Patrick Eggen (Kellogg ’04): From Zoom’s Early Backer to Builder of a Venture Franchise

How a contrarian Kellogg alum turned first-principles investing into a repeatable franchise. By: Aniruddh Singh

The Zoom Bet: A Green-Font Email and a Contrarian “Yes”

Patrick Eggen, Kellogg '04

In August 2012, a note written in bright green font landed in Patrick Eggen’s inbox. Seed investor, Bill Tai, was pounding the table for a little-known video-conferencing app called Zoom. The market looked crowded—Cisco, Google, Microsoft—and founder Eric Yuan had already been turned down by dozens of funds. Patrick, then a partner at Qualcomm Ventures, leaned in anyway.

Years later, Zoom’s IPO delivered the largest absolute return in the firm’s history. Patrick still frames that story with humility: “To hit grand slams in venture, you have to be right when everyone else is wrong—and humble enough to know which parts you still got wrong.”

Today, Patrick is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Counterpart Ventures, a San Francisco–based Series A fund focused on enterprise software and applied technology. Counterpart manages several hundred million dollars across multiple funds and is known for its network-driven approach—especially its close collaboration with corporate venture arms (CVCs) through its own Counter Club: the largest global CVC community. What He Saw That Others Missed

Patrick wasn’t swayed by category noise; he followed first principles. Problem insight from the source. Eric had built WebEx. He knew video was broken and insisted on rebuilding the stack—down to Zoom’s own codec—to work flawlessly across fragmented devices and networks.

• Technical + sales unicorn. “A ten-out-of-ten engineer who could evangelize.” Thirty engineers followed Eric on day one; leadership gravity showed up before titles did.
  

• Bottoms-up to enterprise. Zoom grew by delighting small teams and free users first, then converting to top-down enterprise sales.
  

• Capital efficiency as a superpower. The business scaled without extravagance—discipline created optionality at every stage.
  

And the humility: the main Qualcomm fund passed on investing in Zoom; later, they didn’t lean in as hard as they could have. “You can be right and still be wrong,” Patrick says. “Most investor ‘hero’ stories ignore how much of the job is getting out of the founder’s way.” Pattern Recognition After 100+ Deals

Across fifteen years, more than a hundred transactions, and over thirty exits, Patrick reduces outliers to a simple triad: the CEO’s three jobs:

1. Set strategy and execute with resilience. Decide under uncertainty; keep moving.

2. Attract world-class talent. Watch who follows before the org chart exists.

3. Keep the company well-capitalized. Treat cash as precious; efficiency compounds advantage.

   
   

Then a final filter: is it truly disruptive, or merely incremental? In early-stage investing, the goal is to underwrite asymmetric upside - accepting some zeros in service of non-linear outcomes.

The Leap: From Apprenticeship to Builder

Patrick calls venture an apprenticeship. He spent thirteen years at Qualcomm Ventures, learning most from losses and triage. Staying would have been comfortable; leaving to co-found Counterpart Ventures was the harder path—and the point.

Building Counterpart meant raising outside capital, running the unglamorous back office, and navigating a few gut-check stretches that test conviction. Those moments clarified why he was doing it—and made the firm stronger.

With a two-person investment committee, Patrick favors decisive, owner-style calls.He prefers to move fast when the thesis is clear and to own outcomes when they aren’t. His choice of partner, Joe Saijo, was deliberate: complementary, not similar. “One plus one equals three” beats hiring your twin. That pairing—and the willingness to own the hard parts—turned risk into momentum.

Building the Moat: Be Best-in-World at One Thing

Patrick adapts a simple 2×2 he remembers from a Kellogg marketing class: on one axis, the table stakes you need to play; on the other, the single capability where you choose to be best-in-class. Counterpart’s spike is an activated CVC network—a community of corporate VCs that compounds sourcing, sharpens diligence, opens enterprise doors, and strengthens LP relationships.

What others saw as a background “liability,” Patrick turned into a moat. That’s the difference between a fund and a franchise—a repeatable advantage that compounds.

The Kellogg Edge

Patrick credits Kellogg with sharpening judgment under uncertainty, building intellectual honesty, and reinforcing humility. Business school, he says, is a chance to reinvent and credentialize—that is, if you keep experimenting and stay grounded in reality. Those lessons now permeate Counterpart’s culture: first-principles reasoning, disciplined use of capital, and respect for founders who combine technical depth with leadership gravity.

Legacy and Lessons

Patrick’s career mirrors the kind of companies he backs: built on first-principles clarity, powered by people who inspire others to follow, disciplined in capital use, and grounded in humility. Leaving a comfortable platform to start Counterpart wasn’t a rebellion; it was a choice to take ownership of every decision and build something enduring.

For Kellogg students, his advice is clear: pick a spike you can be truly world-class at; do the reps that earn judgment; watch who follows a leader before the title; and treat cash as your sharpest feedback loop. If you can stay contrarian and humble, the compounding takes care of the rest.

Summary of Practical Takeaways for Kellogg MBAs

• Choose your spike. Be legendary at one thing; let everything else be competent.
  

• Bias to first principles. Rebuild where the product is broken. Don’t repackage.
  

• Screen for leadership gravity. Who follows this person before the title?
  

• Make cash your truth-teller. Capital efficiency buys time, leverage, and clarity.
  

• Earn your apprenticeship. Optimize for reps, feedback loops, and scars; don’t skip steps.
  

• Stay humble. You can be right and still be wrong. Learning velocity wins. Read about more Kellogg alumni: Bo Schultz '22, Former MLB-Turned-VP at Erie Street Growth Partners Nico Casaux '24, Founder of Bianca