About Karthik Reddy: Is venture capital about funding the next unicorn or backing exceptional founders who are hardwired to think differently and bet against conventional wisdom? My next guest on The One Percent Project is the humble, decisive communicator and counterintuitive thinker Karthik Reddy. Karthik is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, one of India's pre-eminent early-stage venture funds. At over $600 Million in AUM, Blume has made 150+ investments across three funds. Karthik also serves as the Chairperson of the Executive Committee at the IVCA (India's Venture and Alternative Capital Association) - India's apex association for Venture & PE Funds, working alongside the Indian Government in policy & regulatory issues concerning Alternative Investment Funds. In this 2 part series, I speak to Karthik about his upbringing and the values he has infused into Blume over the years. Listen in to learn Karthik's insights on resilience in building his career, the X-Unicorn hypothesis, why exceptional founders are mutants, how he assesses risk and much more. Subscribe to the show where ever you are listening to it and sign up to The One Percent Project's "Think" newsletter at onepercent.live, which brings highly curated content that adds value to your professional and personal development. Key Take Aways & Transcript: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_KarthikReddy Follow & Subscribe: WhatsApp: ⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_WA2⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_Youtube⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_LinkedIn⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_Twitter1⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://bit.ly/TOP_Insta In this conversation, he talks about: 00:00 Intro 02:39 His journey from Chennai to Wharton 10:50⁠ The role resilience has played in building his career and Blume? ⁠16:21⁠ The X-Unicorn hypothesis and why exceptional founders are mutants. ⁠21:32⁠ How does he assess risk? ⁠28:56⁠ Do founders need to disapprove or disprove your long-term held market or industry hypothesis to get you interested? ⁠31:25⁠ The power of communication