Christen O'Brien

Christen is a San Francisco-based writer and marketing executive who has partnered with technology CEOs, startup founders, and venture investors to transform their points-of-view into global movements. She is the co-founder of 500 Startups, a startup accelerator and VC fund with $2.3B AUM and 35 "unicorn" companies valued over $1B including Canva, Stripe, Reddit, Carbon Health, Intercom, and Mercury. She was also CMO at NFX, a venture fund with over $1.5B AUM, where she led brand, content, and growth and oversaw an editorial team that produced essays, videos, and podcasts. Over the years, she has also worked on various projects with people like Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Mike Krieger, Patrick Collison, David Sachs, Serena Williams, LeVar Burton, and Chris Anderson (WIRED), among others. Currently she is an Operating Partner at Scribble Ventures, a seed-stage venture fund founded by operators from OpenAI, Meta, Instagram, Twitter, and A16z. She works closely with the Scribble team and portfolio companies on all aspects of marketing and communications. Portfolio companies include Whatnot, Baseten, Abridge, Poolside, Sunday Robotics, Whoop, Stoke Space, and Hadrian. She is also an essayist who has been interviewed live on The Today Show. Her essays have been selected for collaborations by Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull / BLKSHP, Ken Burns / Redglass Pictures, and have been featured on CNN, CNBC, Medium, and kottke.org. Christen has a BA in Communications from the University of Southern California. She served as an ESL elementary school teacher in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, where she learned to brave long, cold winters without heat! She lives in San Francisco with her husband Paul and their wild, 3-year old son and spends most of her free time these days at playgrounds and museums across the city.