Interview With Kevin Chou: “I’m A Lifelong Entrepreneur Because I’m Attracted to the Frontier.”

In this episode of Conductive Conversations, Carey Lai, founder and managing director of Conductive Ventures, speaks with Kevin Chou, the Founder and CEO of Kabam and a five-time entrepreneur. He shares about the struggles of fundraising and competing against Facebook, why venture capital wasn’t for him, and how AI is transforming the world. Join us as Kevin candidly discusses his unique career journey, the evolution of his first company into Kabam, and the essential qualities needed for entrepreneurial success.

About Kevin Chou

Kevin Chou is a five-time entrepreneur behind the companies Kabam, SuperLayer, Rally, Gen.G and Forte. Most recently, he co-founded Bright Saver, a nonprofit with the mission to make solar energy and storage accessible to everyone. 

Kevin founded venture studio SuperLayer in 2021, whose mission is to build easy-to-use consumer crypto products that can bring in the next 100 million people into crypto. Prior to SuperLayer, Kevin founded Rally, a Creator Economy crypto protocol. Rally is a blockchain project for Creators and their fan communities to thrive together. In 2021, Rally reached a fully-diluted market cap of over $3 billion. 

Prior to that, Kevin was the founding CEO of Forte, a blockchain game developer platform. Forte’s mission is to build a more collaborative future in gaming by realigning the economic relationship between players and developers. Forte raised at a multi-billion dollar valuation from SEA, Kora, Griffin, a16z, Union Grove, Canaan, and Battery in 2021. 

Kevin currently serves as the Chairman of Gen.G, an esports enterprise bridging Asia and North America. He was the founding CEO of Gen.G in 2017. Gen.G is the parent company of Seoul Dynasty in the Overwatch League, as well as the 2017 League of Legends world champions. 

Previously, Kevin was CEO and founder of Kabam, a top developer of mobile games. Kevin led the company from business plan founding to over $400M in annual revenue serving over 500 million players. Kabam developed leading partnerships with Marvel, Star Wars, Fast & Furious, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games. Kabam was profitable from 2012 until the sale of the company’s studios to Netmarble, 21st Century Fox, and GAEA, which in total generated nearly $1 billion in value. 

Early in his career, Kevin was a venture capitalist at Canaan Partners investing in consumer internet and digital media. 

In 2017, Kevin and his wife Connie Chen made the largest gift UC Berkeley has ever received from any of its alumni under the age of 40 to fund the Connie & Kevin Chou Hall at Berkeley Haas. He’s been honored by Fortune in 40 under 40, CNN in Smartest People in Tech, and Business Insider’s Silicon Valley Top 100. In 2019, Kevin was honored as UC Berkeley’s Alumnus of the Year. Kevin graduated magna cum laude from the UC Berkeley undergraduate Haas School of Business program. He serves on the Board of Trustees at UC Berkeley. 

This episode and the Conductive Conversations series is produced by Robin Chan and Conductive Ventures.