Draper University

The largest residential founder fellowship in Silicon Valley for pre-seed. Pitch to our fund investing up to $100k at Demo Day.

[Draper University @draper_u]

We’ve just wrapped up our flagship residency program (S25).
This summer, 77 founders from 22 countries stayed with us in San Mateo.

Over five weeks, they lived, built, and survived together — learning from Silicon Valley legends who have shaped our current reality.

To our S25 cohort—this one’s for you.

 📹: @yadav_ridham

[Draper University @draper_u]

🧑‍🚀🛰️Building in space tech, biotech, or advanced materials? Don’t miss out. Deadline extended!

Apply to the Orbital Edge Accelerator by June 4, 2026 for a chance at $500K–$750K in funding + a $100K Boeing prize.

https://t.co/4fFBtg1CE8

@draper_u @DraperVC @ISS_CASIS @CIRI @VenturesSt20251 @SpaceWERXDOD

[Suffiyan Malik @suffiyanmalikk]

I got to sit down with Sunil Dhaliwal (@dhaliwas) for E30 of @WeThe_Builders. He has been in investing for 27 years, he was a General Partner at @BatteryVentures for 14 years before starting @AmplifyPartners ($2.4B AUM fund). He founded Amplify 13 years ago with the thesis of backing technical founders. Interestingly, he shared the story of how “business guy” was more investable back in the even back 2010/11 era. I thought that was more common in the 1980s and 90s venture investing. A ton of great stories of that era and the origins of venture capital in Power Law.

Amplify is an investor in companies like @datadoghq , @fastly , @RecursionPharma , @chaidiscovery , @LangChain , @Anchorage , @CovariantAI , @runwayml , @temporalio , @NeuralRendering to name a few. These are either publicly traded or have privately achieved unicorn valuations.

They have launched a dedicated bio fund after their latest $900m fund announcement building on top of the success of their bio portfolio, Sunil explains on the pod why they are uniquely positioned to operate in the space.

We had a great conversation covering how to train junior investors, the madness of the dot-com era and how it rhymes with some of what we see today in technology bubbles, his investing philosophy, fundraising advice and more.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
03:20 - What was going on in the Dot-Com bubble?
08:15 - Collapse of the Telecom value chain
09:37 - Why the AI boom is supply-constrained, not demand-constrained
12:37 - OpenAI canceling Sora
17:15 - Why brand and trust are self-reinforcing in enterprise software
19:17 - Shipping frequently as a mechanism to preserve vendor trust
22:58 - Debunking the SaaS apocalypse
30:23 - The Amplify playbook
38:05 - The shift from scale-up servers to agent-first platforms
41:42 - Progression timeline of autonomous agents
49:23 - Investing in Runway and the AI-meets-creativity thesis
52:08 - Why you're an idiot if your early-stage firm has an investment committee
55:00 - The failure of consensus markets and competing for growth deals on price
1:07:00 - Early-stage fundraising is a search problem, not a sales process
1:10:24 - Capping limited partner allocation at 10%
1:14:07 - The necessity of letting people learn from their own failures
1:14:58 - Launching a dedicated bio fund to capture compounding variables
1:17:57 - The art of training junior investors
1:26:05 - Why traditional biotech is a terrible place for returns
1:34:52 - How networks and relationship goodwill compound over decades
1:49:54 - Designing a platform team for recruiting and go-to-market execution
1:52:57 - Closing

[Draper University @draper_u]

.@DavidSacks on distribution. From his talk at our campus in 2014

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

David Sacks on why founders get distribution wrong

“The biggest mistake I see these days is brilliant founders who are brilliant product people, but they haven't thought about how they're going to make their product grow. They launch their product and it's like crickets chirping.”

Having a technique that gets you to scale is very important.

“If you're going to have a breakout startup, you've really got to think about how you're going to innovate on distribution, not just product.”

What’s tricky about this is what he calls The Law of Distribution Arbitrage:

“Successful distribution techniques are copied until they are no longer effective. Think about SEO. The first people to use that technique got a lot of traffic from Google. Then, a whole bunch of people started doing it and they started gaming the system. Eventually, Google did their notorious Panda release and everyone using SEO basically lost traffic.”

Friend virality is another example:

“If you look at Facebook, the friend virality was very powerful in the early days. Then people got sick of the spam and stopped paying attention… So the techniques that work initially to get distribution don't stay working because everyone copies them until the channels are spammed to death.”

Source: @draper_u (feb 2014)

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

David Sacks on why founders get distribution wrong

“The biggest mistake I see these days is brilliant founders who are brilliant product people, but they haven't thought about how they're going to make their product grow. They launch their product and it's like crickets chirping.”

Having a technique that gets you to scale is very important.

“If you're going to have a breakout startup, you've really got to think about how you're going to innovate on distribution, not just product.”

What’s tricky about this is what he calls The Law of Distribution Arbitrage:

“Successful distribution techniques are copied until they are no longer effective. Think about SEO. The first people to use that technique got a lot of traffic from Google. Then, a whole bunch of people started doing it and they started gaming the system. Eventually, Google did their notorious Panda release and everyone using SEO basically lost traffic.”

Friend virality is another example:

“If you look at Facebook, the friend virality was very powerful in the early days. Then people got sick of the spam and stopped paying attention… So the techniques that work initially to get distribution don't stay working because everyone copies them until the channels are spammed to death.”

Source: @draper_u (feb 2014)

[CHRIS JOANNOU @ChrisJoannou__]

Honoured to judge the CoinDesk PitchFest Finals at Consensus 2026. Huge congrats to Coinbax ($20K winner) and Tashi (runner-up). The quality of founders was exceptional. Clear shift from speculation to real infrastructure and practical blockchain applications.

[Draper University @draper_u]

how many of you can say "I pitched my business to a billionaire in a cold plunge"?

answer: all our founders

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

I think I broke a record. I took 52 pitches in 52 minutes at below 40 degrees. Welcome to my office. #draperuniversity #survivaltraining

[Draper University @draper_u]

We are hiring a program manager to help us scale 👇

[Aaliyah Barker @aalicbarker]

I am hiring for the coolest, funnest job ever (speaking from experience, here).

If you’re an operator and want to break into VC, reach out!

Perks: free housing in Silicon Valley & traveling the world w me to meet global founders.

(We support relocation ✨)

(Link in replies)

[Aaliyah Barker @aalicbarker]

🔗 Learn more: https://t.co/l7vX23IFLy

[Aaliyah Barker @aalicbarker]

I am hiring for the coolest, funnest job ever (speaking from experience, here).

If you’re an operator and want to break into VC, reach out!

Perks: free housing in Silicon Valley & traveling the world w me to meet global founders.

(We support relocation ✨)

(Link in replies)

[Draper University @draper_u]

And if you're a late bird 😂the good news is, you can still enjoy a 20% discount on your #consensusmiami2026 passes with code DRAPER20 [link to register: https://t.co/dTAHb1pTzB] We're inviting everyone in our network to the biggest industry gathering in the Americas by
@CoinDesk
@consensus2026

[Draper University @draper_u]

☀️We're bringing the Party to @consensus2026 🎉 As sponsors, @draper_u is inviting you to go all in with us in Miami. From the show floor to side events, join us where the industry gets deals done and lets loose after hours 💃 #meetthejudges Catch @ChrisJoannou__ at the #coindeskpitchfest Finale May 7th https://t.co/pzvipQGlYY

[Draper University @draper_u]

Great to have @thefriley (CFO at @OpenAI) in the house for @America250 alongside our very own @TimDraper , @Andytang , @JoeMontana , @stevewoz

[America250 @America250]

250 years of American ingenuity and the future is in great hands 🇺🇸💡

We’re proud to announce the 10 winning teams of America’s Startup, part of the America Innovates initiative. These teams were selected from a highly competitive pool of student founders across the country.

Thank you to our Investor Council @stevewoz, @joemontana, and @thefriley, and to @draper_u for hosting.

Learn more: https://t.co/APXqMKuni5

[America250 @America250]

250 years of American ingenuity and the future is in great hands 🇺🇸💡

We’re proud to announce the 10 winning teams of America’s Startup, part of the America Innovates initiative. These teams were selected from a highly competitive pool of student founders across the country.

Thank you to our Investor Council @stevewoz, @joemontana, and @thefriley, and to @draper_u for hosting.

Learn more: https://t.co/APXqMKuni5

[Jason Yeh @jayyeh]

loved doing this.

such a cool group of founders from around the globe. first time i've helped guide founders from Uzbekistan, Brazil, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and the US....all at the same time!

thx for having me @draper_u @aalicbarker

[Aaliyah Barker @aalicbarker]

What an AWESOME group. This was probably my favorite DUV dinner this year. More to come!

[Brooke LeBlanc @brookeleblanc]

Our CEO @nico_laqua speaking to @draper_u founders tonight.

Reminder that the startup ecosystem thrives on reciprocity.

You're most qualified to help the person you used to be.

[Draper University @draper_u]

Has it been a week already?

[1752vc @1752vc]

VCs that joined pre-seed rounds this year👇

@paradigm
@1752vc
@dragonfly_xyz
@Initialized
@1kxnetwork
@BanklessVC
@WhiteStarCap
@GSR_io
@cbventures
@FigmentCapital
@FulgurVentures
@flowdesk_co
@SeliniCapital
@DraperVC
@mf__xyz
@colosseum
@socialgraphvc
@frachtisvc

[Draper University @draper_u]

(PS — It was so fun, we actually forgot to do the whole song and dance of getting pics w/ good lighting. @aalicbarke's one job. Tyler Temple covered for us — classic.)

[Draper University @draper_u]

Last week, our firm had dinner with *actually cracked* founders + the team at @Fidelity Private Shares, hosted at Fogo de Chão. Huge shoutout to David Santana for being the best dinner buddy.

15 founders. 5 industries. $14M raised in total. Unlimited steak.

[Draper University @draper_u]

A quick word on why we partner w/ them vs others:
We don't partner with just anyone. And that's on purpose. Our community is our lifeblood.

We only work with companies we'd recommend to our own portfolio. Without hesitation.

Fidelity Private Shares cleared that bar:
→ Flat rate pricing — no per-stakeholder gotchas
→ Onboarding that doesn't eat your COO's week
→ Customer service that actually responds
→ They don't punish you for raising (iykyk)

If you're a founder evaluating cap table software, comment "intro" below, and our investment team will personally connect you with their team.