Tim Draper
@TimDraper • 361,589 subscribers
Backing the bold ideas that shape the future. Founder of @DFJvc, @drapervc, @Draper_U, @meetthedrapers. Pitch me: [email protected]
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My grandfather was the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He started Draper Gaither Andersen in 1957. My father was a pioneer in venture capital, built Sutter Hill Partners and was the first VC in India. My mission has been to spread venture capital and entrepreneurship to the world. We call it, “Funding the Rebellion.” We all started with the same core belief: "Back people with vision who want to change the world." The fundamentals haven't changed. Dad taught me something his father taught him: "It doesn't matter who's buying or selling. The human connection matters most." That took the fear out of every pitch I've ever made. I firmly believe that safe bets are actually the worst bets in VC. “Safe" means consensus. And consensus means you're already too late. My son Adam didn't hesitate on Coinbase 🛡️'s seed round when I had to pass due to conflicts. His returns crushed mine on that one. That's how progress works. Each generation gets better tools, takes bigger risks, and moves faster than the one before. The game evolves. The spirit stays the same. Full video created by Brett the Great 🇺🇸.
Tim Draper159,492 views • 9 months ago
Academia is having a breakdown. Most VCs are missing it. Universities are "fat and lazy" and research is geared toward citations, not value. Scientists are getting blocked from talking about their own work and as we say… “Innovation dies in stealth mode.” In academia: Seek perfect information before deciding In startups: Make great decisions on imperfect information The rebellion is happening though. Decentralized science that’s decoupled from academia. Scientists are dropping out to start companies. We’re funding companies that want to reverse all CNS damage and extend human lifespan by 50 years (not 5). Our mantra is, “Short Academia, Long DeSci.” We’re calling the collapse of a $750B industry. And we’re betting on the visionaries who are building the replacement. Digital twins by Brett the Great 🇺🇸 AI podcast w/ Adam Draper ⏻
Tim Draper40,865 views • 9 months ago
I just had a debate with Karl Marx's AI twin. It got heated. He thinks capitalism is exploitation. I think it's liberation. I said, “What were you thinking? Your Socialist ideas have subjected more than 2 billion people to abject poverty. It has never worked anywhere. Capitalism creates value. Socialism depletes it.” Here's where we clashed: Marx: "Your wealth comes from extracting surplus value from workers. The poverty you see is capitalism's necessary condition." Me: "We're living in the most prosperous era in human history. When I invested in Skype, we freed global communication. When I backed Tesla, we forced Detroit to innovate." Marx wasn't buying it. He called Bitcoin "the ultimate commodity fetish" and said AI would just create "the final stage of alienation." But here's what he's missing… The means of production aren't just factories anymore. They're code. They're ideas. A kid in Jakarta with a laptop has the same access to Bitcoin and AI as a Wall Street banker. Marx sees crisis. I see opportunity. 2008 financial collapse? That's when Satoshi created Bitcoin. AI taking jobs? That's when solo founders get superpowers. The fundamental difference: Marx sees the world as zero-sum. The rich win only if the poor lose. I see positive-sum. We don't steal from existing players. We create entirely new games. Marx thinks history is deterministic and that capitalism will collapse under its own weight. Bitcoin is economic emancipation. AI is human multiplication. Decentralized tech is power distribution. Marx wanted to seize the means of production. We're democratizing them. The centralized powers Marx fought, like banks, governments, monopolies… are terrified. Not because of communist uprising, but because of decentralized technology. Optimism always wins, Karl. Video created by Brett Kuprel
Tim Draper30,601 views • 9 months ago
Healthcare is broken. And we're all paying for it. In the US, we continue to spend more in health care, but we are living shorter lives! Three out of five adults will get a chronic illness in their lifetime. Big pharma is selling subscriptions when we need real fixes. We're treating diseases after they harm lives, not preventing them from happening first. But here's what gets me excited… We as early-stage VCs are waking up to the real opportunity, and we think other VCs will follow (They always do…). We are thinking that the health care industry is going from CHEMO therapies to BIO cures. Home diagnostics that catch problems early. Stem-cell therapies that actually heal. Bio-cures that solve problems instead of managing them. Education is broken. The teachers’ unions and the tenured faculty don’t want anything to change, but the world is moving ahead without them. Academically, students are saying that they have learned more from ChatGPT than from their professors and textbooks. As my son, Adam Draper ⏻ says, “Everyone will lose their jobs.” I like to say, “You will lose your job if you DON’T start using A.I. to do it.” We expect A.I. to transform 2.3 billion jobs around the world. Two-thirds of the global workforce. And we're still using an education system from the 1800s. Teachers! Wake up! We're burning through Earth's resources like there's a backup planet in storage. Video created by Brett Kuprel.
Tim Draper15,039 views • 8 months ago
Draper Associates invested $1 million in this bold and forward thinking startup, and we committed within the hour. That company is now worth $8.7 billion. Oklo is using nuclear waste to power the planet for the next thousand years. They have permits to restart an abandoned nuclear reactor in Idaho. Their tech reuses 95% of the energy left in spent fuel and each reactor runs for decades on existing waste. Then they recycle it. Again. And again. We’ve backed Oklo in every single round, from the first check to their IPO. This is what we look for - bold, energy producing, earth saving, human life extending, security building, life enhancing startups. Draper Associates
Tim Draper16,705 views • 10 months ago
The best business advice I ever got was simple: Your word is your bond. It was something my dad taught me. He said to always under-promise and over-deliver. First — keeping your promises builds people’s trust in you. And then delivering an extra 10% makes all the difference to customers, partners, investors, and employees.
Tim Draper18,539 views • 1 year ago
I invested in Tesla, Twitch, and Baidu when they were very different ideas. But they all followed this playbook to become generational companies: 1. Make the first move You’ll have much less information than you need. But that’s okay. The truth is that founders will never have enough information upfront. Their actions produce the insights they need. 2. Be prepared to pivot Insights can come from anywhere — customers, the market, or your team. And they might lead you somewhere very different from where you started. YouTube started as a dating site. 3. Have a north star Be open to change but there’s something in your heart that you want to change. It motivates you and you want to make it better. Stay true to it through failures and pivots until the world finally sees what you see.
Tim Draper16,277 views • 1 year ago
What if cancer therapy had surgical precision… without the surgery? Pinpoint accuracy. Full potency. Healthy cells stay healthy. Old way: Systemic drugs that ravage your immune system, gut, and hair follicles to reach one tumor. New way: Direct-to-tumor delivery that concentrates 100% of the therapeutic power exactly where it's needed.
Tim Draper11,598 views • 11 months ago
“Hire slow, fire fast.” Everyone says that but only a few actually follow it. Here’s what hiring slow actually means: "Wait until the wheels are coming off your business to add a new person. Wait until people are screaming at you that they've missed, you know, their kids baseball game four weekends in a row and they just can't handle it anymore..." And on firing fast: "If somebody is in there and they just don't seem to be pulling their weight... think of them as you're in a boat, you're in a refugee boat and you're all paddling forward and there's one person paddling back the other way. You don't need that in the boat. And if you need to let them go tell them, look, you're a great person, these are your strengths, they're fantastic, but they're not a good fit for what we're doing here... There's always a better job for somebody if they're not really helping you."
Tim Draper11,749 views • 1 year ago
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