Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕

Bringing freedom & autonomy to young people. Built @thielfellowship and @1517fund. First investor @lambdaAPI @loom @Mach_Industries @RainmakerCorp @positron_ai

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

I love getting a solid cold email or DM from founders!

No need for an intro to 1517.

Some things will make your message standout and get a response (faster than others)🧵:

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@thecureforblur Not for me to judge!

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Authenticity keeps you young

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

I met Kate’s parents.

It was a nail bitter.

We landed after 24 hours of travel and immediately went to her mum’s house where the family congregated… her mum, dad, auntie, three cousins, sister, brother-in-law, a 3-wk old newborn, brother, and soon-to-be sister-in-law. There were 15 of us crammed into a living room.

Upon arriving, someone said “oh I know your content from X”.

Blood drained from my face. Nobody could tell though because my face is already pretty pale.

Her dad and I hit it off. We cracked macadamia nuts from his tree, used an electric saw to open a coconut, and spoke about being carried as a baby by his 14 year old brother in the Bosnian snow while a German shot at them with a machine gun.

Her mother, also from Bosnia, needed some time to warm up. That’s reasonable. I understand. I’m a bit unusual. She’s soft spoken, careful with her words, and protective of her daughter. A few days in and I began to worry that I may head home with an undecided verdict.

I decided to live in her mum’s world. I ate everything she prepared, including meat, bread, and pasta, and embraced the discomfort of being an introvert in a week-long marathon social interaction with the entire extended family.

We spent time in her garden and she fed me stevia leaves, peppers, celery, chives, peanut berry, grapefruit, and starfruit.

Growing up, my mother and I maintained a garden together. I loved tending to it daily and it felt good to be back in the soil. Spending time with Kate’s mum motivated me to grow a longevity garden.

Our shared love of gardening was the first big breakthrough.

What really sealed the deal was when I interviewed Kate’s mum for an hour on camera, covering her upbringing and life and learning more about Kate. Somehow that format allowed her to see me more clearly than a generic social setting.

I think she came to understand and trust my devotion to Kate.

In the final hours before my departure, she was radiating with warmth. The entire family had gathered for a meal and it was laughter and teasing all around.

My love and respect for Kate deepened. I spent time going through all of her childhood things, helping me see and understand her with greater depth. More on this later.

It feels nice to be part of the family.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@paulbohm Much love to you Paul!

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Founders inspire at the 1517 Summit!

[Douglas Green @__douglasgreen]

When you hear the story about how the founder of @trilobio snuck onto a research team to break into the industry only to be discovered as an unmatriculated student at the University. You kind of chuckle.

When you hear they kicked her off the team, but set her up in a basement lab to continue her work you think, mad respect.

Unhappy with the reproducibility in biology research she decided to digitize and automate the network. Now research is duplicated by AI robots and research is digitally encoded and transferred via her network.

She built her first robot with 3D printing. They now sell for 25K in batches of 10 to starts ups.

Probably someone to keep an eye on...things you learn at @1517fund summit.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@anjulipie @Tri_Stanisaurus Exactly!

[John Potter 🌐🩸 e/acc @jjohnpotter]

1517 talks at lighthaven

Positron and then Trilobio

[Josie Zayner @josiezayner]

Our new yearling filly, Feelin my Liquor

She was the #1 score from our genetic performance prediction model of all the horses we sequenced. So we bought her

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@thecureforblur It certainly can be.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Roya from Trilobio gave a great talk and showcased the first robot the team built and today's robots. So cool to see the progress over time and share that with our 1517 community!

[NIMI VASHI (bio/acc to infinity & beyond) @nimivashi15]

@1517 summit begins with Roya Amini-Naeni talking about building Robots that can do biology!

They are manufacturing right here in SF!

[Douglas Green @__douglasgreen]

1517 Fund is one of the world's top accelerators. It traces its DNA back to the Thiel Fellowship that Mike and Danielle launched.

Today was their annual summit with a focus on the next 10 years. There were attendees from as far as Australia. Lots of young people working on EdTech, Robotics, and biotech. I even got into a conversation about robots and conciousness, defined as self awareness and how new contextual models may bring us a level of intelligence we havent quite experienced before.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@Tri_Stanisaurus True! But my point being that I think Bryan actually living is a way better look than all the treatment maxxing + "optimization"

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Bio and 1517 are a good look!

[Elliot Roth || SF @ThatMrE]

Today at @1517fund summit + beyond with fellow @BiopunkLab folx

[Sesame Street @sesamestreet]

It's a beautiful day to go out and play! ☀️

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

Serenity at the 1517 Summit!

[John Potter 🌐🩸 e/acc @jjohnpotter]

She’s amplifying her telepathy out professor X style

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@sanyatimar Congrats!

[Michael P Gibson @William_Blake]

The future is not given. Let’s make a plan! Annual 1517 community gathering was a blast yesterday

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@fotsch1 Had at least 35% female attendees...not sure why this photo was skewed!

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

TLDR: What lights you up?!

Opener for our 1517 Summit:

25 years ago I started working with homeschoolers. Those families changed the trajectory of my life. It’s where I got to see that real learning starts with passion and curiosity.

16 years ago, when Michael and I were on the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship, we called it an older young person’s homeschool program.

And today, with 1517, we say we homeschool CEOs.

I think that there is a lot that we can learn from homeschoolers about going against the grain, following curiosity, and getting a sense of what real learning looks like.

In homeschooling there is a concept called “deschooling” — a transition time between being in a more institutionalized setting, to one of their own creation. It sometimes looks chaotic, “unproductive,” and purposeless.

But this time period is when people start unraveling assumptions that have been shaping their lives, without them knowing it. By letting go of the rules, natural curiosity and passion can start to emerge.

Over the next ten years, I think all of us are going to go through something like a collective deschooling period. We’re going to need to unlearn the assumptions that were put down before us by other people and institutions, ride the chaos, and emerge through to the other side with passion and curiosity.

The path used to look clear. Work hard. Get good grades. Collect credentials. Climb the ladder. Success had a map.

But the world we're entering is uncharted.

Artificial intelligence is making information abundant. Institutions are failing us. Careers are becoming less linear. Entire industries are appearing and disappearing in just a few years.

The old question was: "What should I do?"

But today, I propose a new question: “What lights you up, when no one is watching?”

That's a much harder question.

Many people discover that when the external structure disappears, they're left with an uncomfortable feeling. Not freedom. Not excitement.

Meaninglessness.

Because for years, meaning was outsourced. A syllabus told us what mattered. A test told us what to learn. A boss told us what success looked like. A credential told us we were progressing.

But what happens when fewer and fewer people can tell you what matters next?

I think that's one of the defining challenges of the next decade.

And I think the antidote is surprisingly simple.

Start dreaming:

What is the thing you can't stop thinking about?

What rabbit hole do you disappear into?

What topic makes you lose track of time?

What project would you work on, even if nobody was grading it?

All summed up: What lights you up?

When we're young, we're often taught to treat those interests as distractions from the "real" work.

I think the opposite is true.

Those interests are clues. They're pointing toward the place where your curiosity, your energy, and your contribution intersect.

The people who will thrive in the next ten years will be like shining beacons!

They'll be the people who know how to follow genuine curiosity.

The people who can create their own path.

The people who can stay fascinated.

The people who know what lights them up and have the courage to build around it.

So welcome to your summit. When you meet a new friend today, ask “What lights you up?” May the answers surprise and delight and lead you into your next 10 years.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@New_AI_Safety Structure isn't bad inherently.

[Danielle Strachman 💗 🐈 💃 🪴 🎸 🎨 🐕 @DStrachman]

@ModernDad Thanks for noticing