Tim Chae

Hi everyone! After *13* life-changing years, I’ve left my full-time role at @500GlobalVC to pursue what I'll be doing for the rest of my life (more on that below). 500 first backed me at 19. As a college dropout, 500 was my education. When that startup failed, largely due to my own arrogance and naivete, I was given the opportunity to join as an EIR on a six-month contract. At minimum, I figured I owed them some work after losing their investment. lol Then came the chance to return to Korea, where I was born but hadn’t been back since I was 14. That led to 500 Korea in 2015. Signing the partnership docs, I remember shaking hands with @davemcclure and agreeing to stay for “at least two or three years.” Later, @christine_tsai gave me the opportunity to come back to SF, where I spent my last six years as Managing Partner. Those 6 months became 13 years quite fast... I spent my twenties and then some growing up inside 500. 1M+ miles flown all over the world, friends all over the world, and lifetime airline and hotel statuses I’ll keep collecting on. I got married. Became a dad. Learned and got to form unique perspectives from those experiences. Because of 500. 500 believed entrepreneurship would reach far more people, far beyond Silicon Valley, long before it was obvious. I got to see that happen firsthand. To my teammates, our LPs, and the founders who trusted me: thank you for the friendships, opportunities, and responsibilities I had to grow into. I’m proud of what we built and excited for what you’ll continue to do. As for my next chapter... I always knew I wanted to build again. But leaving a mission I loved and the security of this role, with a baby on the way, wasn’t something I could take lightly. I needed to know this was what I’d be spending the next 30 years doing. I believe AI will enable a new generation of founders, just as other platform-shifting technologies have over the last two decades. And this time, growing their business won’t have to mean growing a large team. We’re building @edaphic_xyz to become the enabler and catalyzer for that new generation of founders. I’m doing this with my co-founders Donny, a former portfolio founder and CEO, and Daniel, my younger brother. I’ve worked with both for years. We share the same vision and the same long-term commitment. I couldn’t ask for two better people to build this with. We’re fully in person, in downtown Austin(!), and hiring engineers. Reach out or make an introduction. And to friends I haven’t caught up with in far too long, I’d love to reconnect. (We wrote about what we believe and why we’re building Edaphic on edaphic.co, and I shared my personal notes on edaphic.co/notes/the-circle-….) There are so many people I want to thank and shoutout. I'll reach out to all of you individually. Thank you. The 30 Year Sprint of my Lifelong Project starts now.

cancel this type of DNC. that certainly was not even close to the top 5 things voters spoke about.

midterms probably means Tesla SpaceX merger has to be done this calendar year, no?

never in my lifetime did I ever think TX would go full blue from top to the bottom of the ticket. Gov, Senate, commissioners, judges.

is this the single best tech demo in history? wtf did I just witness... 🤯

also, zero chance Kawhi himself didn't know about the salary cap circumvention.

BRUTAL. 10 Firsts. 3 swaps (including the 2027, not mentioned in the tweet below - which NBA did not take away). Oh, and let's not forget what became the massive hammer in itself, SGA who turned out to be worth more than PG himself (before all of these draft picks). So Clippers will have likely at best the 28th pick in 2027 and that'll be it thru 2033. @SacramentoKings recently got placed as the franchise with the worst future, I gotta figure they'll at least move up to 29th lol.

people gonna start talking about Stephen Castle's BBIQ sooner than later right? good player, but being trusted too much as a ball handler and playmaker. even had a JR moment right there

crossed 100M in tokens on Opus 4. AMA. 💵😭💵