Your Next Wearable: A Health Companion Hanging Around Your Neck? | A Conversation with Chris Pan, Founder of AI Necklace Odyss, and Li Yihao, Partner at CreekStone

The AI hardware space always has new opportunities, and it's always full of ambitious founders.

This week on Crossing, we're joined by Chris Pan, one of the earliest product managers for ByteDance's Coze, who also led AI glasses projects at ByteDance and other companies. Chris is here today with his own startup product — the Odyss AI necklace. We're also joined by his angel investor, Yihao Li, partner at CreekStone.

(Product image: Odyss AI necklace)

In this episode, we dive deep into Chris's "non-consensus" entrepreneurial journey. As someone deeply involved in AI glasses projects, why did he ultimately abandon this hot赛道, comparing it to "VR in 2015"? Chris shares how he chose the "necklace" form factor and precisely targeted diet and health — a massive yet overlooked market. How does Odyss achieve seamless logging of every single bite? And how did he respond to accusations that the product is "anti-human"?

Meanwhile, as an investor, Yihao shares CreekStone's unique perspective as an AI-native fund. In this new paradigm opened up by AI, what kind of founders stand out and become the "Chinese AI mafia" they're searching for? We discuss how AI hardware entrepreneurs can find their living space in vertical domains that big tech hasn't touched yet — from product definition and brand building to go-to-market strategy.

Whether you're an AI entrepreneur, practitioner, or simply an explorer curious about new species, we hope this conversation about daring to define and courageously blazing trails brings you fresh inspiration.

📢 Two messages from our guests:

Chris and his team are hiring: mobile developers, full-stack software engineers, hardware project managers, interaction/visual designers, overseas marketing, and overseas community operations. Interested candidates, please reach out to hr@odyss.life

CreekStone Venture looks forward to accompanying AI entrepreneurs, exploring the cognitive core together, and grounding grand dreams in every step forward. No "daddy" energy, seeking resonance — founders welcome to connect: yihaoli@creekstonevc.com

🎬 Our video podcast is here! This episode was recorded at the Shanghai Caohejing AI Hacker House. It will soon be available on @Koji Yang Yuancheng's WeChat Channels, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, YouTube, and other platforms.

📒 The transcript will be published on the @十字路口Crossing WeChat Official Account.

🟢 00:01:11 Rapid-fire Q&A: Age, alma mater, MBTI and zodiac sign, funding status, one-sentence product description, launch timeline, team size, pre-entrepreneurship experience

🟢 00:03:03 Why I'm not building AI glasses

"Building glasses now is like doing VR in 2015." The trap of AI glasses: they're so eager to serve AI (see what I see) that they forget to serve humans (comfortable to wear, no frequent charging). Why can't Meta Ray-Ban's success be replicated in China? — We don't have a massive sunglasses market, nor a monopoly-level brand like Ray-Ban. The brutal truth of hardware entrepreneurship: battery and materials technology evolve slowly, unlike foundation models that make headlines every six months. Why ultimately choose a "necklace"? The only solution derived from first principles: it must bear weight (battery life) and be positioned on the front (visible, audible). Why target diet and health? It's the highest-frequency behavior for everyone, yet currently the only blind spot lacking hardware data monitoring.

🟢 00:13:33 Never build anything "general-purpose"

Ordinary people's lives are boring — what's worth continuously recording? Any hardware purchase requires a clear motivation; if you build a "general-purpose multimodal entry point," users will buy it and let it gather dust. So-called "general AI hardware" is essentially just the illusion of piecing together multiple vertical agents. AI voice recorder products? — "Meeting notes will long-term become a system-level OS function." AI camera? — "Ordinary people's lives are boring, what's worth recording?"

🟢 00:17:24 The "Skynet" of eating: How to make AI monitor every bite you swallow?

Skynet is vast; "eat" and you won't escape. True Always-on: users can't be expected to tap a device when eating — logging must be seamless. Hardware design trade-offs: cut the photo album function, keep only low-frame-rate, low-resolution but high-contrast images — this is what AI actually wants to see. How to solve power consumption and privacy? Edge-side compression at T0 + cloud model dynamically allocating T1 data load. Why existing calorie-counting apps are all inaccurate? Layers, ice cubes, even "whether you actually finished the soup" — a single photo can't answer. Currently, the most accurate real-food recognition isn't vertical apps, but ChatGPT.

🟢 00:29:27 Facing the harshest skepticism: On "anti-human" and Context

Apes coming down from trees to become human was itself "anti-ape." A new perspective: collecting Context should be a byproduct of good experience, not the product's selling point — "My mom doesn't know what Context means." How to respond to investors' "anti-human product" challenge? — Apes coming down from trees to become human was itself "anti-ape." Anti-human products aren't necessarily without value; their ceiling might just be 1 billion people instead of 7 billion. Why cut the "real-time reminder" feature? For health management, data presentation and behavior planning matter more than real-time intervention.

🟢 00:49:42 Brand philosophy: No serious medical, no Duolingo either

"Duolingo won't actually teach you English well, but I've checked in for 700+ days." Why not want to do serious medical? That took 20 years to reach the mass market; we want a lifestyle. Why not emulate Duolingo? It's too gamified; we want to be more like Oura — a social currency representing "growth and breakthrough." Decision theory on "beauty": team provides engineering feasibility, designers provide aesthetics, then ad spend lets user data decide ID. Hardware's magic moment: software is function-first then UI, hardware is appearance-first then function.

🟢 01:05:56 Yihao Li: Seeking "AI Native" trailblazers

"Massive ambition, tiny ego, complete worldview — out of 500 people a year, you won't meet 5 like this." What exactly is an AI Native fund? No path dependency, sees itself as the underdog, acts as a thinking companion for founders. Profile of top founders: non-consensus built on Common Sense, dares to define the赛道 rather than solve problems. Why favor ByteDance alumni? ByteDance is the "most entrepreneurial" of all big tech, and the only place where young people could touch trillion-parameter models. Investing is "pursuing a romantic interest": once decided, message founders on a daily frequency until building deep connection.

🟢 01:22:50 Escaping big tech

"He had an AI device peeking out of his pocket, a bag full of clattering others, completely not caring about strangers' gazes." The big tech PM's dilemma: most time spent competing for internal resources, convincing superiors — not touching users. The special nature of software-hardware combined entrepreneurship: hardware has no A/B testing, no code rollback; every decision must be deliberate. Post-entrepreneurship mindset shift: "I used to game on weekends; haven't played once in six months of founding — not no time, just can't get into it." Final advice for entrepreneurs: don't solve hard problems (don't compete with big tech on specs), dare to define the赛道, focus vertical, stay close to users.

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🚦 Crossing is Steve Jobs's metaphor for Apple — standing at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, where great products are born. AI is transforming industries; we seek out, interview, and unite a new generation of AI entrepreneurs and active participants in the AI era, exploring and embracing new changes and possibilities together.

👦🏻 Host Koji: I founded Crossing, launched AI Hacker House as a community space for a new generation of AI entrepreneurs, and serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, is our generation's greatest value creation opportunity. Koji's Jike, Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: I co-founded Crossing, worked at a dollar-denominated VC, and spent five years as a Silicon Valley correspondent, following tech development and business stories. Welcome to chat and exchange with me. Ronghui's Jike