Carlos Castellanos: "Resilience from an unstructured upbringing"

Carlos Castellanos, CFA is an early stage investor at Samsung Next , a division of Samsung focused on finding and investing in founders who can make the imagined and impossible - possible. And previously, he held several capital markets roles at companies like UBS, Crystal Rock Capital Management, and Principal Global Investors. Carlos has a BS in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Originally from Los Mochis, Mexico, which is a town in Northern Mexico, he immigrated with his family to the United States when he was six - he remembers it vividl because it was a World Cup year, which when he was a kid was always a way to measure and track time. Carlos has led the investment in over 30 companies - 1/3rd of them with at least one latino founder.

Carlos’ paternal side of the family is from Guadalajara , which is in central Mexico, and his maternal side is from Northern Mexico - specifically Los Mochis , where Carlos was born. On his father’s side, they were mid-to-upper class, and had several businesses across Mexico. His father’s family moved to the Los Mochis area to run one of the businesses which is how he met Carlos’ mother. Carlos’ mother did not come from means, and his father’s initial courtship was refilling their pantry with basic supplies. Eventually they got married and had two kids. But almost as quickly as the courtship and marriage happened, they separated. His mother had family in the U.S., so they made the decision to move. From that point on, Carlos had limited contact with his father - and his family unit became his mother and his older brother. They initially moved to Colorado where they lived in a small trailer right by the train tracks and the home shook whenever a freight train would come by.

The family then moved to Georgia, which felt like a completely foreign land with not many Latinos. They did everything they needed to survive. Carlos’ mother worked as a house cleaner and as soon as he could work, Carlos took on a job in order to help the family - working at McDonalds throughout High School. Like many immigrant kids, he was forced to grow up incredibly fast. If the car needed repairs or something went wrong with his mom’s business, it would be his responsibility to get on the phone and figure it out. This lack of structure made Carlos a lot more resilient and he became comfortable with ambiguity and the unknown.

While he excelled academically, school and grades weren’t a primary focus for Carlos - and his mother and stepfather didn’t prioritize academics or extracurricular activities. He did his homework on the bus or during the school day - he says this was partially because he wasn’t motivated, and partially because he didn’t have a computer with internet access at home. But, he has a semi-photographic memory - when he learned something, it was difficult for him to forget it. So while he was inconsistent when it came to homework, he shined when taking tests.

After taking the SAT, he started to receive mailers from different Universities. Initially, college seemed like an abstract concept because, outside of his teachers, he only knew a handful of?adults who were college educated and since he couldn't afford to go, it didn't matter. Eventually, he made the decision to apply and was offered financial aid at Cornell University - initially to major in classical archeology - which he quickly switched after interning at a museum during the 2007-2008 financial crisis and realizing that there weren’t many jobs for archeology majors.

While growing up in Georgia had its challenges, and he felt a little like an outsider, it wasn’t until he got to Cornell that he realized how the “other half” or the 1% lived. Many of the kids around him had their entire lives planned out from the time they were children. Their internships were often lined up, they had the right tutors growing up - and one of his dorm mates came from a prominent family that is a household name. It was a completely different world. Carlos contrasts his upbringing where he went to seven different elementary schools - and once, his mom made him switch schools with 19 days left in the school year in order to save a few hundred dollars on rent.

Carlos ended up being the first of his close and distant cousins on his mother’s side to graduate from college. As an undergraduate student, he had completed graduate level coursework in business, economics, finance and knew that he wanted to continue to pursue his education. He initially gravitated towards academic programs in economics, but eventually settled on an MBA since he figured a program existed that combined academic rigor with practicality. Carlos applied to and got into The University of Chicago Booth School of Business where at 21, he became one of the youngest people ever admitted into the program.?

Business school gave him a significant confidence boost - while he was the youngest in his class, many of his peers were switching careers and didn’t have a business background- so for the first time in his life he felt better prepared than many people he was competing with. While he was able to ramp his work experience by interning at a hedge fund and a private equity firm during the school year, very few financial institutions would take the risk in hiring this over-educated, but young and inexperienced MBA full-time. The big break was when he attended a conference held by the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, now Prospanica, in San Antonio - and there he met someone from a Fortune 500 Insurance company based out of Des Moines Iowa that he had never heard of, but managed $500B of assets. He was able to secure an interview and a few months later he found himself with a job making High Yield Fixed Income Investments. For the next couple of years, he continued to get promoted and move between different financial institutions. At times, he was able to leverage his experience in Latin America to manage emerging market assets.

But something was missing. As he assessed his contributions to society, he felt as though he was just helping hedge funds and asset managers move money around. And at the same time, he also had Business school friends who moved to Silicon Valley to work at tech companies who were making as much or even more money than him, building products, and having a lot more fun. So when the opportunity presented itself, he decided to move and eventually applied for an innovation manager role at Samsung Next, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics trying to transform the parent company through venture investments, M&A, partnerships and building new products.??

The innovation team reported to the Chief Innovation Officer, one of the Samsung Presidents, and identified new industry, consumer and technological trends that could drive business unit transformation. Samsung has one of the largest installed bases of devices, so it was strategic to understand what innovations they could develop, fund, or acquire in order to maintain market leadership in a world that was shifting from hardware to software and services. In 2021, Carlos transitioned to an investor role at Samsung Next under David Lee , a veteran in the venture capital world, with a mandate to make investments in the boldest and most ambitious founders shaping the future.

Carlos has been able to bridge his appreciation for the emerging world and his litmus test for people who have the grit required to succeed in the company building phase. Of the 30+ deals that he has led as a Samsung Next investor, 1/3rd have had at least one Latino founder. He has also made Samsung’s first venture investments in Latin America. But he’s not investing in Latinos because he is Mexican, he believes that he is able to identify people who have come from unstructured worlds like his and who have the resilience to find the path to success despite the odds and constant setbacks - which is the key in entrepreneurship.?

Carlos was also key in starting Founder Familia and VC Familia - large peer groups of Hispanics across the U.S. who are founders or venture capitalists. He has taken his experience and helped create these platforms for other Latinos to increase their surface area for success, and to ultimately help them thrive with access to networks, resources and capital.