VC Curt Shi hires artist-in-residence in search of edge — Capital Brief

Like all venture capitalists, Curt Shi is looking for an edge. Unlike most VCs, however, he’s turned to an artist to help him find it.

Shi has hired prominent Australian artist Shaun Gladwell as an artist-in-residence across his VC funds, Imprint Capital Partners and Welinder Shi Capital. 

The unexpected collaboration is a response to those who are betting technology will render humans irrelevant in many areas, including investing. Shi is hoping that Gladwell can counter that by boosting creativity and lateral thinking. 

While entrepreneurs-in-residence are relatively common in VC, artists-in-residence are less so. The idea behind Shi’s initiative comes from something slightly different to a run-of-the-mill collaboration. The approach of bringing together intersecting disciplines to unlock ideas and new thinking, is often termed “crossover”. Shi says the idea is very popular in China, where he was born and raised. 

There have been some pivotal startups created through bringing people together from different disciplines, the most famous of which is Block. Jack Dorsey had always wanted to work with a glass artist friend of his, Jim McKelvey, but they could never find something that quite made sense for either of them. When McKelvey couldn’t sell a piece of art for $2,000 because he couldn’t accept payment on credit card, the idea for Block was born.