Suggestions
Steve Chen
Entrepreneur, Investor, and Philanthropist
Steve Chen is a successful entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco. He is the co-founder and partner at Modernist, a boutique private social club in San Francisco noted as one of the top 12 private clubs in the US by Maxim Magazine.1
Professional Background
Chen has an extensive background in entrepreneurship and business:
- He co-founded Modernist in November 2015, creating a community for entrepreneurs, philanthropists, artists, and others to socialize and build relationships.1
- He founded The Bradley Group in 2004, through which he has made over 60 early-stage investments in startups across technology, brick & mortar, and blockchain sectors.1
- Chen is also the founder of GoodPeople, an organization focused on connecting philanthropic-minded individuals through curated events and activities.1
- In 2013, he founded HackCancer, a group of young professionals that organizes events to raise awareness and funds for cancer-related causes.1
Education and Early Career
Chen graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Economics.1 His early career included:
- Working as a Senior Consultant/Director at Accenture/Epylon from 2000 to 2002.1
- Founding Alist in 1997, an event production and marketing company.1
Investment and Entrepreneurial Activities
Throughout his career, Chen has been involved in numerous ventures:
- He has made investments in successful companies like Coinbase, Reddit, PlanGrid, and Philz Coffee.1
- Chen co-founded MyCuteFriend, a social dating app, in 2013.1
- He is the founder and owner of 5A5 Steak Lounge.2
Approach to Business and Networking
At Modernist, Chen and his partners focus on creating a welcoming, diverse community. They prioritize individuals who are social, passionate about dining experiences, and fit well with the club's atmosphere.2 This approach reflects Chen's broader philosophy of connecting "good people" through shared experiences and networking opportunities.1
Highlights
Please RSVP here: https://lu.ma/zh8cubud ~~ Calling all investors, founders, & others interested in our SF Bay Area startup ecosystem!
Our next Modernist Venture Club Startup Pitch Night is taking place this Thursday. Hear pitches from early-stage Modernist Member-founded companies w/feedback from leading Modernist Member VC's, & (maybe) get a chance to invest in their round(s) through our Modernist SPV's
Will these follow in the footsteps of some of our other Modernist member-founded companies? Coinbase, Reddit, Youtube, Twitch, OpenDoor & many others ~~ Special guest VC panelist Connie Chan, one of the first 30 employees @ a16z, where she became the first internally promoted general partner in the firm's history
SCHEDULE:
6p- Private member dinner w/investors & startups pitching that night 7p-8:15p | Startup Founder/Investor Reception 8:15p-9:30p | Pitches, Feedback, q&a 9:30p-11:30p | Founder/Investor Social ~~ Pitching:
Reflekt: Web3 Roblox Alternative Founder/CEO Jared McCluskey
Reflekt democratizes game development by providing everything out-of-the-box to create high-quality games with 100% open-source ownership, from game engine to publishing platform in a single downloadable consumer app ~~ Ownlayer: Deploy AI with confidence: Ownlayer enables teams to view, understand, and improve the performance of their integrated AI systems https://ownlayer.com/ Co-Founder/CEO Silvia Chen ~~ Robin: your personal AI-powered coach, wellness buddy, side-kick, confidante, companion, superhero. https://www.meetrobin.app/ Founder/CEO Jenny Shao, MD
By leveraging the power of AI and combining that with her deep clinical understanding, she and her team at Robin is innovating the future of personalized mental wellness. ~~ Generation Lab is revolutionizing healthspan extension with our proprietary tool that measures the biological age of 19 organs and delivers personalized longevity interventions
https://lnkd.in/gfJGdpfG. Co-Founder/CEO Alina Rui Su
Co-founded by Irina Conboy, a preeminent aging and longevity researcher from UC Berkeley & Inventor of Rejuvenation Plasma Exchange, Generation Lab combines a simple cheek-swab test with proprietary techniques to definitively measure molecular disbalance that indicates aging and risk of disease ~~ Company Update: Ego Co-Founder/CEO Vish Srinivasan (pitched last year) www.ego.live
Imagine character.ai plus Roblox: Ego is building the first generative ai-powered simulation engine, where non-technical creators can generate realistic characters powered by LLMs, 3D worlds, and interaction code/scripts with just prompts.
YC W24 batch. Raised $6.5m in seed round. ~~ Investor Panelists:
Connie Chan, one of the first 30 employees at a16z, & the 1st internally promoted general partner.
https://lnkd.in/gMxApm-K https://lnkd.in/gQaFxRpw (from Ben Horowitz) ~~ Ashish Aggarwal (partner Chamaeleon). https://www.chamaeleon.vc ~~ Vishal Gurbuxani (partner Metablock Capital)
Modernist Summit Day 2 post-lunch recap
Wow, what an incredible weekend for our first-ever Modernist Summit! Thanks to all of our 100+ attendees from all over the world, 40+ member speakers/performers, 20+ w/fashion show, sponsors, & 35+ team members for sharing their stories, insights, talents & more to help make this event happen!
Schedule: https://lnkd.in/gvE3ntzz
Speaker Bios: https://lnkd.in/gstjVQk3
Gallery: https://lnkd.in/gvVPWPZ4
Sat 4.27 @ AGI House, Hillsborough: POST LUNCH
-> a fantastic fireside chat w/Bill Tai, first investor in Zoom, early investor in Canva & 23 other companies who have IPO’d. Created the Necker Island Blockchain Summit, co-founder of MetaGood (OnChainMonkey) & ACTAI Ventures. Oh, in his ‘spare’ time, happens to be a sponsored Kiteboarder & professor too… such an underachiever :)
-> an insightful Healthcare/Healthtech Panel w/some of the leading minds & decision makers impacting many of the current investments & efforts into this next generation of technologies impacting healthcare. (CEO Calm, investor at $1B FO, Hospital/Tech Medical & Regional Directors, Permanente Board Member, UCSF Associate Professor)
-> an incredibly moving Talk w/TED Speaker & World Economic Forum’s ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ Jane Marie Chen, about her journey to saving 1 million babies by 2025 w/EMBRACE
-> a fantastic keyboard/vocals performance by MINE Founder/CEO Eoin Harrington
AFTERNOON BREAK
-> an enlightening Crypto/Web3 Panel w/Journalist Rachel Wolfson & amazing founders– 3x unicorn founder/ceo, founders making waves in the NFT & DEFI areas, & those impacting policy on a national level
-> a mind-blowing ‘off the record’ chat w/Emmett Shear, Twitch Co-Founder/CEO & OpenAi Interim CEO
-> a captivating Violin/keyboard performance w/violinist Jen Tzeng & Grammy-Award winning musician Ivan Linn
-> an out-of-mind/body ENERGY experience w/Modernist co-founder Albert Chen
-> a thought-provoking Talk w/Joon Yun, managing member Palo Alto Investors ($1.5B aum), & changemaker in Longevity, having donated over $3m to Longevity initiatives
-> a captivating AI Panel w/some of the leading minds in AI: Investors, Builders, Safety/Trust, & others involved w/the epicenter of AI in Silicon Valley
-> a compelling Talk w/Ahura AI co-founder Bryan Talebi on AI & the intersection of Longevity tech, Genetic Engineering, & Neural Modulation
-> a stunning fashion show organized by the super-talented Darii & Olga. Dresses provided by Queenly, the go-to marketplace for formal dresses
DINNER BREAK
-> a super-impressive Venture Capital Panel w/4 co-founders/managing partners ($300m+ aum) & Rockstar moderator Josh Constine ($2.1B aum, moderated 200+ on-stage interviews & keynotes in 18 countries w/leaders inc. Mark Zuckerberg & more)
-> an ‘electric’ fireside chat w/Wesley Chan, founder FPV Ventures ($450m aum), founder Google Voice/Analytics, & early angel investor in 5 decacorns ($10B+), and 20 unicorns ($1B+)
Experience
Education
Location
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.