Chris Yeh

Chris Yeh is a Silicon Valley veteran who has been at the center of the startup ecosystem since 1995. He earned two Bachelor's degrees with distinction from Stanford University -- in Product Design Engineering and Creative Writing -- and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar (high distinction). Rather than taking a product design role at IDEO after Stanford, he leapt into the nascent internet industry and never looked back. His personal mission, as described by co-authors Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, is to "help interesting people do interesting things."

On the operating side, Chris was part of the founding team at several pioneering internet companies, including work at D.E. Shaw & Co. on Juno Online Services and FarSight Financial Services, and at United Online Services (Nasdaq: UNTD). He served as the first investor in and interim CEO of Ustream.TV, the live interactive video platform. He has also held long-running VP of Marketing roles at PBworks (a hosted collaboration platform serving 50,000+ businesses) and at Dokkio, a company he co-founded focused on cloud file management.

Chris is best known as the co-author, with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, of "Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies" (2018), which explains the strategies behind the explosive growth of companies like Amazon, Alibaba, and Airbnb. He also co-authored the New York Times bestseller "The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age" (2014) with Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. In 2003, he co-founded Wasabi Ventures with Tom "TK" Kuegler to make angel investments, and in 2020 he partnered with Scott Johnson and Jeff Abbott to launch Blitzscaling Ventures, with Reid Hoffman as a limited partner and special advisor. In 2023, Jeremiah Owyang joined as General Partner to co-lead the Blitzscaling Ventures AI Fund.

Chris Yeh's investment philosophy is rooted directly in the Blitzscaling framework he codified with Reid Hoffman. At Blitzscaling Ventures, the team uses a proprietary scorecard to identify the top 5% of startups poised to dominate their markets, prioritizing speed over efficiency. They seek companies that can leverage viral growth, distribution advantages, and network effects to achieve "winner-take-most" market positions. The core thesis is that in an era of rapid technological change, the biggest risk is not moving fast enough.

• Stages: Seed, Series A
• Fund: Blitzscaling Ventures AI Fund (target size $50M; ~25 portfolio companies; first checks of $500K-$1M); preceded by Growth Fund I (vintage 2021)
• Sectors: AI/ML, SaaS, mobile, marketplaces, collaboration tools, consumer internet, food tech, edtech
• Geographic focus: Primarily Silicon Valley / US, with global scope for blitzscaling opportunities
• Key criteria: Potential for hypergrowth; network effects; large addressable markets; strong founding teams capable of scaling rapidly

| Company | Role | Outcome | |---------|------|---------| | Ustream | First investor, advisor, interim CEO | Acquired by IBM (9-figure exit) | | UserTesting.com | Advisor | IPO (NYSE: USER, 2021); taken private by Thoma Bravo | | Gusto | Investor | Valued at $9.5B+ (payroll/HR platform) | | RightNow Technologies | Investor (via Wasabi Ventures) | Acquired by Oracle for $1.5B | | EtherPad | Investor (via Wasabi Ventures) | Acquired by Google | | PBworks | VP Marketing / Investor | Leading collaboration platform | | Dokkio | Co-Founder, VP Marketing | Cloud file management | | Pressto | Investor | Educational software | | TiNDLE | Investor | Plant-based food products | | Fêtefully | Investor | Event services (B2C) | | LearnTube.ai | Investor (Blitzscaling Ventures, Dec 2025) | AI-powered education |

1. "Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies" (2018) -- with Reid Hoffman 2. "The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age" (2014) -- with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha (New York Times bestseller)