Chris Seybold
Statement of a life · p.01/11
Annual report · a life in review

A career in
three acts.

Hardware. Software. A Burgundy wine estate. Thirty years of backing the founders building things that matter, told the only way a finance guy knows how.

Chris Seybold
Prepared by C. Seybold
Basis of preparation: conviction · Currency: time well spent
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01 · Statement of operations
A series of really cool projects.
0
years in & around the Valley
0
acts: tech, life sciences, wine
0+
ventures stewarded
0
countries called home
02 · Note 1 · Extraordinary item
By every metric a résumé cares about, it read like a clean climb. I optimised for variety, not the ladder.

Then act three arrived. A mentor called from Burgundy, and the next morning I was on a plane to Paris.

A friend had just bought Château de Pommard, a wine estate founded in 1726, and asked me to help carry it forward. For a finance guy, wine was a whole new world: overnight my balance sheet held barrels, corks, labels, and a great deal of Burgundy.

Notes to a 300-year-old estatebasis
Goodwilla name three centuries old
What we modernisedeverything we sold
Impairment of its soul(none)

The job: carry a centuries-old name into the future without touching its soul.

03 · Note 2 · Foreign currency

The throughline was never the companies. It was the international dimension of business.

“You can’t understand someone’s nuance without meeting them in their language.”

Early in my career I lived and worked in France and China. It permanently shaped how I see leadership, markets, and people.

Note 2 · Currency held

Five languages, carried on the balance sheet.

Frenchfluent
Italianfluent
Spanishpassable
Mandarinvery basic
Dutchin progress
1  Holdings revalued continually. Dutch acquired on relocation to Amsterdam.
04 · Note 3 · Change in basis

I’m a big advocate for picking up and moving.

Reconciliation of a relocationbasis
Opening positiona settled life
Less: what no longer serves(written off)
Add: a new city, a new languageat cost
Closing positionclarity

You learn fast what you value, what you keep, and what you’re willing to rebuild from scratch.

05 · Note 4 · Off balance sheet
Then I fell for the founder’s journey.

I was recruited as CFO and finance advisor at FOUNDER.org, now The Yope Foundation, backing student-led startups across the US and Europe, where I helped build the 8D framework: the eight dimensions of building and scaling a company.

The most important thing a finance leader does isn’t the model. It’s giving founders the clarity to make brave decisions.

It’s also where I first met Andy, more than a decade ago, in the very early days of KONUX.

2  Clarity: an asset that compounds, and never once appears in the accounts.
06 · Statement of purpose
In my 50s, the philosophy got simple.

Work on projects that make a lasting impact. With people you love.

When Andy, Danil and Samy told me what they were building, an AI designed to serve people rather than extract from them, it wasn’t a hard decision. I joined to keep RHISE AI healthy and fundable, and to build the backbone that lets the team move fast.

Operating principlesbasis
Discipline buys freedoma lean burn and a clean cap table keep the mission alivenon-negotiable
Transparency with investorshonest reporting, in good quarters and badnon-negotiable
Governance as a featurefor an ethical AI company, accountability is productnon-negotiable
07 · Statement of financial position
As at today.

Assets

Curiosity about people∞
Languages5
Reinventions4
Founders backedmany
Total assets∞

Equity & purpose

Impact on society∞
People you love∞
A life lived with intention∞
Time given backdaily
Total∞
In balance · a true and fair view
Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer · RHISE AI
The bottom line.

The books balance. Make sure what you build adds up to the life you actually want.

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Chris Seybold · Finance for companies that matter

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