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Hello Reader,
"Go to school, work hard, follow the rules." That was the path to success for many immigrant and middle-class families. But sometimes, an idea is so big, so timely, that you just have to drop everything and chase it, even college. This idea challenges the core values I grew up with and still hold as a faculty teaching at INSEAD, but I get it: sometimes you have to break the rules.
That's where 1517 Fund comes in. It is a VC firm that exclusively backs entrepreneurs as early as high school. Michael and Danielle are continuing the model they pioneered at the Thiel Foundation. Want to hear more? Check out my latest podcast episode with them!
Upcoming Events:
🟦 AI & Capital Summit at UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business on Mar 30
🟦 Afore Capital’s spring portfolio showcase in San Francisco on Mar 31
🟦 Engineering in the age of AI by Funda in Los Altos on April 16
🟦 Linda Mar Ventures Community Dinner with Santa Clara University students on April 17
– Gopi Rangan, Host of the The Sure Shot Entrepreneur podcast
Startup Corner: Ava
Reza Rahman, President & Co-Founder of Ava, knows the credit game is rigged. As he told Adam Torres on Mission Matters, first-generation immigrants like himself face an impossible paradox – denied apartments for lacking credit scores while trapped in high-interest debt that keeps them from building one.
That frustration birthed Ava. "We remembered what it felt like," Reza shares. "The system punishes people like us while making banks richer." So they built something different: a $10/month app that becomes your personal CFO, helping users become credit-visible through three simple tools.
The genius? They report rent and utilities retroactively up to two years, instantly creating credit history. Members see 74% success rate within seven days. One user jumped from 516 to 744 in four months.
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New Podcast: Some Ideas Can’t Wait. Accelerate Now.
In Episode 185, our guests are Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson from 1517 Fund. Their opening story of founding 1517 perfectly captures their contrarian spirit. Michael literally showed up at a UCLA hackathon wearing a fake 1517 t-shirt, pretending their fund existed. He got on stage right after the Microsoft recruiter who was offering Azure internships and basically said: "Forget internships. Follow your dreams. We're giving out money." The audience went wild. And that's how 1517 Fund was born.
They both had run the Thiel Fellowship for five years, reviewing thousands of applications and working directly with 100 fellows including Dylan Field (Figma), Chris Olah (Anthropic), and Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum). They learned just as much from the people they rejected as the ones they accepted. As Danielle puts it, "We weren't just building pattern recognition of what looks good, but also what doesn't work."
Their investment philosophy is beautifully simple yet radical. They look for what they call "dog on a leash energy" – founders who aren't asking for more food or water, they just need someone to cut the leash.
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Connected Insights: Start with Your Childhood, Not Your Resume
In episode #50, I spoke with Arjan Schutte from Core Innovation Capital, who highlighted a simple but profound truth: successful entrepreneurship depends on who you are, what you believe, and how deeply you understand your mission. Rather than starting with a list of accomplishments or a polished resume, the most resilient founders build from the earliest influences that shaped them. This ethos parallels the acceleration theme; great outcomes rarely come from surface-level signals or follow-the-herd moves. Instead, founders and early investors alike benefit from looking where others are not looking: start with deep personal insight, let that inform hiring and capital decisions, and measure progress by long-term impact, not short-term optics. That mindset aligns with how intentional acceleration works in real startup journeys.
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Community Involvement: Foresight Institute
Danielle Strachman’s passion for deep science and future technologies is evident through her support of the Foresight Institute. Founded in 1986, Foresight’s mission is to anticipate and responsibly shape transformative technologies — from advanced nanotechnology to AI and beyond — by fostering interdisciplinary research, ethical dialogue, and collaboration among scientists, engineers, and visionaries.
Danielle has long been engaged with Foresight’s community, attending events and fellowship programs that bring together thinkers who push boundaries and explore the long-term implications of emerging technologies. For her, supporting an organization that encourages radical optimism grounded in deep technical insight aligns with the same contrarian curiosity that drives her venture philosophy: embracing big ideas early, stewarding them thoughtfully, and empowering individuals to explore what others consider impossible.
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