Jerry Chen

Jerry Chen
Nationality	American
Occupation	Venture capitalist, partner
Employer	Greylock Partners
Known for	Venture capital; enterprise technology thought leadership

Jerry Chen is an American venture capitalist and partner at Greylock Partners, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on enterprise and consumer technology investments. He is recognised in the technology investment community for his written analysis of competitive strategy and business model defensibility in the era of artificial intelligence, most notably through his essays "The New Moats" and its follow-up "The New New Moats," both published through Greylock's editorial platform.

Disambiguation note

Several notable individuals share the name Jerry Chen. This article concerns the venture capitalist affiliated with Greylock Partners. Other individuals of the same name include a neuroscientist and assistant professor at Boston University who studies molecular and cell biology and was awarded the Cajal Club Cortical Explorer Award in 2016, a researcher affiliated with the Allen Institute, a competitive swimmer on the University of Pittsburgh athletics roster, and a Boston University undergraduate student recognised with a fellowship for a project addressing gaps in legal education. A separate Jerry Chen was appointed chief executive officer of Bhagwati, the manufacturing subsidiary of Indian consumer electronics company Micromax, as the company crossed ₹17,000 crore in annual revenue and prepared for an initial public offering while expanding into computing and automotive electronics.

Career at Greylock Partners

Jerry Chen serves as a partner at Greylock Partners, where his investment focus centres on enterprise software, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. Greylock is one of the oldest and most established venture capital firms in the United States, with a long track record of investments in companies including Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Workday. As a partner, Chen participates in sourcing, evaluating, and supporting portfolio companies operating at the intersection of AI and enterprise technology.

Chen has contributed to Greylock's public thought leadership through its editorial platform, Greymatter, where he has published substantive essays on competitive strategy for technology companies. His writing addresses how businesses can build durable competitive advantages — commonly referred to as "moats" — in an environment where artificial intelligence is rapidly commoditising previously defensible software capabilities.

Thought leadership

Chen's most widely cited contribution to enterprise technology discourse is his framework for understanding competitive defensibility in the AI era. His original essay, "The New Moats," argued that in a world where AI and machine learning capabilities are increasingly accessible, traditional software moats based on features or switching costs are being eroded. He posited that the next generation of durable business advantages would be built on proprietary data, unique workflows deeply embedded in customer operations, and network effects specific to AI-driven products.

The follow-up essay, "The New New Moats," published through Greylock's Greymatter platform in June 2023, revisited and updated this framework in light of advances in large language models and generative AI. The piece examines how the emergence of foundation models changes the strategic landscape for enterprise software companies, and what new sources of defensibility are available to businesses building on top of general-purpose AI infrastructure. The essays have been shared widely among technology founders, operators, and investors as frameworks for thinking about product strategy and business model design in the current AI cycle.