How venture capitalist Li Jin splits her time between investing in content creators and creating her own content

As an investor in the ownership economy and Web3, as well as a writer, my day can go from talking to founders to supporting our portfolio companies to writing blog posts. What productivity has meant for me is being able to shift that mix of how I spend my time in the directions that are the most fruitful. Content creation and investing comprise a flywheel. When I publish anything, I plant a flag to let founders know what I’m interested in. Then, as I invest, that sparks new insights that translate into essays or blog posts. I worked at Andreessen Horowitz for four years. I left because I felt like there was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to work on this huge shift happening in terms of the future of work playing out online. I was one of the early investors to take influencers seriously—I’ve backed them and blogged about the industry for a long time. I think creators’ rights are workers’ rights, because the creator economy is as real as any other type of work, but emerging on internet platforms without a traditional employer-employee relationship. It sounds lofty, but I have been thinking and writing about “Universal Creative Income,” like a Universal Basic Income for creators. I’ve invested in Web3 startups that are on the frontier of building for creators, including Mirror, Foundation, and Sound. I take a lot of meetings—with founders, my team, and companies that pitch me. It’s not abnormal for me to take 10 Zoom meetings a day. I work with my executive assistant to review things on my calendar and at a more macro level. My best writing time is between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. I get more done while lying down. Being on deadline taught me that it’s possible to do things in a ridiculously short amount of time. It’s possible to write an essay in less than an hour. Like any content creator, I experiment a lot. I have a folder full of drafts and things that never see the light of day. —As told to Sarah Lynch

Time she wakes up
It really depends on what time zone I’m in, because I’m very nomadic. I usually get up around 8 a.m.

First thing she does in the morning
I check email, Slack, and all my notifications. I get out of bed to make coffee and do my skincare routine.

What she writes about
I have been thinking and writing about a “Universal Creative Income,” kind of like a Universal Basic Income for creators to make sure they have enough money to live on.