Ethan Choi

Talking rare earth minerals, chips, memory, robotics supply chain, and geopolitics + AI with a fantastic group of consul generals and ambassadors from 30+ nations.

@scottastevenson Agreed! Many easier ways to go than chewing glass as a founder

@EthanChoi7 Fulfilment, always. Being a founder has very little to do with money IMO. There are much easier ways to make money.

Do you want money or fulfilment? If you were to choose one, which one would you choose?

@AmanGolf Good choice

@EthanChoi7 Money solves comfort. Fulfillment solves meaning. Picking fulfillment

@jasonoliver She’s loving it. Said Tswift still better. I’m still getting used to the fact that being Korean is cool now. I try and rind my kids was not that way when I was young!

@EthanChoi7 So good how did she enjoy it??? Our girls will never forget their first BTS concert haha

Just a lil Kpop at Stanford with the daughter…

A joy to meet @satyanadella at a time when we are seeing surging demand for @ClickHouseDB on @Azure. And always fun catching up with @bipulsinha.

@GGuptaSF @A_StarVC Legend!! Congrats 🎉

Today, we're announcing A* III, a $450 million early-stage fund. We started @A_StarVC with the simple idea to be a founder's first believer. We are generalists by sector, but specialists in the stage and craft of seed investing. We partner with founders before there is consensus, before there is traction, and often before there is even a product. We are not organized around a market thesis. We back exceptional builders and follow them into the most important categories. That matters because seed investing has changed. It is more crowded, more visible, and increasingly transactional. Too often, firms use seed to secure an option and then wait for proof before investing real time and attention. Seed has become a market of access. We believe it should be a market of conviction. We built A* around a different model. We commit early. We show up before external validation, deploying both time and capital from day zero to help founders find their first customer, make an early hire, or work through the decisions that define the company. We are selective at the start and concentrated over time. We partner with a small number of founders and deepen our commitment as their companies take shape. The best outcomes come from knowing where to go deep and having the discipline to do it. This approach has led us to companies like Ramp, Decagon, Whop, Cape, Simile, Paraform, Watney Robotics, and Mercor. We're grateful to the founders who have chosen to build with us and to the limited partners who have backed us. With this fund, A* manages over $1 billion in assets less than five years after launch. Our job remains what it was on day one: back exceptional founders early and be the partner they need when it matters most.

@BennettSiegel @A_StarVC 👏 congrats @BennettSiegel

Today, we're announcing A* III, a $450 million early-stage fund. We started @A_StarVC with the simple idea to be a founder's first believer. We are generalists by sector, but specialists in the stage and craft of seed investing. We partner with founders before there is consensus, before there is traction, and often before there is even a product. We are not organized around a market thesis. We back exceptional builders and follow them into the most important categories. That matters because seed investing has changed. It is more crowded, more visible, and increasingly transactional. Too often, firms use seed to secure an option and then wait for proof before investing real time and attention. Seed has become a market of access. We believe it should be a market of conviction. We built A* around a different model. We commit early. We show up before external validation, deploying both time and capital from day zero to help founders find their first customer, make an early hire, or work through the decisions that define the company. We are selective at the start and concentrated over time. We partner with a small number of founders and deepen our commitment as their companies take shape. The best outcomes come from knowing where to go deep and having the discipline to do it. This approach has led us to companies like Ramp, Decagon, Whop, Cape, Simile, Paraform, Watney Robotics, and Mercor. We're grateful to the founders who have chosen to build with us and to the limited partners who have backed us. With this fund, A* manages over $1 billion in assets less than five years after launch. Our job remains what it was on day one: back exceptional founders early and be the partner they need when it matters most.

@eglyman @karimatiyeh Run of the mill…

we trained a .35b-parameter model to navigate spreadsheets better than opus 4.6. normal corporate card company stuff.

Thrilled to partner with @shayne_coplan and the @Polymarket team in supporting their developer community.

@RedwoodFounders @OpenAI @AnthropicAI 🐐

@EthanChoi7 @OpenAI @AnthropicAI Pie is getting bigger for sure. And Brad has always been superb at the big picture game. Wouldn’t bet against him

Agree with this take! Both $10T+ companies in 5-10 year horizon. Individual devs hitting $1M annualized tokens which used to be the ACV of a big enterprise contract. Just one dev… Not a zero sum game between @OpenAI and @AnthropicAI. Some just waking up to how good Codex is… and also some just realizing Claude and Codex can’t serve all the token growth on coding front.

@dyett @OpenAI Amazing run @dyett!!

Today, I’m closing my chapter at @OpenAI after three very meaningful years. I leave with deep gratitude for the opportunity to help scale the GTM organization. The timing feels right. I’m drawn back to the early stages of company building, and OpenAI is in a strong place—with GPT-5.5, Codex, and Denise Dresser's inspired leadership. I’m joining @ThriveCapital as an Operator in Residence. I’ve been fortunate to work at Thrive-backed companies over the past decade—first Stripe, then OpenAI—and have experienced firsthand their commitment to their companies. I’m excited to pay that forward to founders across the portfolio and stay close to building. To my OpenAI teammates: thank you. Special gratitude to @bradlightcap for taking a bet on me. And to the Thrive team—I can’t wait to get started.

anyone who tells you clickhouse is not enough to store LLM traces is lying to you btw

@MaikaThoughts Congrats @MaikaThoughts

Special founders at @Atlassian!! Cannot count them or any founders of their class out. Despite SaaSpocalypse, company has given confidence to investors that it is harnessing AI in its product and pricing, evidenced by their reacceleration and forward guidance. Expecting more of these types of pops in stock price as the best SaaS companies with special founders drive their AI transformations.

@jaredhecht Very cool @jaredhecht. Would love link pls 🙏

Last year I built an AI biographer for my parents. It talked to them on the phone, interviewed them, and got their life stories. We recently turned it into a simple web app that anyone can use. It's early and we are still testing it out, but if you or a family member have been itching to capture your life story, you are welcome to try it out. My only request is to please share feedback :) DM me or just drop a comment and I will send you the link. The way it works is you can select from a variety of different interview topics and get asked questions. You can respond with text or just use your voice and talk to it. When an interview is done we generate a chapter for you. You can turn these chapters into a book or audiobook or really anything. You can also just use it to log stories. The experience becomes increasingly personalized as it learns more about you. Fun and meaningful for parents and families.