Michael and I were on the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship and left to scale our work backing young ambitious minds and builders before anyone else.
1517 turns 12 next year. And though we fly humbly under the radar, you know some of our greats: Lambda, Loom, Mach, Positron, ntop, Deepgram, Rainmaker.
As of last week, Fund I is at a 5X DPI. We were the first check before anyone else would have a serious conversation with these founders and by doing that, we (a teacher and philosopher) have turned $20M into over $100M which doesn't even include our SPVs to continue driving our wins home.
There is nothing like building a small community that you believe in before anyone else, you see something special and cultivate the hell out of it, and then grow that into a force of nature with multiplying effects.
Best is yet to come!
One of the crazier facts about venture is that it seems consistently possible to build a small community of college-aged kids that is incredibly talent dense, e.g.:
- Thiel Fellows (ETH, Figma, I think Cognition)
- KP Fellows (Opensea, also Figma)
- Dorm Room Fund (Cursor)
- Prod (Mercor, Etched, also Cursor)
- Neo Scholars (Cog, also Cursor)
Other than Neo (
@neo) though, this hasn't really become anyone's dominant strategy.