Zhou Quan spent years working inside the semiconductor industry itself—at NAURA, Lam Research, and Israel's Nova—so he judges deals through hands-on technical knowledge rather than pure financial reasoning, gravitating toward deeper areas like equipment, key components, materials, and advanced packaging, and he's willing to back technology before the market agrees on it, as long as the team and tech are genuinely rare. When picking founders, he favors quiet, engineering-minded people over smooth talkers, has grown more willing to bet on very young founders after learning to take their ambitions seriously, treats taste—where technical skill and cultural sensibility meet—as one of his key ways to judge top founders, and stays closely involved with the companies he backs, including through hard stretches.