Brian Singerman: "If SpaceX Didn't Work, Founders Fund Wouldn't Exist"

Brian Singerman spent 17 years at Founders Fund, where he helped drive large concentrated investments into companies like SpaceX, Palantir, Airbnb, Stripe, Stemcentrx, Anduril, and Affirm. He recently left to co-found GPx, a new fund backing emerging managers. In this episode we break down the philosophy behind Founders Fund's concentration strategy, how a lifetime of competitive strategy gaming shapes the way he reads founders, and why he is now applying the same framework to GPs instead of companies. "When I did get to meet Elon and learn more about SpaceX, it was extremely clear that there was nobody else like him on the planet who could actually pull something like SpaceX off." The conversation runs from his 2008 start at Founders Fund and what he learned from Peter Thiel, to the SpaceX bet the firm staked its career on, why he has never read a financial report, and his read on genuinely authentic founders like Cyan Banister, Palmer Luckey, and Alex Karp. Plus a round of questions submitted by Max Levchin, Trae Stephens & Scott Nolan, his views on wealth taxes and asset seizure, and his bet on N-of-1 human cultural artifacts. Brian Singerman: https://x.com/briansin Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: https://youtu.be/Il5dCTkIF_M 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery • VCX https://fundrise.com/vcx—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery • Merge https://merge.dev—The leading provider of customer-facing integrations and agentic tools for frontier LLMs, Fortune 500 organizations, and B2B SaaS companies. Visit https://merge.dev Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc https://www.sourcery.vc/ Disclosure Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  SpaceX didn't work, Founder's Fund would not exist. We bet our careers essentially on SpaceX. Venture capital to me has put the most money into the best companies possible at the best price possible. 98% plus of my decision was based on the strength of the founder. Do I believe that they would just crush at what they are doing? Do I believe that they are the best in the world at something novel? When I did get to meet Elon and learn more about SpaceX, it was extremely clear that there was nobody else like him on the planet who could actually pull something like SpaceX off. There's never been anybody like that in the history of business.

• 0:42Molly O'Shea?

  Brian Singerman, welcome to Sorcery.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Thanks, thanks for having me.

• 0:45Molly O'Shea?

  Thanks for having us, nowhere no one can ever know about.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  No, this is, this is, uh, we are, we are in my studio, in my house.

• 0:55Molly O'Shea?

  It's a bit of nominative determinism, Singerman?

• 0:58Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't know about that. I think that was a made up name from Ellis Island back like several generations ago.

• 1:06Molly O'Shea?

  So how do you explain all of your?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Oh, right, there's no other explanation for like music other than having a musical name.

• 1:12Molly O'Shea?

  It must have come from there.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Must have.

• 1:14Molly O'Shea?

  When did the music?

• 1:15Speaker 00

  So basically I was invented at Ellis Island.

• 1:17Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, right? I mean, did you walk through there yourself?

• 1:22Speaker 00

  We were talking about how old I am, but I'm not that old, Molly.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  I'm not 100 and...

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Something.

• 1:32Molly O'Shea?

  We're off to a really good start. So most people know you from Founder's Fund. Bit of a legend there. I know, uh, so Grace from Vanderbilt, she invited me out to one of their conferences that they were doing, I think it was like in the fall or winter or something like that. And she was like, hey, like, would love for you to come. You could interview Brian Singerman on stage. Are you, are you interested in that? I was like, hell yeah. And then I think turns out I had to be in like some foreign country, you know?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  You're a woman of the world, Molly.

• 2:02Molly O'Shea?

  I'm so sorry. But here we are today in your music factory.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  Music studio, but sure.

• 2:09Molly O'Shea?

  So I want to talk about, I mean, this is like the most crazy time ever. And most of the companies that are headlining are ones that you were an early investor in. So I want to talk through those from SpaceX, Palantir, Andorol, etc. But before we do that, I got some amazing questions from Max Levchin.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 2:29Molly O'Shea?

  I don't think you're ready for these.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I really am not. Anything that Max is gonna bring up, I'm really not ready for, but I'll do my best.

• 2:35Molly O'Shea?

  They're very good.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  I will get him back, though.

• 2:37Molly O'Shea?

  Well, I mean, so we're gonna, we're gonna get into all the investing stuff, so stay tuned, but to start. You ready?

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Ready.

• 2:46Molly O'Shea?

  When and how did you get into tabletop gaming?

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a great one. I've been into tabletop gaming forever. I mean, I'm a gamer. That's what I do. That's like drives my investment strategy and drives everything else. Like, I am a strategy gamer. I love it. It's what I love. I got into gaming, tabletop gaming, not even just video gaming, like probably like age six, seven. And I would go to these kind of like local meetups near my house where people were playing anything from Monopoly to Acquire to, you know, any of the old games. And I just got really super into it.

• 3:19Molly O'Shea?

  What are your favorites?

• 3:20Speaker 00

  I mean, I've been competitive, like, you know, nation competitive, global competitive in a couple of different games. I don't know if I'd call it love, or if I just get kind of obsessed with one of these games at a time. It was like the settlers of Catan US champion, but this is in like 1995, 96, before anybody was playing. Right? Before anybody had ever even heard of the game. It was the first year the game came out. I was, probably was world top 10 at a game called Ascension. And I was definitely top 10 in a game called Terraforming Mars, a game called Kales. But, you know, I suck at poker, though.

• 4:01Molly O'Shea?

  You suck at poker?

• 4:02Speaker 00

  I do suck at poker.

• 4:03Molly O'Shea?

  How did you pick out each of those games? Like, how did they? How does this all start?

• 4:07Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think you play one of these and then you start being like, oh, that's interesting. And then, you know, especially once they became, once they became online or computer versions of these, you could just play them so much that you could actually get good at them. I don't think you could. Back in 1995, it was pretty impossible to get like really, really, really good at something like Settlers. Like, the people who are good now would have. It's night and day, right? And I would not be able to compete at all right now. But once kind of online gaming took off in a really big way,

• 4:40Speaker 00

  you were able to play enough of these things that you got really good, much to like my wife's chagrin, right? I would play these things. To get that competitive at these things, you have to play them.

• 4:50Molly O'Shea?

  24/7.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  Not 24/7, but you've got to play them 10 hours a day.

• 4:54Molly O'Shea?

  Can't have a family.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. You can't, you have to. Ever since I've had a family, I have not been able to do this. But before then, yeah, it was really fun.

• 5:04Molly O'Shea?

  Have you gotten into chess or Go or anything like that?

• 5:07Speaker 00

  I'm bad at chess. Anything that's got such, I like strategy stuff. Anything where the tactical component is equally as important, if not more important than the strategic component, I'm going to be terrible at. Like, I do not like tactics and this and that. I like strategy.

• 5:25Molly O'Shea?

  So I want to break into the strategy component of this too, because this does bleed into your investment thesis and like how you're looking at companies, I would believe. So like, what are the main strategies that you go after? Like, what are the competitive forces? And like, how do you look at maneuvers?

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Well, I don't look at maneuvers. I look at, when I was doing the venture investing thing, you know, 98% plus of my decision was based on the strength of the founder. Like, do I have, when I have a conversation with that founder, do I believe that they would just like? Crush at what they are doing? Do I believe that they are the best in the world at something novel? I mean, it's still what I'm looking for right now, even though I'm not doing direct investing. But do I think that they are the best in the world at something, whatever that is? And do I think they can leverage that to build one of the world's greatest companies?

• 6:11Molly O'Shea?

  Let's bring it back to 2007. You were talking with Sean Parker. He told you about Founders Fund. You were running an angel fund at the time. And was it SpaceX that piqued your interest of joining? And like, what was it like back then?

• 6:25Speaker 00

  I mean, it was amazing back then. I mean, yeah, I was running my own fund. I was still at Google. I was gonna leave Google, raise my, you know, raise another fund, raise a bigger fund, became friends with Sean. And then he said like, hey, why don't you, you know, why don't you come take a look at what we're doing at Founders Fund? So I went there, just kind of hung out, met the guys. I didn't know who the other guys were. I didn't know who Peter was. And started hanging out. And that's when they were starting to look at, you know, that company, ridiculous company called SpaceX. And it was just so unbelievably cool. And there was just absolutely no way that I was gonna be able to do that, just angel investing, right? And so I'm like, oh, yeah, this is the kind of stuff I want to focus on. And so joined Founders Fund in early 08.

• 7:07Molly O'Shea?

  That's crazy. How did you get to know Sean?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  I think I met Sean because I was like, either helping talk to one of the companies he was involved in. And I met him through, I believe I met Joe Green first, was his co-founder at Causes. And then I met Sean through Joe.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  Everything, you know, Silicon Valley networking. You never know exactly where it happened, but yeah, we became friends and there you go.

• 7:34Molly O'Shea?

  That's a good segue because another one of Max's questions. And I don't know if there's like backstory to this question, if there's something deeper to this. But if there is, I want to know all about it.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:46Molly O'Shea?

  Okay. Silicon Valley is a collection of characters. Who are the most interesting ones? Whether they're in your portfolio or otherwise?

• 7:54Speaker 00

  I mean, Silicon Valley is a collection of characters. I mean, I think that, I don't know who the most interesting ones are. I mean, I think everybody is.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Here, let me tell it like this. I think Silicon Valley is full of a couple of different types. There's a lot of sheep in Silicon Valley, kind of just going where, you know, wherever they're supposed to. But there's definitely a lot of people in Silicon Valley who are truly unique and who are truly the best in the world at something, right? And I just love that. Like, I love meeting the people who are the best at what they do in a way that I could never do, right? Like, I feel like, whoa, you know, these are the people. And so, without saying best, I mean, there's a reason why Peter Thiel is the greatest venture capitalist in history, right? And talk about cast of characters. I mean, that's one of the things that attracted me to Founders Fund to begin with,

• 8:51Speaker 00

  was like, each of these guys seemed like the best in the world at what they were doing. When I did get to meet Elon and learn more about SpaceX, it was extremely clear that there was nobody else like him on the planet who could actually pull something like SpaceX off. And so, I'm not going to get into like, who the favorite best, but yeah, I mean, definitely, we can go through specific people and I can try, that I know really well, and I can try and tell you what they're, what I think that they are the best in the world at. And whenever I meet somebody who I think is the best at what they do, I get really excited.

• 9:29Molly O'Shea?

  I would love to do that. So, one of the questions I usually do revolves around performance and people's, like, personal networks, because I believe that you are an extension of the people that you're closest with. And even through Founders Fund and that sort of thing, the people that you're close with, like, what did you learn from Peter Thiel? What was, what is he like?

• 9:49Speaker 00

  I mean, he's like a lot of things, but I think the thing that he did best in terms of venture capital was he surrounded himself with other people. Like, most people, they just can't push back on Peter. They're like too scared to, or they're just like, they just don't, right? But when you surround yourself with people who are extremely smart and...

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Not scared to use their own individual talents, you build something truly great. And I think that's probably one of the things that he and Founders Fund just did best, was hiring very smart people, people who could push back whenever they needed to, and in using their own specific skillset. Not like pushing back in a way that's like, "Oh, let me try and say what I think Peter wants to hear." That doesn't work, right? That'll never work. Like, people are too smart to recognize, to see right through that kind of stuff, right? But when you're saying something from your perspective that is truly like uniquely you, and is a good perspective, that can work. So as long as you're not scared. So I think he built up a team full of people who were, had enough in common in terms of how we saw the world,

• 10:58Speaker 00

  but also were our own, truly our own individual characters, who could absolutely push back on him, such that if he didn't like something at first, and you're just like, "Nope, this is actually really good, you're really wrong", it would actually get done. So in other words, surrounding yourself with like non-yes men, non-people who are just gonna do the thing that way. I mean, I think he was just, he was and is ridiculously good at that.

• 11:26Molly O'Shea?

  Like, what part of the DNA of that culture? Like, most people are afraid to share what they feel, but you're full of a team of high conviction individuals. How did that happen? Like, how do you, how do you continue to support that and like create that culture strength?

• 11:46Speaker 00

  I mean, you have to actually like respect the people that you're around, and know that they're, and know that they are better than you at some things, right? Like, I have no ego about this. Like, I'm very good at knowing what I'm good at, and I only play to those strengths, right?

• 11:59Molly O'Shea?

  What are you good at?

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Well, I'm really, when I was doing the venture thing, I was really good at just recognizing if a founder was truly A+. And you get better and better and better at that over time. But I didn't try and say like, "Oh, I know how to diligence biotech companies", or "I know how to diligence financials". I didn't, I didn't read a financial report ever. I still don't know how to read financial reports, right? The one time I ever had to do a spreadsheet, my wife had to do it for me, right? Like, that's not what I do. I stick to what I'm good at, and I put skill points, this is the whole strategy gamer thing, into the thing that I'm really, really, really good at, such that nobody can catch me on that. And I think that we kind of all did that. You have to have some natural true, and this is... I don't think this is easy for most people, but you do have to have some natural contrarianism.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  I think most people do just want to fit in and do just want to play the game and be excellent at the game. And I think we excelled at having people who were ridiculously good at their own game and therefore could be naturally contrarian.

• 12:55Molly O'Shea?

  But like the underlying tone of that is not ego, it's expertise.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Or not, I wouldn't even call it expertise. I would call it like, respect when you know that somebody is really good at something, letting them do their thing. Right? Right? Like when you know somebody else is really good at, like I, I don't ever do the whole like, oh, talk about stuff that I don't know. This is why like even if I'm doing a podcast or a show, I stick to, I'll say like, nah, I'm not an expert at that. Next question. Right? Because I don't care about needing to sound good at everything. Right? Like I know what I'm really good at and I kind of focus on that, but I also know what my partners or people around me are really good at. And I really do try and let them be them. A lot of those lessons came from Peter.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  A lot of that is natural, but yeah, I think that's the, one of the reasons why Founder's Fund was as successful as it was and is. Right? Is because you are able to like, really let people excel at what they are good at and not have them just fit a mold.

• 13:55Molly O'Shea?

  Right. One of the things that Trey said when I interviewed him back at Andro, we did this like Andro tour. It was so much fun. It was amazing. We did this interview and I asked him like, I guess, uh, what is one thing about Peter Thiel that your biggest lesson? Like what did you learn? And he was like, that he's always right. He's always right.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Peter's usually pretty right on the macro things. At the end of the day, timing, timing does come into this stuff and he's not always exactly right on timing. But at the end of the day, he's pretty good at being correct on, especially on, on macro.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Global macro things. He is the best I've ever met at that. He is. Yeah, he is the best at that.

• 14:41Molly O'Shea?

  Given that, he did just move down to Argentina. So what does he know that we don't know?

• 14:47Speaker 00

  Um, I don't think Peter likes socialism.

• 14:49Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  You know, I don't, I don't either. I mean, he's, he's probably correct that social, that politics in America is like getting even more and more and more extreme. Right? Like, oh, then Trump, so then AOC, so then, you know, more extreme. And so that's probably pretty scary.

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I, I don't, I talked to, if you're talking to people like me and Max and Trey, you're gonna get a lot of the same thing on that. Like, we're not into socialism.

• 15:15Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, Max had a really.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Max escaped communism as a kid. He's like, doesn't, he's not interested in going back to this.

• 15:22Molly O'Shea?

  Do you think that's a real threat for America? Like it'll swing like a pendulum?

• 15:26Speaker 00

  I think it's pretty clearly like starting, you know, has started to, right?

• 15:30Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. How do we avoid that? We move to Argentina or?

• 15:34Speaker 00

  No, I mean, I, that's not what I'm, that's not my strategy. I mean, you kind of fight as much as you can, but Peter is not wrong that that is a threat. Now, how you deal with that or what you do from there, I think is an individual question, right? Like what's right for your family, what's right for you? But I don't think he's wrong that there's a chance that, you know, America's going in a pretty bad direction.

• 15:58Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, especially with the wealth tax just seeping in and it.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  The asset seizure?

• 16:02Molly O'Shea?

  Potentially going national. I just had.

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Definitely going national. People think that's like, it's so funny. People like look at this thing and it's like, oh, it's a billionaire tax. It doesn't matter to me. Uh-uh. There's first of all, even in the California one, there's provisions for it to like, once all the billionaires leave, oh, well, we need to get the money somehow. Okay, let's take the next lower down, the next lower down. This is gonna impact the middle class way more than it's gonna affect mobile billionaires.

• 16:25Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, we just had the CIO of A16Z Perennial on. Mark and Ben's family office. And he was, he was, so he was talking about how trillions potentially allegedly have left California already.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 16:40Molly O'Shea?

  Literally, like trillions. And then now we have the SpaceX IPO coming up. Anthropic just filed their S1 today.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  So many of those people are leaving before these things happen, yeah.

• 16:49Molly O'Shea?

  Do you think like they're gonna leave the country?

• 16:52Speaker 00

  No, and I do think it's harder to leave the country than I think it is to leave the state.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Just, it is. It's harder to leave the country than it is to leave the state.

• 17:03Molly O'Shea?

  What's the preferred state?

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't know.

• 17:05Molly O'Shea?

  You don't know?

• 17:05Speaker 00

  For me, it's Hawaii.

• 17:06Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 17:07Speaker 00

  I'm not trying to avoid all, much to, much to Peter's chagrin, and he makes fun of me for this all the time. I'm not trying to avoid high income tax rates. I am trying to avoid asset seizure, though.

• 17:15Molly O'Shea?

  That's funny. Trey did want me to ask you, why are you so obsessed with Hawaii?

• 17:19Speaker 00

  I love it there.

• 17:20Molly O'Shea?

  Why?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Like, it's, I can be, I can sit on Lanai, like, laptop, doing stuff, overlooking the ocean for infinity. It's my peaceful, happy, it's just so peaceful there to me.

• 17:34Molly O'Shea?

  Do you get claustrophobic, knowing that you're on an island?

• 17:37Speaker 00

  I don't.

• 17:38Molly O'Shea?

  It's really far away.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  It's fine. And you know how long, it's like, I went to, it's like, it's closer than like, from here to New York.

• 17:47Molly O'Shea?

  Is it?

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 17:49Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Absolutely. It's four, like, it takes four hours and 20 minutes one way, and like, five hours the other way.

• 17:55Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, that's not bad.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  From here to Hawaii.

• 17:57Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. LA, it's much further.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  It's a little further. I mean, San Francisco is the closest city in the world to Honolulu.

• 18:02Molly O'Shea?

  I understand that now. I'm always like, why are people going to Hawaii? I don't understand it. I grew up on the East Coast.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  You grew up on the East Coast.

• 18:09Molly O'Shea?

  We're used to like, the Caribbean, and that, it's like a two-hour flight. Why do people go to Hawaii? Now we know.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  It's not far.

• 18:16Molly O'Shea?

  It's not far. So, uh, like, what, what about Hawaii? It's, it's like, the seclusion?

• 18:22Speaker 00

  No, it's not even the seclusion. It's, it is the beach. It's the weather and the beach. I don't like wearing pants. Like, I like wearing shorts. This is a common thing with Max, too. Next time you talk to Max Levchin about this. Um, but, I, I like being warm. I love the climate there. I love like, yeah, it's, I'm able to relax.

• 18:45Molly O'Shea?

  Max did have a question for that, on that topic. Why do you wear shorts, almost to the exclusion of all lower body garments? Verbatim.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Um, I don't know, genes are pretty restrict, constrictive, what's the word?

• 19:03Molly O'Shea?

  Restricting?

• 19:04Speaker 00

  I don't know, yeah, like, I just, I don't know.

• 19:06Molly O'Shea?

  You don't feel free, you can't express yourself.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  You can express yourself, yeah, there you go.

• 19:09Molly O'Shea?

  Bummer.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Whatever the kids are saying these days, Molly.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  But yeah, no, I, I, I do like being in warm places. Um, and Hawaii is, you know, the kids like never having to wear shoes. The kids don't like wearing shoes for some reason, so they love Hawaii.

• 19:29Molly O'Shea?

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• 20:14Molly O'Shea?

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• 20:59Molly O'Shea?

  Back to the, okay, so I want to go through some of the cast of characters.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 21:02Molly O'Shea?

  Right, you've been exposed to all of them, you're friends with them. They're characters for maybe the outside world and they're probably just your friends, so this is also kind of a weird question. But, okay, so we talked about Peter Thiel a bit. I want to know- So like more like, so is investing strategy and the strategy that you formed at Founder's Fund is like heavy conviction, concentrated bets.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:23Molly O'Shea?

  I've listened to many of your interviews for preparation of this and you're like, reserves, we don't care about reserves. We're just gonna raise another fund. So like, how did you think about that and like, what were the biggest allocations?

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Venture capital to me is put the most money into the best companies possible at the best price possible. Nowhere in that is like portfolio management and reserve calculations and ownership percentages and all that nonsense. It's like, just, nope, it's pretty easy. Put the most money into the best companies possible at the best price possible. Sometimes the best price possible is more than what you want to pay. You know what? If it's a great company, at the end of the day, that you see is gonna be one of the greatest companies of all time, that's okay. So it's the best price possible. That's venture capital right there. All the other stuff is just nonsense. The other thing is that we realized that, I mean, we just knew from early on, first of all, it matched our style. Like having no fear on these things, but also just like, you know, a venture fund like three X's over the course of like 10 to 12 years.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  I don't even think that that beats the S and P. I'm pretty sure it like loses to a Vanguard no-load index fund. No, seriously. So it's just like, you get all these people talking about like, woo-hoo, you know, our fund three X'd over these 12 years. It's just like,

• 22:32Speaker 00

  so it means your investors essentially lost money because they could have easily scaled money into an S and P no-load index fund. We knew that. Beating the market is hard. Let's just be clear. Beating the market is extremely hard. There's no, you have to have some real advantage in order to do it. Venture capital, legal inside information, right? There's no, you're not playing, you're not playing the same level, you know, playing field as everybody else. It's not like the public markets where I want. That's why I don't invest in public market companies. I want no inside information about anything public. I want no

• 23:05Molly O'Shea?

  Liabilities.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  liabilities on anything, but private companies, you know, absolutely. And so if you've got that kind of access and you can truly see something is a great company, the way to beat the market is to put a ton of money into that company. Like put every penny that you can. Like, that's the way to beat the market in venture capital. Everything else just ties it or loses to it.

• 23:28Molly O'Shea?

  And you spread that across funds. You don't, you don't even think about like, oh, we did in this fund, we're maxed out.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, you know, there were some advantages. Now, we didn't have that advantage early on. Like, if, let's just be clear. If SpaceX didn't work, Founder's Fund would not exist. Like, we bet our careers, essentially, on SpaceX. And I love that, which goes into why I'm doing what I'm doing now, like, is exclusively that, right? But I love elite athletes, like, betting their career on something, right? Truly elite, talented people, like, betting their career on something. That's what I love. And I think we were just really, really, really good at that. At Founder's Fund, we didn't really... Yeah, we weren't, we weren't trying to do portfolio management. We were trying to put the most money in to the best companies possible.

• 24:14Molly O'Shea?

  I think it was really funny when I talked to you on the phone the other week. You're like, I think this was maybe the day the SpaceX S1 came out. You're like, yeah, whatever, I'm not gonna read that. Why am I gonna read that?

• 24:25Speaker 00

  I don't know, I don't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't really understand what I was reading. There's probably a lot of financial, uh, stuff in there. And to me, it's just like, ooh, Rocket's cool. Elon, greatest founder in history. Great, right? Like, it's, it's a different calculation for me than, like, poring over a prospectus. There are other people who are great at that. Like, some of my partners at, like, Founder's Fund are great at that. Like, Napoleon is probably the one of the best in the world at being able to, like, really do that and understand the company. Great, there's his edge. It's not my edge. I don't put skill points into it.

• 24:51Molly O'Shea?

  And then when you invested into SpaceX, it was 2007, 2008?

• 24:55Speaker 00

  2008.

• 24:55Molly O'Shea?

  2008, they had three failed?

• 24:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:58Molly O'Shea?

  Rocket launches. Well, like, how did you gain that conviction? You met Elon, what was he like?

• 25:04Speaker 00

  I didn't really know Elon back then. Remember, I had just started at Founder's Fund. I got to, I was in, I got, did get to sit through, like, one meeting with him at that. I've since met him several times. But back then, I was like a new junior person starting at Founder's Fund. But I did get to, like, talk with the group about it. And back then, it was just like the most amazing thing. It still is, right? There's still, there's still no other rocket companies that get up with that kind of, like, didn't the... I, I don't know, I don't know when it's gonna be there, but like, a Blue Origin thing just did not work. Like, it's still pretty amazing. And so, and one of my greatest... Startup camaraderie moments in history in my career was being able to like go to the Hawthorne office when we did get the first successful Falcon 1 to actually complete a launch. It was

• 25:48Speaker 00

  like the most amazing camaraderie experience of my life, even more than the startups that I was at or Google or whatever. And yeah, it's just like one of those things. It's like an N of one

• 26:00Speaker 00

  historic thing to be part of.

• 26:03Molly O'Shea?

  What do you think the key traits are that he has that he implements within his teams? It's obviously vertical integration.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't know. Elon is just, there's no other person like Elon because he's the only person that truly could be the CEO and CTO of a company like SpaceX. Nobody else exists like that. It's like Lebchen kind of, right? In some ways, because he's that, he could be a CTO and he is a great CEO, right? But it's very, very uncommon to be the best from a, you know, novel business, understanding the execution side as well as the technical side. And I, you know, he's just, he's, and there's no, there's never been anybody like that in the history of business.

• 26:44Molly O'Shea?

  Are you surprised at all by how much progress he's making now with all of the new launches? Not just like rocket launches, but TerraFab and?

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Oh, no, nothing surprises me.

• 26:55Molly O'Shea?

  Nothing surprises you? No?

• 26:58Speaker 00

  No. I mean, it's got the best team in the world. It's got like, when, when, these things snowball, right? And so when you're committed and plus when you're somebody like that who's truly mission driven and, you know, truly driven to like achieve all these things from a, not from like, not even just from a, oh, I want to make more money, I'm the richest person in the world, right? Like, that's not, he's like, from an actual what the company is doing perspective, yeah, you tend to hire really, really, really good people. And yeah, no, not surprised at all with what that company is doing now.

• 27:30Molly O'Shea?

  We just did a walkthrough tour of Impulse.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:34Molly O'Shea?

  And I did a sit down with Eric Roma as well, but we did a walking tour through their first facility with Tom. And not their El Segundo one, but we did a walking tour of that facility at like towards the end, we got into some SpaceX questions. I was like, I mean, Starlink is like the topic du jour right now because they're hitting inflection point scale. And so I asked him, I was like, did you know when you started rolling out Starlink that it was going to be this big? He said, absolutely. Let's get as many as we can out immediately.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  All of us knew, like, we, a lot of us have been talking about like, oh, Starlink is the true, like, you need the launch business in order to do this, and but like, we all knew that Starlink was the

• 28:17Speaker 00

  the business for a long time.

• 28:19Molly O'Shea?

  Market wise, though, like, why? Because you thought old telecoms and all these other were just not?

• 28:25Speaker 00

  It's an N of one company and like, launch is like, you know, I'm bullish on launch going forward, but like, the applications of launch are where the, where everything is at, right? And like telecom and global telecom? I mean, it's pretty huge.

• 28:42Molly O'Shea?

  So we talked about, we talked a bit about Teal, we talked about Elon. Another, okay, of your portfolio that you, you were involved in early investments was, and I will repeat this, but I'm sure you'll correct me. It was SpaceX, Palantir, Airbnb.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Like SpaceX or whatever.

• 29:00Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, but you were a part of it.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Part of the team, yeah.

• 29:02Molly O'Shea?

  I mean, not many people can say that they were

• 29:04Speaker 00

  No, that's true.

• 29:05Molly O'Shea?

  On those investment teams.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  It's not like I'm trying to sit here and say, oh, I led SpaceX. No way.

• 29:09Molly O'Shea?

  Congratulations.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  But sorry, go on. The other big ones that I was a part of the team. Cause the other thing is that founders, when we tend to not do individual credit on things, right?

• 29:22Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  A lot of people are involved, but yes, we can talk about it from a perspective of like, yes, was helping drive the team on some of these investments.

• 29:29Molly O'Shea?

  So you were helping drive the team on SpaceX, Palantir, Airbnb. You were on these deal teams. You were involved in the early ones.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  Yes, but remember that Palantir, Peter was a co-founder of Palantir. So that one was like,

• 29:46Speaker 00

  You know, we put a lot of money into it. I think we put like thirty something percent of.

• 29:50Molly O'Shea?

  You put thirty-three percent of fund investment.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  I think that sounds right.

• 29:54Molly O'Shea?

  Seventy-five million dollars of a two-hundred-and-forty-million-dollar fund at a billion-dollar valuation.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, very good, Molly. That's something like that, right? And so, yeah, that was pretty bold. Now, Peter was a co-founder there. So, I think I put that one in a special bucket because Peter's co-founder there. But then, like, yeah, I mean Airbnb, Stripe, Stemcentrx, even like things like Anduril, sure. Affirm, obviously.

• 30:18Molly O'Shea?

  And Stemcentrx was one of your first exits?

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Maybe. It was one of the first bigger exits. But I don't know anything about biotech, right? That was just a bet because I knew how good the team was.

• 30:28Molly O'Shea?

  That's crazy.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  I've just never seen it. There's never been another CEO of a biotech company like that.

• 30:37Molly O'Shea?

  Right. I think like the biggest thing that I was, I was looking at all these names and I've listened to you on, on interviews and listened to you speak and like, you're so down-to-earth about it. Like, you're very clear that like you're not an expert in these things. You have high conviction on the founders.

• 30:53Speaker 00

  I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at and I don't try and pretend to be good at most things. I don't feel the need to like do the whole VC, oh, I know about everything. Nonsense.

• 31:06Molly O'Shea?

  So what are you looking for in these founders? Like, what are the main convictions?

• 31:09Speaker 00

  What was I looking for? I mean, I'm not doing pitch meetings anymore. What, I mean, I was looking for, it's hard to put into words. Like, I think we had a, one time I had an author come into Founders Fund to try and help us put into words what these found, what is a Founders Fund founder? And we never could figure out the proper words for it, right? Like, it was just always a, we all kind of, the one thing about us is like we all approach these things from slightly different perspectives, but we could all generally agree on, whoa, this person is actually really good, right? And I think that's what, the other thing, part that made Founders Fund work is like all these contrarian people with no cohesion around the type of business, right?

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Other than the monopoly thesis and all that. But where we all did come together was. We were all a lot on somewhat the same page with, oh, this is an actual A-plus founder. Not just like an A-minus founder, but an actual A-plus founder, of which I think there's very few.

• 32:08Molly O'Shea?

  Does that of like, do you, do you get them at maturity or do you think that they have potential? Like, what is the?

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Um, you probably see the potential, but like, to me, my style was a little bit later. Like, I, you know, you probably can see that somebody is really good, you know, at the very start, but I need to see that paired with execution, just because I don't know how to do execution. And so I can like, take it, I can, I can take the whole like, oh, this person's probably A-plus and maybe make an investment, but from an execution perspective, I need to kind of see the execution because I don't know anything about execution. This goes back to like the strategy versus tactics thing. It's right, like, I couldn't actually never run a company, right?

• 32:51Speaker 00

  It's one of the reasons I like, wanted to retire from venture capital. Like, when I would talk to these founders, I was always pretty good at corporate strategy and I was really good at figuring out if the person was A-plus. But there was always some sense of imposter syndrome, right? Right? Like, I've never founded a company. I don't, I have no idea. I couldn't, I don't try and claim that I could run a company, right? And so you'd always find people who could in really, really, really good ways. Why, when you run into like a Max Levchin, you're like, oh, this person can run a company. You're like, great, right? Because I could never do it. But on the thing that I'm doing now, right, like, no, there's no imposter syndrome, right? And so that I can do.

• 33:25Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. So of the individuals I, I reached out to, Scott Nolan was one of them and he, he was curious how you're applying that framework to investing in funds, into fund investors.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Into specifically like these, like, emerging or whatever you want to call it, GPs. Same thing. It's the same thing, but without the imposter syndrome. When I, like, I'll know in the first five minutes if I don't think somebody is an A-plus GP. And the work is, I'll meet with somebody and be like, oh, like, what I'm actually looking for is, hey, is there some chance this person could have beaten me in my prime?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Right, as a game, like playing their game. Their game is not going to be the same as mine. You're not going to beat me at my game. But playing their game, could they beat me in my prime? If the answer is maybe, right? Then I want to spend more time with them and I want to work with them. And so that's what I'm doing now, right? Like I'm spending a whole bunch of time with these GPs. I'm thinking like, you know, I don't know immediately. I'll know immediately if they definitely are not. But like, it'll take spending a bunch of time with them to think, oh, this person actually could have beaten me. Like, we would have hired this person in Founders Fund if there was, but they're not hireable, right? And so that's who I'm looking for now. And it's the same motion. It's the same motion as when I was dealing with Founders pitching, other than there's no imposter syndrome.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  So it can be like, very much no holds barred for minute one. There's no, it doesn't have to be like a sense of politeness. And I don't like small talk and I don't like preamble. Like, I'm very much into, okay, let's get to the meat. So I like getting to the meat like real quick with these GPs and like challenging them on this kind of stuff, right? And it's harder to do that with founders because you always need to be much more respectful. And genuinely, because I had never done it. So who am I to like just rip whatever they're doing from immediately, right? This I can rip immediately.

• 35:22Molly O'Shea?

  With these, like, I guess like, what are the main themes that you're seeing out of this new cohort of GPs and funds?

• 35:29Speaker 00

  What do you mean? Like in terms of what they're investing in? I don't know. I mean, like, or in terms of like-

• 35:32Molly O'Shea?

  No, like, like, like their style. I mean, I think like-

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Oh, all different.

• 35:36Molly O'Shea?

  I think like though for, for a fact, a lot of people are trying to rip off the, the Founders Fund-

• 35:42Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 35:42Molly O'Shea?

  -concentration strategy. Everybody, all of a sudden, like, let's go after vertical integration. Let's go after concentration bets, like-

• 35:49Speaker 00

  I'm very good at spotting when something is somebody's natural strengths versus when they're trying to say things they think that I want to hear. Like, you have to, I think that is one of the things that you have to get really good at. It's like, okay.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  It's the bullshit meter, right? Like, is somebody saying something because you can tell they think you want to hear it? Right? Or is somebody truly being themselves? I love when people are truly themselves. And when I can see that their natural self is, can be dominant. Like, that's what I love. Like, just talk naturally, because you don't know what I'm looking for. Like, I'm open to any strategy under the sun. Um, I'm open to somebody being the best in the world at whatever it is. I just have to be convinced that they're like the best at their, at their strategy.

• 36:34Molly O'Shea?

  Who do you think the most naturally authentic people are?

• 36:37Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't know. We've talked about some of them, like, authentic people? I mean, I think I'm fortunate to be around a lot of authentic people. Some, one of the things I always say, though, is like, Cyan Banister is one of the most authentic people.

• 36:46Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:47Speaker 00

  One of the most pure, authentic people, like, in the world. She is just her. She's one of my best friends. Anna Rosalind Scott, right? Like, those are two extremely authentic, they are who they are, you know, people. As one example, but I know a lot of.

• 37:03Molly O'Shea?

  That's a real, I literally, that was the top person that I thought of.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Really?

• 37:07Molly O'Shea?

  Cyan Banister, yeah. Cyan was the first person that came to my mind. I spent a really good amount of time with her and the Long Journey Ventures team. Shout out to Long Journey.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Shout out.

• 37:17Molly O'Shea?

  They're great. Um, last fall, and we just bonded so well. We think very similarly about things. Like, we were going through this exercise, like, we were doing lots of, like, thought experiments, like, like, kind of like opening your mind and then reflecting and all this kind of like cool, down-to-earth conceptual frameworks. And I was like, I travel so much, I don't want to own anything. I just wish, like, I had, like, a cloud of things I could just pop into any location.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 37:44Molly O'Shea?

  And it would be there. Um, now with Uber Eats, you can do that. You can literally order clothes on Uber Eats.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:49Molly O'Shea?

  This is not a plug, I swear. But, um, so we bonded over that, but like, I've never, I, she is one of the most successful female investors. And for me, being in a male-dominated industry, there's really, like, few of them. But she is like such a purely authentic person. And then she's extremely talented and such a good investor.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  Yes. Great, agreed.

• 38:13Molly O'Shea?

  Agreed. She's phenomenal. When I spend time, and it's great because I have like the fortune, like, or the, I guess like the opportunity to spend time with these individuals, like, over the last year or so, doing these interviews, I spent, I spent time with her, I did the Anduril tour, Palmer Lucky, you cannot replicate that guy.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  He was literally going to be the other person that I would have said.

• 38:35Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Like, talk about somebody who's like, just caricature portrayed by the rest of the media as like totally not like, Palmer Lucky is one of the most like honest, like real people that there is. And like, from an insane talent, like,

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Palmer though, so Palmer is one of the most talented from a like visionary, crazy product idea that could actually work. Like Oculus was one of the very first companies, so I was the first investor in Oculus. And Oculus was a company that I invested in, not just on the straight, I mean, obviously Brendan and Palmer are great, but like, I was like, try the actual product, and I'm not a product person, but I tried the actual product and was like, oh, I'm blown away by this, right? So I had to invest just, and I never do that from a product perspective, right? I'm much more of a individual person, but like, to have that kind of thing, he's such an honest person, and he is also, Palmer also knows what he is really good at and what he needs to supplement, right?

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Like, so the, I talk about the, there's no other founder in history like Elon, right? But as one person who could do it all, the Anduril founding team are all so complimentary to each other and different, but respect each other so much and are good in different ways that, not any one of them, not any one of the four of them could have like pulled this off. But I do think that the cohesive founding team is better than Elon. Not one person, but the team is. And Palmer is such a huge part of that and he's just like a genuine guy. He was a, besides Cyan, he was like the next person I thought of to say, the answer to your question.

• 40:12Molly O'Shea?

  A hundred percent. It's like, also, you could throw anything at him.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:17Molly O'Shea?

  He has a reference for it.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 40:18Molly O'Shea?

  I was like, I was like, oh, this will be a funny question. Like, what would War on the Moon look like?

• 40:22Speaker 00

  He will have studied that.

• 40:23Molly O'Shea?

  He was like, well, I read that in a book. It's called blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh shit.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  That's an easy one for him because he definitely would have studied that one, but like, yes.

• 40:31Molly O'Shea?

  That's an easy one. But he's, he's like truly authentic and very cool. Alex Karp is definitely another one.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's a lot of actual authentic people in this business. There's, as we were, you know, talking about off camera, there's a lot that are not.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  But there really are, and, and you will never, you would never be able to tell from how tech media or mainstream media characterize people who genuinely is, you'd think, oh, that's a villain or whatever, like just by reading this, you know, this kind of nonsense. But they're genuinely are amazing, awesome, talented, really true to themselves, like genuine, real people. Like you use the term down to earth. I don't know about if I'd use that same term, but I like to use the term genuine, like genuinely them. They're not trying to be somebody else. They're not trying to like fit a part, right? They're just being them. And I love that.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  And I, and I do actually, yeah, I, I, and I'm attracted to when I meet that in a new GP, I'm attracted to that. Somebody who is just being them, not trying to play the game.

• 41:38Molly O'Shea?

  As a master of games or a lover of games.

• 41:43Molly O'Shea?

  Why do people play the posturing game when it's so obvious to everybody who's in, on the inside?

• 41:48Speaker 00

  I don't think it's all, because who cares about the people on the inside? That's not who you're trying to like.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  Sometimes you're trying to win over LPs. Maybe you need to do the posturing for LPs. I, you know, I don't. But like, that could be one reason to do it. One reason is like, you're building your career. I don't know, it's not the game that I would have played. But I don't say like, there's no reason to do it. And also because your, your, your, your audience are your, your customers, not other VCs. So really, who cares what other VCs think of you?

• 42:20Molly O'Shea?

  Today's episode is sponsored by VCX by Fundrise. The public ticker for private tech. Allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. Learn more at getvcx.com. Some of you may not have heard this yet, but our sponsor Public just launched something called Generated Assets. And it brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly never seen before. Here's how it works. You type in an idea like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow, or defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Public's AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that scan every single US stock, evaluates them, and instantly builds a custom index around your thesis. What really stands out is how clearly it explains why each stock is included.

• 43:05Molly O'Shea?

  And before you invest, you can even backtest your idea against the S and P 500. So you're making decisions with real context, not just guessing. And beyond Generated Assets, Public lets you invest in stocks, bonds, options, crypto, all in one place. They'll even give you an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments over from another platform. If you want to build a portfolio that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com/sorcery. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the description. Enterprise AI runs on Merge, the AI infra platform for integrations, agent tooling, and model orchestration. So your team's ship product, not plumbing. Mistral, Dropbox, and Drata already trust Merge in production. Start building at merge.dev.

• 43:50Molly O'Shea?

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• 44:07Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 44:08Molly O'Shea?

  We had some really fun conversations before we started because we're in this like, I mean, you have some beautiful guitars back there.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, those are prized possessions. My wife's karaoke guitars.

• 44:18Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 44:19Speaker 00

  When my wife and kids like to, we do karaoke in this room all the time. We love karaoke as a family and those are our karaoke guitars.

• 44:26Molly O'Shea?

  They look like they've seen some.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  Seen some better days.

• 44:29Molly O'Shea?

  No, I think they've seen some, they've seen some great days and some jam sessions.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  If those guitars could talk.

• 44:33Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. But you do have some empty cases and we were talking about why you're so interested in collecting physical things, like human relics.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  I am.

• 44:42Molly O'Shea?

  So what is the?

• 44:44Speaker 00

  I'm very bullish on N of One human cultural iconic artifacts. Like as a class, I've never been a big art person, like Trey is a big art person, like just paintings and you know, all that kind of stuff. I've never been really into that, but what I am into is functional art and like art in the form of like artifacts, right? I love that stuff and so, you know, music memorabilia is a, you know, category that I'm extremely interested in as long as these are truly N of One human cultural iconic artifacts. And I think that that's really growingly important in a world that's dominated by machines in so many ways.

• 45:26Speaker 00

  Like I think the, the true human like iconic things are just going to be more and more valuable from, not just from a monetary perspective, but from a mind share perspective, from like a, you know, from an emotional perspective, right? Like I don't really care if like the algorithm of some NFT made this one thing algorithmically rare, right? I don't care about that. But do I love a Jerry Garcia guitar that he played for like 10 years? Hell yeah. Right? Like do, do I love things that people could recognize like from minute one of seeing them that are true N of One artifacts? Yeah. I, I love that kind of stuff and so I, you know, I do have some, some pieces that will, that will be going in here, but yeah.

• 46:11Molly O'Shea?

  How did you, like, how did this collection start? Was there one particular piece that you saw?

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, we started with a, we do have some kind of movie memorabilia, which I'm very bullish on also because it's still iconic human, you know, stuff.

• 46:25Molly O'Shea?

  And you don't want to start a band?

• 46:27Speaker 00

  I do not want to start a band, but I hope my kids are in one if they want to, right? Like, you know, I, I really like this whole.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Going to a world where businesses kind of AI dominated. The reason I built this music studio was I don't care if a machine can make music better than me. Who cares? I love doing it, right? And so I like humans figuring out and using this next, you know, using whatever comes next is a way to figure out like, well, how can we be truly happy? And how do we focus on the things that make us truly happy and truly who we are? And so like, for instance, like if my kids are super into music, which they might be, right? And they want to join a, start a band? Hell yeah, right? If they want to, you know, any, I'm, I'm as bullish on them being involved in anything creative arts

• 47:19Speaker 00

  as I am like academics, right? Like I would almost say that like having an awesome music department or an awesome art department is even more important than having an awesome math program right now.

• 47:31Molly O'Shea?

  That's really cool. So I, I went to college for studio art.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:35Molly O'Shea?

  And like I transitioned to business and all that kind of stuff. So I got it in my genes.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:40Molly O'Shea?

  But there, there was like a really interesting moment in time. I think, I think it was when Studio Ghibli launched on ChatGPT. And there was this like existential crisis of, oh, artists are over.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:50Molly O'Shea?

  This is over. I think we did a segment on this. I was on Pirate Wires at the time and like it was a podcast and we did a segment on this. And I was like, guys, like I went to art school, like you can't stop artists.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:01Molly O'Shea?

  Artists are always going to create. It's like in their blood, it is what wakes them up every day.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:06Molly O'Shea?

  I can get lost in a drawing for literally eight hours and not want to eat.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  And who, and that is totally irreplaceable for by a machine.

• 48:14Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Speaker 00

  Like the, what you get out of that, what you get out of doing your art? What you get out of doing something that you truly love? That is crazy theories, I know, but that is going to be what defines us. Like what we get, like more than like, oh, well, I need to do this part chart. Cause no, machines can be able to do that better than you. But like, if you're getting that kind of emotional reaction from doing your art.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Who's gonna replace that? I'm a tech optimist, right? And so like I've actually made a lot of money betting against the end of the world.

• 48:45Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 48:45Speaker 00

  With some pretty famous people, yeah, because it's like, the way that I see it, it's just like, I'm gonna be an optimist because in the, who cares about the other side of that bet? Right? Like in the world where it's like, oh, we're all dead, or zombie apocalypse world, ah, who cares if I lost, you know, a bet on that regard, right? Like, I'm much more of a tech optimist and an optimist that like will figure it out. Um, and so from a tech optimist perspective, like, yeah, I think that we'll eventually, eventually, I have no idea when this will be, like have some basic needs met and people can try and focus on what they actually love.

• 49:20Molly O'Shea?

  That's amazing. Well, to wrap it up, what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months?

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Well, I'm looking forward to a few things. Um, my daughter starting kindergarten.

• 49:33Molly O'Shea?

  Aww.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  I'm sure I'll get Terry for that. Um, spending more time in Hawaii.

• 49:38Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  And this music studio actually opening up. It like, you know, this, this filming this podcast in here, this is the first time other people have been in here. Um, but my intention is to have bands and artists that are doing something that I love, get to come in and they get to use the studio for free. I'll even create a label for them and they get to own all the IP and I'll pay all the money to have them distribute their stuff and they get to do, use everything for free and own all of it because I don't care about making money off of this. I get to be a fly on the wall. Right? So that's how I derive my happiness here, right? From this is like, I love being just like a part of the creative process. Right? And so I look forward to putting that into reality.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  It's like having some band or artist come like do something awesome here where the win-win for them is they don't have to pay a cent for it. I don't have to take any sort of ownership of their IP, of their stuff at all. They get to own it all, but I get to be a fly on the wall. So I'm looking forward to that also.

• 50:37Molly O'Shea?

  That's amazing. Well, that's a great place to end.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 50:40Molly O'Shea?

  Thank you so much, Brian.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  All right. Thanks, Molly.

• 50:42Molly O'Shea?

  Appreciate it. Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.