Yida Gao (Forbes 30 Under 30) is the Managing General Partner of early-stage crypto and blockchain technology investment firm Shima Capital. It is backed by Dragonfly Capital, Digital Currency Group, Tiger Global, Bill Ackman, and other strategics (e.g. Huobi, ByBit, OKex, Animoca, Republic).

Yida formerly co-ran Struck Capital, an early-stage industry agnostic venture fund, and also DDC (Divergence Digital Currency), a multi-strategy crypto fund.

Prior, Yida served as a technology investor at New Enterprise Associates, a $25Bn+ venture capital fund, and as an M&A investment banker at Morgan Stanley.

He graduated from MIT with degrees in mathematics and computer science and dropped out of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to pursue crypto investing full time in 2017. He teaches the 15.492: Crypto Finance course at MIT.

The moderator is Rohit Malrani, Co-Founder of OfficeHours and formerly SourceScrub and Battery Ventures.

This episode covers topics such as:

• Day in the Life
• How did you transition from investment banking to being a technology investor and then a General Partner? What stemmed the interest in crypto and blockchain technology?
• Why did you choose crypto and blockchain technology?
• How was it working in many different roles?
• What inspired you to pursue this career path? Would you advise others to take that route?
• Market Analysis — what are you seeing in the market?
• Advice for anyone looking to break into investment banking, investing, venture capital or crypto

Learn more about OfficeHours here: https://getofficehours.com.