Paul Chen

Authorpreneur, Investor, and Startup Advisor in San Francisco, CA

Paul Chen

Authorpreneur, Investor, and Startup Advisor in San Francisco, CA

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I am an investor and entrepreneur. I broker deals between Chinese and Western companies. I worked at Goldman Sachs and Alibaba's strategic investment team. I am also writing a book.

At Alibaba, I was a senior investment manager covering North America, Europe and Israel. I completed several minority investments and one acquisition. My areas include AI, Big Data, healthcare, robotics, autonomous cars, and other deep tech. I helped lead Alibaba’s acquisition of the open source big data company data Artisans, which was Alibaba’s first acquisition in Europe.

At Goldman, I was in the TMT Banking Group in NYC and SF. My deal experience includes Blue Man Group’s sale to Cirque du Soleil; Thoma Bravo’s acquisition of Qlik Technologies ($3bn); Tapad’s sale to Telenor ($340mm); CSC’s acquisition of xChanging (£480mm); CSRA’s separation from CSC ($8bn); GVT’s sale to Telefonica (€7.2bn).

I have an MBA from Stanford and MPA from Harvard. At Stanford, I studied entrepreneurship and venture capital. I was admitted to the selective seminar on foreign policy taught by former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condi Rice. I also organized the Stanford China trip with 30 MBAs. We met with business leaders from Tencent and Foxconn as well as government officials.

At Harvard, I studied U.S.-China relations. I helped co-chair the student council of the Center for Business and Government, directed by Larry Summers. I wrote an article on China's quest for an innovative economy in Harvard Kennedy School Review, which stems from my study advised by Stanford’s Professor Myron Scholes, Nobel laureate in Economics.

I am an advisor to startups at Berkeley Skydeck, advising startups on fund raising and go to market strategies.

My book will focus on Chinese innovation. As Chinese entrepreneurs are becoming creative, knowledge is transferring in both ways between the U.S. and China. I believe YOUR next billion dollar idea will come from China.