped the firm’s strategy?
0:00–15:01
2
What does Thrive’s “generalist, lifecycle‑investor, concentrated, builder” philosophy look like in practice?
15:01–28:21
3
How does Thrive identify and back category‑defining companies across different industries?
28:21–42:35
4
Why does Thrive focus on concentration and high conviction bets rather than a broad portfolio?
42:35–56:39
5
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities in the U.S. healthcare system for startups?
56:39–1:09:49
6
How does competition (or lack of it) affect innovation in healthcare and other capital‑intensive markets?
1:09:49–1:22:31
7
What impact does AI have on the future of investing and on the categories Thrive is watching?
1:22:31–1:25:40
Speakers
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