Chris Paik

Co-Founder and General Partner, Pace Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Chris Paik co-founded New York-based early-stage venture firm Pace Capital alongside Jordan Cooper, raising $400 million across its first two funds. Before Pace, he spent eight years as a partner at Thrive Capital, where he invested in companies such as Twitch, Unity, and Patreon.

29statements → 5claims → 3claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.66/5average certainty → 2.76/5average debate potential → 4.2/5argument clarity · the sources → 7said about them ↓

3 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 3 assertions · 5 opinions · 18 insights · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Chris argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up

Paik: Substack faces margin compression as top creators negotiate down take rates

“And I would expect that business model to have a leaky bucket at the top or at best get margin compressed at the top. So you have the best, like the people that have the most distribution that are the best for the platform from marketing perspective, dramatica…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:43:24 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

100% certainty 3

none yet certainty 4

100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.2 / 5 directness 4.5 · coherence 4.5 · precision 3.9 · compression 3.7

redirected or did not address 1 of 41 assessed questions (2%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

232 words/min while actually speaking · 15.7 um and uh per 1k words · 14 false starts per 1k · 32.5% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 11,307 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 5/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 4/10

setup questions received 38%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play “Chris, do you get that? I mean, do you get that? Because I target Mila Kunis as my girlfriend, and I'm still single, ok? So, like, my question is, when do you get 20%? Like, honest…” ▶ 20:16“Is that truly scalable? You think about it. If you add another 20 companies, you'll soon be at 20 each with board seats. Like, is that scalable?” ▶ 1:04:41“So is Warby Parker a venture investment? Is Allbirds a venture investment? Is HIMSS?”

when Chris pushed back ▶ 57:44“Well, first I would contest the idea that Tesla had no market risk.” ▶ 1:12:50“I don't think you did. I think you were very intentional about the way in which you approached your craft and the content you create.”

What they said29 What others said7 Episodes1

Everything Chris Paik said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Paik: Taxing carried interest as ordinary income would redistribute tech talent

“You probably should tax carried interest like income tax. That would write, that would like break that structurally different incentive mechanism, and then it would defuse talent elsewhere.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:21:50 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Companies that can be described in one sentence lack ambition

“If everything that a company is doing and building can really be accurately described in a single sentence, it's probably too one dimensional. It's probably not Ambitious enough.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 23:47 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: A company's virtuousness is inversely related to its enterprise value

“This is, like, probably contentious but one of my frameworks is, I think that the, like, virtuousness of a company is inversely related to its enterprise value.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 39:15 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Opinion

Paik: Most direct-to-consumer brands are not suitable venture investments

“I would say the vast majority of direct-to-consumer brands, not suitable venture investments.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:04:54 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: A 51/49 venture partnership split feels like 80/20

“I mean, like, the distance between a 51 49 split is way more than two percent. Like, it might as well be like 80%.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 13:35 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Opinion

Paik: Venture capital is not an asset class meant to scale

“We think that venture isn't an asset that is meant to scale. It's pretty hands-on.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 17:11 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: DoorDash and Instacart succeed by price-discriminating consumer laziness

“The genius behind Instacart and DoorDash and other companies like that is that they, Perfectly price discriminate laziness and the value of like a leisure hour.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 31:00 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Social graphs are becoming obsolete compared to content recommendation engines

“The social graph works and worked because of the idea that who people select for in their social graph is a proxy for their interest. And so in some ways you are using somebody's social graph as spark notes for the integral, the fully like, you know, my new in…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 35:35 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Opinion

Paik: Market selection matters far more than founders in venture capital

“I tend to agree. I think that markets are significantly more markets are huge, huge, huge input into outcomes, particularly in venture.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 53:12 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Excess venture capital subsidizes businesses unfit for VC

“With the glut of venture capital and dollars chasing returns, I think that venture capital Perhaps intentionally, maybe unintentionally subsidizes business building of companies that should never have been venture capital targets.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:07:38 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: VC is only for companies that cannot exist without it

“I think that is almost certainly like if the company Literally could not exist without venture capital. That probably is the area where venture capital is a suitable, like, spitballing this in real time. That's probably a good criteria to suggest that it is wi…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:10:52 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Prediction Open · timeframe May 2033

Paik: Multi-billion dollar bloated VC funds will unwind over a decade

“I don't think all, I almost, like, definitionally, I don't think all of them make it. I think we're gonna see over the next, here's the thing, like, it's gonna take a long time, it's gonna take a decade plus for this stuff to unwind, but they're gonna get lost…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:34:44 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Poaching creators from rival platforms using minimum guarantees never works

“On navigating competitive environments, I think seeing Twitch firsthand gave me one of my mental frameworks, which is, are like companies or platforms that start with the explicit strategy of poaching, like economically incentivizing supply from another platfo…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:40:56 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Prediction Held up

Paik: Substack faces margin compression as top creators negotiate down take rates

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:43:24 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Founders cannot create market waves, only surf them

“I think that great founders are incredible at putting themselves in the position to surf waves, but I don't think anybody can make waves themselves.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 0:30 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Senior startup executive hiring succeeds at best 50% of time

“I feel like in startups, right, like senior hires at best, Is a coin toss of whether or not it works out and that's okay.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 8:56 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Investors break the most rules on their highest-conviction investments

“The highest conviction things that you get comfort with are the ones that you break the most number of rules on.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 19:21 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: All human behavior is driven by the seven deadly sins

“I actually think the seven deadly sins are really core motivators. They describe why people do things. And I would go far as far to say, like, honestly, They're the only reasons why people do things. I think it's possible to distill down any individual behavio…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 37:43 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Startup moats are intentional and embedded in product from day one

“So if you were to look at the system design behind companies that ultimately developed modes at scale, it's not something that like happens magically overnight once the company's up and running. It's like embedded in the core product from day one. And so I thi…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:11:36 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

What-if

Paik: TikTok could not exist before Twitter due to bandwidth constraints

“There's a very clear reason why the order of founding went from Twitter first, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to TikTok. And it is because mobile as infrastructure and bandwidth in its earliest stages, supported the lowest packet size, text. And then next compress…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:17:30 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: Misalignments peak when venture participants play final-round games

“I think the Mac, the areas of maximum misalignment are when it feels like the reputation does not carry over in between iterations of the game, or that's the final iteration of the game that any one participant is playing for. Because then people are incentivi…”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 1:38:41 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Opinion

Paik: Thrive Capital backs young talent better than venture peers

“One of the things that Thrive does really, really, really well In my opinion, maybe even better than anyone else in the industry is it leans into people's potential regardless of their age, regardless of their credentials.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 5:52 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Paik: Pace Capital hits 20% ownership in 70% of portfolio companies

“We've been successful at hitting our ownership target in 70% of the companies we invested in.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 18:54 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Insight

Paik: New UGC value comes from empowering disenfranchised creators

“If you are trying to create structurally new value, one, I think the best way and has proven in the success of user and content networks is to, you have to empower a previously disenfranchised set of creators.”

Chris Paik May 9, 2023 ▶ 45:49 Chris Paik: How I Raised $400M; Substack's Broken Business Model; Music on TikTok vs IG | E1011 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Show 5statements(5 left)

The other half of the tape: Chris Paik's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 4 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4 Phin Barnes 2 Nicholas Chirls 1