Sam Kagan

I’m a senior at NYU Stern, where I study Business & Political Economy. I’m a first-generation American; my parents immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union with nothing to their name, and their story has shaped how I think about opportunity and ambition.

Over the past few years, I’ve lived and worked in New York, London, Tel Aviv, and Shanghai. I spent six months in China, where I became fascinated by the country’s consumer culture, manufacturing ecosystem, industrial policy, and rapidly evolving robotics landscape. That experience pushed me to think much more deeply about how technology and user behavior develop differently across markets.

My interest in the intersection of business and policy started early. At 16, I joined Andrew Yang’s think tank as an economic policy researcher, working on topics including UBI, economic stimulus, semiconductor policy, and the CHIPS Act.

In college, I’ve spent time both building and investing. I worked at Roam, a Keith Rabois-backed startup on a mission to make housing more affordable, across growth, sales, and operations. I later joined Soma Capital, where I helped build its Scouts community, worked with RRE Ventures on Physical AI research, and most recently spent the summer at Anthos Capital, a $4B consumer-focused venture fund, where much of my work centered on emerging consumer behaviors in the U.S. and China.

I’ve also been fortunate to be part of the Excel Fellowship, which brought me to Tel Aviv and introduced me to some of my closest friends, mentors, founders, and investors.

Outside of work, I love discovering house sets on SoundCloud, tinkering with my DJ board, trying new restaurants around New York, and searching for the best oyster or sushi happy hour downtown.

I’m always excited to meet people building, investing, or thinking about interesting things, especially around China, consumer technology, robotics, manufacturing, and global markets.

You can reach me at samuelkagan04 [at] gmail.com.