Tim Draper

Backing the bold ideas that shape the future. Founder of @DFJvc, @drapervc, @Draper_U, @meetthedrapers.

Pitch me: [email protected]

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

I sat down with Kyle Chassé for a wide-ranging conversation, and he asked the kind of questions that let me get into the ideas I care about.

A few of the things covered:

Bitcoin as life management, not just portfolio management

A family needs runway. A corporate treasurer needs to make payroll no matter what happens to the banking system. Six months of runway in Bitcoin is a hedge against chaos, and I watched that lesson play out when Silicon Valley Bank went down.

Stablecoins as a bridge

They get people comfortable with digital payments and on-chain life. A positive step, even though a coin tied to the dollar inherits the dollar's problems.

The frictionless business

Imagine raising a fund in Bitcoin, entrepreneurs paying employees, suppliers, and taxes in Bitcoin, everything on-chain in smart contracts. Money that moves faster makes society wealthier. Gold and shells slowed the economy down. Bitcoin speeds it up.

AI and your job

You do not have to quit to innovate. Improve your job with AI, get better at it, and let the leadership around you encourage it. The saddle makers became car mechanics. The mathematicians figured out the computer.

Thanks for having me on, Kyle.

Go listen to the full episode: https://t.co/5A2Q6BFF9q

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

I sat down with Kyle Chassé for a wide-ranging conversation, and he asked the kind of questions that let me get into the ideas I care about.

A few of the things covered:

Bitcoin as life management, not just portfolio management

A family needs runway. A corporate treasurer needs to make payroll no matter what happens to the banking system. Six months of runway in Bitcoin is a hedge against chaos, and I watched that lesson play out when Silicon Valley Bank went down.

Stablecoins as a bridge

They get people comfortable with digital payments and on-chain life. A positive step, even though a coin tied to the dollar inherits the dollar's problems.

The frictionless business

Imagine raising a fund in Bitcoin, entrepreneurs paying employees, suppliers, and taxes in Bitcoin, everything on-chain in smart contracts. Money that moves faster makes society wealthier. Gold and shells slowed the economy down. Bitcoin speeds it up.

AI and your job

You do not have to quit to innovate. Improve your job with AI, get better at it, and let the leadership around you encourage it. The saddle makers became car mechanics. The mathematicians figured out the computer.

Thanks for having me on, Kyle.

Go listen to the full episode: https://t.co/5A2Q6BFF9q

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

At the Draper Summit, I got to share the stage with my son Adam Draper (Boost VC), former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, Co-Founder of Robinhood, Baiju Bhatt, Stanford President, Jonathan Levin, Education visionary, Sal Khan, Former Dallas Fed Chairman, Robert Kaplan, and Brit Harris, former CIO of UTIMCO.

The energy was incredible.

Entrepreneurs from over 50 countries, venture capitalists from over 50 firms, and over 50 corporate partners assembled for amazing speeches, pitches, and general networking.

Entrepreneurs come away with new relationships, new customers, new business models, and new investors.

The Draper Summit is extraordinary.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

We recently published an article on how we’re building our own internal AI infrastructure for VC here at Draper. Custom workflows to help our team gather information faster, so they can get back to the true human work in VC: meeting with and being present with founders.

In 1985, I built my deal flow by knocking on the doors of the ten or so venture capitalists that existed and asking them to send me the deals they were declining. I needed to build knowledge so I could build judgment.

Forty years later, the team at Draper Associates built something I could only have dreamed of back then:

-One centralized database that holds a singular record per company that has all our internal data as well as enriched data from outside verified sources like Harmonic

-A machine learning model, trained on 40+ years of successes and passes, that reads the hundreds of deals we get every week and surfaces the best fits directly to the investment team

-A brief on every meeting before we walk in

-Warm intros drafted from a network of 15,000+ contacts

-Answers to any question from our own records in plain English across 400+ portfolio companies (and an extra info assist from our Harmonic API)

The AI/ML infrastructure handles the routine work, but judgment remains human: sitting across from a founder, recognizing a missionary, making the call while the idea still sounds crazy.

Now there are more hours for exactly that.

Read more about how we built this system, philosophically and practically: https://t.co/xvk6K6fcaM

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

Back in April, I wrote about one of our newer portfolio companies, HexemBio, and their idea that reframed aging for me: people don’t die of old age, they die of aging blood. As blood stem cells decline, immunity weakens and disease follows.

We invested because they rejuvenate a patient’s own cells instead of reprogramming them.

Now they’re unveiling a three-generation product line off of their core technology. The transplant therapy program, an injectable, and a skin and wound product.

That’s all that you can hope for when you back foundational science. You invest in one massive idea that turns into several products that can change the face of healthcare, because the underlying insight is so strong.

Congratulations to Gabriel Levesque Tremblay and team. We’re looking forward to what’s coming next!

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

https://t.co/CdZ90Xt3sC

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

My dad gave me a MILLION Confederate dollar bill when I was a kid.

When I asked him what I could do with it, he said, "Nothing."

That's what's coming for the US dollar.

First, a few retailers will say, "we accept Bitcoin” and then a few will say, "we ONLY accept Bitcoin."

The moment that happens, people will panic and run to the bank. They’ll pull their dollars out and convert to Bitcoin.

Please own some Bitcoin, so you don’t panic when people don’t accept your dollars.

This is why I'm telling everyone the same three things right now:

1. Buy enough Bitcoin to keep your family alive for 6 months.
2. If you run a company, hold enough Bitcoin to pay your employees for 4 weeks.
3. If you manage a government treasury, put some percentage in Bitcoin.

Full conversation with Coinage is linked below.

👇

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

My amazing dad, Bill Draper died yesterday. He was the best! We were so lucky to have him with us as long as we did. I know he touched many of your lives.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

https://t.co/3dVizTY9UM

[David Zagaynov @DavidZagaynov]

Announcing Poseidon Aerospace's $60M Series A, led by TQ Ventures with participation from JAWS, Hanwha, G Squared, Starship Ventures, Drover Ventures, and others.

At @poseidonaero, we are building the future of air logistics with autonomous cargo planes designed and built from the ground up.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

@PoseidonAero just closed a $60M Series A to build autonomous cargo planes from the ground up.

Autonomous aircraft carrying cargo sounds wacky to some people today. So did an electric car company. So did internet phone calls. So did digital money.

Every big idea I have ever backed went through the phase where the consensus called it impossible, and the entrepreneur saw beyond that.

Air logistics is a massive industry running on decades-old assumptions: pilots in every cockpit, planes designed around a crew. Remove those assumptions and you get to rethink the entire aircraft.

That is exactly the kind of rethink I look for, a team that does not want to just improve the existing model but replace it.

The Poseidon team is building for a world the incumbents cannot see yet.

Congratulations on the round.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

I have a t-shirt that says Decentralize Everything. That is 40 years of observation compressed into two words, and I finally wrote the argument down as the first guest contributor to @CryptoniteRap.

The piece is about DeSci, decentralized science.

Every institution stagnates the same way. A small group ends up controlling the agenda, that group gets invested in the current framework, and challenging the consensus becomes a career risk. I have watched it in banking, telecom, rocketry, and now science.

After 40 years I boiled it down to two rules.

1- The Draper Equation: the likelihood that a society needs to rethink an industry is proportional to the number of people benefiting from existing theories without change.

2- The Draper Corollary: the more centralized the decision-making, the less innovation occurs. The more decentralized the operations, the more innovation occurs and the faster that sector grows.

The consensus mocked Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, Bitcoin, and SpaceX too. Every time, mockery was an excellent signal.

Read the full editorial: https://t.co/kMYEnjkQTc

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

A wonderful perspective. Honor the workers, and the workers who created the tools that made them productive. Market Day. Great concept. https://t.co/PlOLcQfNet

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

An idea is like a keepsake.

Hide it, and you forget where it was.

Spread it to the world, and it grows more interesting and valuable.

Every time I give away one idea, I seem to get three more.

Don't worry about who gets the credit. Just move the technological ball forward.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

When you go off the main path and do something else, then apply it back to the main path… the path gets more extraordinary.

I started @draper_u just to help entrepreneurs get started.

Now it's a major pre-accelerator, a great source of deal flow, a powerful network connector for my venture business.

Elon does this at scale:

→ SpaceX + Tesla + Battery factory + Starlink all helping each other

→ Connecting Starlink to cars

→ Twitter (X) + XAI using Twitter's data for better AI

→ That AI is improving space, cars, batteries

Synergies take time. You need a long vision.

But when you go deep into one category, then another, you can start thinking about how they mesh.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

People ask where my optimism comes from.

When I was younger, I played football. I joined five benchwarmers in a challenge against the 6 best athletes on the team.

So...it seemed hopeless.

So we changed the game.

We ran routes they weren’t expecting.

We lined up in ways that confused them.

And we humiliated them.

As cliché as it may sound, that moment taught me everything: Anything is possible. There is always a way. The underdogs always have a shot. Try anything.

In my VC career, I had a couple early investment wins that nobody expected. Same lesson, different stakes.

That's why I invest the way I do. That's why I back the founders other VCs pass on. They are underdogs. They are trying new possibilities.

All because I've SEEN the benchwarmers win. Again and again.

They can always surprise you.

[Draper University @draper_u]

If you’re building in crypto, blockchain, decentralization, or Web3, Tim Draper has a message for you.

Applications are open for the Draper University x @Cardano Apex Growth Accelerator, an in-person program in Silicon Valley for founders ready to turn ambitious ideas into venture-scale companies.

For more than a decade, DraperU has brought together founders who want to build what’s next, giving them access to a community of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, and operators who can challenge them, support them, and continue opening doors long after the program ends.

As @TimDraper puts it, the value is not only in the program itself. It’s in the relationships you build with other founders working on similarly ambitious problems. These people can help you succeed, and you can help in return.

If you’re building in crypto, blockchain, decentralization, or Web3, this is your opportunity to join the Draper ecosystem and spend 10 weeks building in Silicon Valley.

Apply to Apex by Sep 1 -> https://t.co/paHtHywksj

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

I am selling my island in Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania. Gorgeous place, but we don’t use it enough. $7.9 million or best offer. Anyone interested should contact me directly at [email protected]

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

Five years ago, the @RadiantNuclear team was pitching portable nuclear reactors.

Today the US Army handed them a $750 million contract for 15 of them.

We and @BoostVC were early investors and co-led their Series D recently. The founders made our decision to invest easy. They were determined to bring nuclear power back after decades of fear had frozen the field, and they kept building until the Army agreed.

Missionaries, every one of them.

Congratulations to the whole Radiant team. You earned every bit of this.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

Independent Institute (@IndependentInst) just launched their 4th season of the hit dark comedy, “Love Gov 4”.

Gov is a character that keeps offering to help and protect the citizen, but really only wants to control her. Sound familiar? Watch it for a dark laugh.

Here is its home page: https://t.co/19fEPHs1GK

Independent institute also provides us with Government Cost Calculator, MyGovCost (https://t.co/sKzR2rDj8o), that seeks to increase awareness of young people of the true costs—including opportunity costs—of big government.

The new calculator produces personalized graphs that users are encouraged to share across social media.

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

Most VCs prefer serial entrepreneurs.

I don't.

I back first-time entrepreneurs more than most.

Yes, it's riskier, but the returns can be much bigger.

Second-time entrepreneurs are usually better operationally. They make sure they raise the RIGHT amount of money. They're ruthless about hiring.

But first-time entrepreneurs? They tend to raise too much money. They feel like they have to hire everybody. Then they hit the wall and wonder why the next round didn't come as easily.

Second-time entrepreneurs who've hit the wall know to keep it thin until product-market fit. Grow organically. Don't rely on the venture capital marketplace because it comes and goes.

I like first-time entrepreneurs making this their career. This might be the one they were meant to be.

I like second-time entrepreneurs going after something entirely different. Not recreating their old business.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison… first-time entrepreneurs.