Shahin Farshchi built brain-machine interfaces in grad school, worked on hybrid cars at General Motors, and started his own wireless health-monitoring company before becoming an investor, and he traces his drive back to watching Knight Rider and Star Trek as a kid as well as the years he spent growing up in Iran. Rather than following broad industry trends, he looks for new ideas at the edges of companies he already knows, pays close attention to how much time and money it actually takes to turn hard science into a real product, and works closely with founders almost like a coach on hiring, strategy, and partnerships.

• Passionate about space technology and orbital infrastructure, viewing space connectivity as a foundational layer for the future economy. A major recurring theme is the transition from radio frequencies to laser communications and photonics to handle massive data transfer in space, often pointing to Observable Space as a prime example of building this necessary optical network for next-generation satellite constellations.
• Focused on the physical bottlenecks of artificial intelligence, particularly hardware, memory bandwidth, and distributed compute infrastructure. Believes that the true limitation for frontier AI models is memory rather than pure compute power, highlighting startups like Majestic Labs tackling memory bandwidth and Modal building out the inference layer, while also showing enthusiasm for historically overlooked semiconductor sectors like lithography and packaging.
• Captivated by robotics and industrial automation that tangibly improves the physical world and domestic manufacturing. Argues that the true competitive advantage in robotics comes from owning the hardware and closing the continuous learning loop through real-world deployment and failure capture rather than just hoarding datasets, citing companies like Formic working to make factories more productive and safer.
• Attracted to highly ambitious talent pools and startup teams willing to embrace exceptionally difficult engineering challenges that others dismiss as too hard. Places a strong emphasis on the virtuous cycle of regional talent hubs, like aerospace engineers in El Segundo, and praises companies like Cognition that successfully recruit employees who operate with the drive and mindset of actual founders.