Ethan Cho
Writing
How technology changes businesses, work, and the choices people make. Written from Korea, for readers everywhere.
Latest in English
Read the full essays on Substack.
When the People Building the Fastest AI Start Reaching for the Brakes
What the debate over AI speed means for permission, verification, and businesses that make AI actions accountable.
The State of Korean AI
What it takes to turn Korea’s chip and manufacturing strengths into independent AI companies, overseas customers, and durable revenue.
The Most Dangerous Customer in AI May Be the One Who Uses It Most
A paying user of multiple AI tools examines the economics of the customers who use them most.
When honest work becomes cheap
When the market price of work changes, where do human dignity, judgment, and responsibility find their value?
English archive
Earlier essays and analysis published on VentureOracle, with their original publication dates.
20 articles · Newest first
[LP] Asia’s Last Non-Competitive Venture Market
The KOSPI rose more than 75% in 2025, its best year in over two decades and the strongest performance of any major global index.
Read article →
Korea’s $13 Billion Venture Market Has a Body Composition Problem
Last quarter, Korean venture investment hit ₩2.18 trillion ($1.6B) — up 34% year-over-year. AI captured 45% of all deployment. The government committed to its largest-ever capital injection cycle: ₩3,500 billion in…
Read article →
[For non-Korean LPs] Why Korea Is the Most Mispriced Startup Market in Asia
Consider a counterfactual. K-pop Demon Hunters becomes a global phenomenon in 2025, pulling Netflix viewership into territory the platform rarely sees for an animated feature. The songs chart. The merchandise sells out.…
Read article →
[For Non-Korean LPs] The Inverted Risk Curve
Walk into a Sand Hill Road partner meeting and the question is: who left Stripe last quarter, and how do we get into their seed round before anyone else hears the name. Walk into a Yeouido investment committee and the question is: how many times is…
Read article →
Why we invested in a rice company
Most people have heard that rice contains heavy metals. Most people don’t think about it twice — until they’re feeding an infant.
Read article →
The 5% Advisor Trap: How Founders Destroy Their Cap Tables Before Series A
Giving advisors 5% equity is financial suicide. Reddit VC community exposes the brutal truth: founders are bleeding equity to advisors who barely contribute, ending up with <25% ownership by Series B. Industry standard? 0.25-0.5% for advisors. Founders who give 5% either don't understand startups or are being exploited. The cap table math that VCs see but founders miss.
Read article →
Nuclear Power for AI: Why Amazon's Betting on Reactors, Not Renewables
Amazon-backed X-Energy just got US approval for advanced nuclear reactor fuel. Why nuclear over solar/wind? AI datacenters need 24/7 baseload power—renewables can't deliver. Korean opportunity: Export APR1400 nuclear tech for AI infrastructure. The coming energy war: Nations with nuclear = AI superpowers. Nations without = AI colonies.
Read article →
Goldman's AI-Proof Portfolio: Which Companies Survive AGI?
Goldman Sachs just launched an 'AI-resistant software basket'—companies whose business models work even if AI gets perfect. Not 'AI beneficiaries,' but 'AI survivors.' What made the cut? Network effects, switching costs, regulatory capture. Framework for Korean VCs: Which of your portfolio companies survive when AI commoditizes code?
Read article →
The $600M Warning: How AI Fear Just Killed a Bond Sale
A call center operator's $600M bond sale just collapsed—not from bad financials, but investor fear of AI displacement. For the first time, capital markets are pricing 'AI job obsolescence' as material credit risk. Korean BPO/call center industry ($8B) faces the same reckoning. Framework for identifying which service sectors die first.
Read article →
DeepSeek R1: Why China's Open Source AGI Changes Everything for Korean VCs
DeepSeek R1's open-source release (Jan 2025) collapsed AI inference costs 95%. US-China AI competition just became three-way: OpenAI (closed), Anthropic (enterprise), DeepSeek (open source). Korean VCs' play: Don't compete on frontier models. Win on inference infrastructure, vertical apps, and cost arbitrage.
Read article →
The $380 Billion Question: What Anthropic's Monster Round Tells Us About AI Fundraising
Anthropic closed a $30B Series G at $380B valuation. Elon Musk called them 'evil.' What's really happening? The death of traditional VC metrics. LPs overpay not from stupidity, but fear of irrelevance. New rules: Talent > Product > Revenue.
Read article →
The Emotional Debt: Why OpenAI's Most Beloved Model Had to Die
When users grieve a chatbot shutdown, you haven't built product-market fit—you've built dependency. GPT-4o's retirement reveals a new product risk: Emotional Debt. Framework for avoiding features you can't remove without breaking people.
Read article →
AI's $1.6 Trillion Target: Why Private Credit Is the Next Sector to Fall
UBS warns AI could spark 'shock to the system' in credit markets. Private equity's $1.6T software bet is getting derailed by AI. The patterns are clear: PE faces 3-year disruption cycle. Meanwhile, Korean VCs have a chance to leapfrog entirely.
Read article →
OpenAI's $6.5 Billion Hardware Dilemma
OpenAI's hardware device delayed to 2027 after acquiring Jony Ive's io for $6.5B. ChatGPT has 810M MAU, but market share fell from 69.1% → 45.3%. Introducing the 'MAU Trap' - massive users hiding shallow engagement.
Read article →
The Optimism Tax: What $18B in Prediction Market Data Reveals About VC
Analysis of 72 million prediction market trades reveals a systematic wealth transfer from emotional traders to patient market makers. The patterns mirror exactly what happens in venture capital - and explain why most LPs lose money while top GPs consistently win.
Read article →
Your Startup's 2 Million Users Are Worthless
Korea's top department stores generate 52% revenue from VIPs (40+ age). Golf memberships average $200K. E-commerce: 40-60 demo has higher AOV than Gen Z. Stop chasing vanity metrics. Target paying customers, not fundable numbers.
Read article →
AI Native VC: Building Pitch Deck Review in 3 Minutes
A pitch-deck demo is easy; a governed investment workflow is not. The useful standard is permissioned data, audit trails, measurable outcomes, and human accountability.
Read article →
Optimal Stopping Theory for the AI Era
The 37% rule says explore 37%, then commit. But in AI era, N becomes infinite. How do you know when to stop when infinite options exist? The framework that applies to hiring, investing, and life decisions.
Read article →
The Real AI Bottleneck Isn't GPUs
Everyone's obsessed with GPU scarcity. But network infrastructure is the real bottleneck. Why I was in Mobile & Telecom Top 200: I see infrastructure investment opportunities others miss. Open RAN, edge computing, AI-native networks.
Read article →
After AGI: Is Korea Ready?
Korea combines a 0.800 fertility rate in 2025 with fast recent generative-AI diffusion: 37.1% in Q1 2026, 16th globally, with the fastest quarterly growth in Microsoft’s dataset. That makes it a useful case study, not proof of a fixed AGI timeline.
Read article →
Also writing in Korean
English titles and summaries below introduce essays published in Korean. The links open the Korean originals.
Fable and Astra Are Opening Doors. Korea Is Locking Them.
As AI starts finding information and taking action, how can Korean data circulate and earn a fair return?
Google Risks Becoming the Next Kodak
A comparison of Slides and Gamma opens a bigger question: when do established revenue models and organizational habits get in the way of better products?
Does Failure Breed Success—or Does Success Breed Failure?
Nike’s experience raises a question about judging companies: how much of past success transfers to a different environment?