The Best One Yet - 🦸 “Superhero Money” — Interview with Tim Draper: The Godfather of VC

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Live from San Francisco, we sit down with Tim Draper, the venture capitalist who wrote early checks into Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, Coinbase, Twitch and more than 20 unicorns. He was the first investor to say yes to Robinhood after its founders heard 25 no's, he bet on Bitcoin when almost nobody knew what it was, and he holds a Guinness World Record for hearing 52 startup pitches in 52 minutes while sitting in a cold plunge.Tim reveals the one question he asks every founder before writing a check, why he kept betting on SpaceX after watching its rockets blow up three times, and what happened when a self-driving car he was testing swerved into oncoming traffic. Plus how he lost his first Bitcoin in the Mt. Gox collapse, the condition he put on Robinhood's founders before investing, the industries he says AI will disrupt next, and his one piece of advice for building the next billion-dollar business.0:00 - Intro: Tim Draper Live in San Francisco3:48 - Tim Draper's Guinness World Record: 52 Startup Pitches in a Cold Plunge5:40 - Meet the Drapers: Why Tim Draper Became His Own Media Company9:48 - What Tim Draper Looks for Before Writing a Venture Capital Check12:20 - Why Tim Draper Looks for Controversial Startups13:20 - How Tim Draper Backed Tesla and SpaceX Before Elon Was Elon15:35 - SpaceX Rockets Blew Up 3 Times: Why Tim Draper Kept Betting19:10 - How Tim Draper Bet on Bitcoin Before Almost Anyone23:40 - Tim Draper's Bitcoin Prediction: Inflation, Debt and the Halving26:50 - Why Tim Draper Was Robinhood's First Investor After 25 Rejections28:45 - The Industries Tim Draper Says AI Will Disrupt Next32:30 - How to Invest Like a Venture Capitalist in the Public Stock Market34:50 - Tim Draper's Case for Capitalism and Free Markets39:15 - Why Tim Draper Says Not to Fear AI Taking Your Job44:30 - Rapid Fire: Tim Draper's Favorite Brand and Stock Ticker46:10 - Takeaway: How to Build a Billion-Dollar BusinessNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yetis, put down your pitch decks and get ready to cash checks. Because today's guest for our San Francisco live show is the billionaire, Tim Draper, the godfather of venture capital. And his investing resume has more wins than Midas, making Midas look like he lost his touch. We think this man must have a time machine because all of his big bets turn out to be right. Before Andresen hooked up with Horowitz, before Justin Timberlake got hired by the Facebook,

Before Steve Jobs even thought about putting on a turtleneck, Tim Draper was riding unicorns. You mean feeding unicorns with capital. Correct, Jack. Yeah, because Tim established the Silicon Valley venture capital that we all know right now. And today, Tim's startup portfolio is today's All-Stars on the stock market. And tonight, he's going to tell us how he picks him. Because he was right about Tesla. He was right about SpaceX.

He was right about Twitter. He was right about Skype. He was right about Ring. He was right about Docutown. He was right about Coinbase. He was right about Twitch. When the Robin Hood investors, when the Robin Hood founders got rejected 25 times facing 25 knows. Tim Draper was the very first man to say yes.

Tim Draper bought Bitcoin at $4.000. Not $400.000. Not $4,000. Not $40,000. $4.00. The slice, that's the price of a slice. It's a price of a slice. But Tim is not just getting rich. He invests specifically in companies with a vision to change the world. He actually once proposed splitting California. into six separate states. We'll ask him about that. He also founded a startup university whose mascot is actually Batman. And he turned his family into a reality TV show about investing. But most impressive to us, Tim, he's actually got the wildest wardrobe in all the silken

valley. Oh, if he's not wearing a Looney Tunes themed tie tonight, then the stocks are going to drop tomorrow. That's a cell signal. Besties, and on top of it all, this man is a Yeti. He is in the audience right now. So, Besties, please welcome. the Superman of seed funding, the Iron Man of Equity, the Wolverine of, whoa, that is a big price. Our guest tonight for the live show is the one investor you need to know, Tim Draper.

And this interview with Tim is the best one yet. My wife and I bought tickets to this. Well, actually, she got them for me for Father's Day. And we were getting ready to go. I mean, we were ready to go. And then you gave me the call. I went, I'm already going to be there. And I just, a shout out to my wife, she got all except for one of your trivia questions. Did she really? Yeah, she is your biggest jetty fan.

We have to get another bell made. She would have won the bell, but she didn't want to raise her. I'm going to break the T's and Cs. I'm going to entitle her to two hugs out. Two hugs. And she can ring the bell on the way out. Oh, by the way, I'm a huge friend. fan too. You guys, you entertain and educate and I feel like anybody, I mean, you're creating a whole

group of MBAs here. They come out of this. I mean, you listen to, you all know, you listen to this and you go, whoa, I'm way smarter than I used to be. That is the highest compliment. Thank you so much for saying. Thank you. Oh, it's fantastic. We're really honored you here tonight. And, you know, we're so impressed by the way that you get attention and continue to do so in novel and creative and on brand and bright ways to use the word that Nick and I like. We've learned from you from all the ways you do that. The one we want to highlight though, it's one accolade we forgot to mention. It's your Guinness record because Tim Draper took 52 startup pitches during a cold plunge for 52 minutes at like 37 degrees. Hey, by the way, that was the best introduction I've ever had and probably the best I'll ever have.

So fun. We love poetry. That was really, you know, I've got this weird thing. I actually can sit in a cold pool in effect indefinitely. It was 40 degrees. And I had all my Draper University heroes come through. And I said, okay, each of you has to stay in here for three minutes. But I had them come in three at a time.

And they came and they did their thing. left and I was just in the full. 40 degrees, 52 minutes, 52 pitches. Of course, I've got to say afterwards, I had to go into the car. I was in a bathing suit. I had to go into the car, turn on the heater and just sit there for about a half an hour because I couldn't move my hands. I couldn't and I had to, I had a business meeting up here and I had to get my suit on my Bitcoin top. I had to get all this stuff going. And I couldn't unzip or zip. I couldn't button things.

Anyway, it was crazy. But it was worth it. We'll check it on the ROI of those companies soon. One other thing I was thinking, when you guys talked about the GAP doing the boy band, the J.Y. J.YT. Just your tag. I thought about it.

And I thought, that reminds me of when I met with the best PR guy in the world. Richard Edelman, and I said, well, God, you're the best PR guy in the world. What advice do you have? Just generally, what advice do you have? And he said, be your own media company. And that was actually one of the inspirations for Meet the Draper's. Yeah, you were show. By the way, I tried a podcast.

I tried a bunch of stuff. Yeah. I don't know how you guys do it. It was brutal. No one came. And my mom while she was alive, my mom, she listened. So you started your own reality show. Guys, that reality show, Meet the Draper's.

Season 9's finale was watched by 1.8 million people. Yeah. Those are huge numbers. Huge. Incredible. Well, your father is one of the icons of venture capital. I got to tell you, was. He died two weeks ago.

He really was extraordinary, and we were just lucky to have him as long as we did. He died at 98. But anyway, hey, Bill Draper, let's hear it for Bill. He was extraordinary man. Okay, anyway, go ahead. Tell me more about my dad. We also want to hear it for your mom, too,

because your mom had arguably a bigger influence on you from a business perspective than your dad who was in venture capital. Yeah. How did your mom and your dad influence the career that you embarked on. Well, Dad, it was really great because dad told me, and this is kind of interesting advice, he said, it doesn't matter who's buying and who's selling. It's just the personal connection that's all that matters. And I have sort of taken that to heart, and I always feel like,

yeah, I've got to make that personal connection. And it made it easier for me to sell. Buying's always, you know, tell me what you got. But selling is like, hey, you know, but the key was to get to know the people first and then kind of figure it out from there. And then mom, mom was, I mean, she'd probably look at me and go, God, your tie's not on straight. Who egged you on to do those early childhood businesses? Selling the apples, selling the oysters. We're selling door to door selling oysters. I can tell you the apple story.

What's the apple story? Okay, this is different from the Apple computer store. Okay, I was about seven or eight years old, and my mom said, by the way, she did encourage me. She did. She encouraged me to go pick those apples and sell them at the end of the street, or at the end of the driveway. driveway was a quarter mile long, but I, you know.

So I lug these things in, and I pick a whole bunch of apples, and I'd go and I'd sell them down at the end of the store, and I get to know the people, and it was great fun. And it pretty much took me like, I don't know, three weeks, four weeks, forever for a seven-year-old. Yeah. And every once in a while I'd have a friend who'd kind of come by and wander, what are you doing? Yeah. Hang out, whatever.

So one day, one of the neighbors, mothers, comes up to me and says, well, you've been doing this for a while, right? And I said, yeah. She said, well, how much have you made? And I went, $8.00. And she looks at me, she goes, she goes, let me see it. She takes the money. And then she said, who helped? And I say, well, you know, a couple guys came by once in a while.

And it was like, and there were a few friends around. Yeah. She gave one dollar to one guy, one dollar or another guy, one dollar another guy, one dollar, another guy, gave me one dollar. And then took the rest for herself. I said, I said, whatever this was. I don't ever want to see it again. And I realized what it was. It was socialism.

I hope your mother had a talking with that mother. Well, Tim, when you grew up and when you walked in the room, you're meeting with all these legendary founders. But, you know, Jack and I have noticed in the hospitality industry, people make up their minds about a hotel in the first five seconds walking in the lobby. As a venture capitalist, you must make up your mind pretty quickly, or do you take your time? What is the first impression that you look for in someone you want to write a big check for? So I've trained myself not to go on that first impression. At first, that is exactly what I did. I'd see the person right off the bat and I'd say, well, yes or no, or this is ridiculous or whatever.

And then I realized that, you know, we all have these sort of internal biases. And let's face it, most of the great entrepreneurs have come from other countries. So I realize that other countries have different cultures, different morals, different values systems. And so I get to meet all these really interesting people. I guess I just get to the point where I say, okay, let's hear it. Let's give them a chance. Let's see what's in it. And the thing that actually, okay, I often ask this one question.

Sometimes it's obvious before I ask it, but it's like, and I'm going to ask you guys, why are you doing this? And I ask it in that way, so that, because you guys both kind of went, well, you know why we're doing. It is perfect. We're educating and entertaining and making all this. This is so much fun. Okay. So would-be entrepreneurs, the ones who, they'll say, I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Or I thought, or Joe thought this was a good idea. Or, you know, I thought maybe I'd make money, or the clever ones, I thought I'd make you money. But the true entrepreneur leans in and says, because Robin Hood got in the way of everything I was trying to do and I wanted to go do it myself. Or that customer I was talking to, they wanted this thing. I told my boss, I told my boss's boss. They all said no. and I know that that that customer, I can provide that product to that customer.

Those are the, it's like it bursts out of their chest. Yeah. It's so important. And so that's what I look for. Yeah. But that's in the people. In the market, I look for something, I mean, it's kind of weird, but I look for controversial.

What do you mean? What do you mean? Yeah. Well, because I look for the things where other people really wouldn't, want to go. And the reason is, I think, well, you know, if it's down the middle, there are going to be 5,000 companies trying to do the same thing. But if it's a little around the edges, then it's like, hey, this might work. And if it works, is it going to be that awesome? You know, I'm always looking, is the world going to be that much better for this company being

successful. And I always have to anticipate that the company will be even more successful than the entrepreneur thinks it's going to be. Because there's, you know, no way Elon thought that, you know, Tesla and SpaceX were going to be trillion-dollar businesses when he got him started. What did he tell you in the room? Can you give us any specific examples where you said, why are you doing this? And somebody maybe a founder we know. Elon was a different experience. With Tesla, we actually, we actually. backed Martin Eberhard, who was the first guy. And then we ran into some financial problems.

And Elon came in and said, I'll do this and I'll run it. And we're going, what? This is awesome. The PayPal guy, right? What's that? The PayPal guy? Is that what Elon was at the time? Yeah.

And so he did and everything was great. And then my partner, Steve Jervinson, was spending all his nights and weekends, launching rockets. And I was going, Okay, Jervitzen. I mean, it's totally brilliant. And I'm thinking, God, focus. And I said, okay, you're spending all your nights and weekends launching rockets.

Naturally. Find us the best rocket company. And he looked at me with, like, great hope in his eyes. Really? And I said, yeah. And so he goes out, and two weeks later he comes back. He goes, the best rocket company is Elon's. And I said, isn't he supposed to be running Tesla?

Anyway, when we talked to Elon, it came out of his chest. It was so clear, this is all he wanted to do. He wanted to make sure we were multi-planetary. He said, you know, space has been dominated by governments. They clearly aren't doing anything with it. This needs to go in and we got to do something really important here. And I went ahead with it, but what I didn't realize was how incredible, he was going to be. He got a $400 million loan from the government, and then he bought the

Numi plant for $0.5 on the dollar. That was a Tesla move, right? That was the Tesla move. And then in SpaceX, he cut a deal with NASA. And at one point, I think he had to borrow from Tesla to keep SpaceX in business. After we, or as we were investing, the Falcon 1, I think of it as the Falcon 1, 2, and 3. But it was the Falcon 1 3 times.

Falcon 1 blew up on the launch pad. Falcon 1, 2 blew up on the launch pad, and Falcon 1 3 blew up on the launch pad. And we kind of felt like it's going to work out. You know, it's going to be okay. It was a little like when I invested in cruise automation, it was a self-driving car.

And the guy, he takes me for a ride. And I'm thinking, well, it's great, you know, and everything's working fine. We're driving along. All of a sudden, you know, we're driving along, and the car is doing it itself. And he, and all of a sudden, for no reason, the car takes a left-hand turn into on-com.

traffic and I'm in the passenger seat and right there I thought I'm going to back this. And you said yes, you want to back it? As you're about to get. As I was about to get crushed, I said, I'm going to back this because I thought, well, this is just a software problem. So there is this and also if you back these things that seem controversial at the time and they become enormously successful, it's like there's a an awakening to the world.

And so if you find an entrepreneur who really wants to awaken the world, that's a magical thing. It's funny because on the entrepreneur side, Jack and I are always like, we can't let perfection be the enemy of good enough, and we need to launch something. It's why we partially launched part of a show before. We want to just get it out there for feedback. But you're saying, like, on the investing side.

I love that you're trying new things. I mean, of all, I try things all the time. And, you know, the ones at work are the ones we all talk about. So, you know, you're a very intellectually generous man, and I appreciate that. And everyone wants to know. Oh, I think we're going to say intellectually challenged. And I was going to agree in either case. Now a quick word from our sponsor.

So keeping tabs here. You want to find a founder who, you know, shows you his passion by answering that challenging question. You want a founder who is in a business that's controversial, as you say, because if it was easy, everyone would do it, right? What other, you know, what are the other patterns that make for a great investment from your career? I tend to poke in a lot of places that, and it may actually upset the entrepreneur. I don't mind getting them upset. They're usually smaller than I am. It helps.

And then I often ask a question, some of my team is out here, that's out of left field. Just to see how they react? Do you actually want the answer? Like if they're like a group that's been properly trained by Y Combinator or whatever, they've got this real good training, they have a set thing and they can't go off that track. So I take them off their track. I see. And then it's like, oh, you know, they're lost.

Either they're lost or it's like they're really now are into it. Yeah. And so it's not bad to ask a question. It doesn't make any sense. I want to point out this works in dating too, from what I understand, right? This is a good first date strategy. Potentially. Worth, worth giving it a shot.

I don't know. Honey, did I try that on you? What about was something where there isn't a founder like Bitcoin? Like we said, you were in Bitcoin before anyone we have ever met. What was it about something where you couldn't interview the founder, but you could bet on the technology? What did you see there? Well, so one thing is that I'm very lucky because it's such a wonderful job because people come to me all the time. In fact, a couple of them came to me out there who are pitching their business.

And so I start getting a window. Anyway, there was this guy from Korea who I was meeting with and he said, hey, we can. got this, oh, it was 2004. And he said, you know, we got this game that everybody's playing in Korea. It's called lineage. And I said, yeah. And he said, no, everybody's playing it 100% of the time. And I said, really? And he said, yeah, it's like I have my life and then I have my virtual life. And I said, well, okay, great. And he said, so much so that I actually pay a guy to be my avatar when I have to go off to work. Wow.

And then he said, I bought my son a sword for his birthday. And I went, wait, why are those connected? And he said, it was a virtual sword. It was pixels on the screen. It cost me 40 bucks. And I said, oh, and all of a sudden it was money for virtual goods. And then it was virtual money for real goods. And then I started to put things together.

So I'd been looking for digital money. I was thinking that it would be like you'd farmville dollars for Zork diamonds or something. I thought there'd be that. And I thought that's how virtual currency would happen. And then this genius, Satoshi Nakamoto, comes up with this idea that software can be your trusted third party. And it made it just magical. And I did. I was betting on a.

entrepreneur at the time i bet on something called coin lab and i invested in coin lab and i said i said and while i'm doing it why don't i buy some of this stuff yeah this bitcoin stuff and then um and then it was the wild west yeah there were the the the uh i was supposed to get it at four bucks per bitcoin here's what happened they said we're gonna mine it for you so then he goes but he and he orders these chips from another company. The chip manufacturer front ran him and mined all the Bitcoin before while the price was going like this. Wow.

And then I got some. I eventually got some. And then he stored it at Mount Gox. And it was the biggest exchange. So, of course, that's the safe place to go. Naturally. Yeah. So then Mount Cox kind of stole all that money.

And then it was gone. And I thought, oh, that's the end of it. But Bitcoin only dropped about 15% on that news that MacOx had stolen $400 million. And I thought, wait, 15%. People really need this. And that's when I did all the research. You know, I saw that it was banking the... First, I thought, people must need it for guns and drugs.

And then I thought, wait a saying, what else is going on? And the unbanked, you know, 3 billion people at the time were now part of the world economy. And they could do deals. They could do everything with Bitcoin. And they were starting to do that. And then people working overseas who couldn't, you know, who didn't have good currency, could use, could get Bitcoin. So big companies were starting to pay people in Bitcoin. And then, of course, people working in the U.S. were using it for remittance and doing it super cheap.

This pattern recognition, though, it began, you and I were like in middle school. This is before Facebook or YouTube, I think, exists. It was before Bitcoin. His first story was. Yeah. So you read the white paper. You kind of did bet in a founder. I mean, not just of the company, but you read Satoshi's paper, so I guess you did bet in the founder.

So you were early, early believer that Bitcoin would change the world. It would empower the unbanked with the software, the transparency, the, you know, borderless currency. you were right it's worth $86,000 today. Are you still bullish on the technology or is it kind of like properly valued? Okay, the way I'm going to describe this is in a story. Okay. My dad, thanks dad, handed me at about, I was about nine years old, and he hands me a million dollar bill. And I went, a million dollars.

Whoa, what can I do with it? And he goes, nothing. And I said, what do you mean? nothing. He said, that's a million Confederate dollars. Wow. And I said, and he said, the Confederates lost the war. Nobody really wanted the currency. It inflated. They printed more and more and more. It became worth less and less and less. And eventually it was completely worthless. Everybody wanted union dollars and nobody would do exchanges in Confederate dollars. I'm looking at this world saying government spending doesn't stop.

We are overspending and no one can, like, I don't know, structurally Congress can't stop it. And so it just continues to go. We are having inflation. And so there are two things that can happen. One is inflation goes crazy and we have everybody loses faith in the dollar. and it collapses and you better have Bitcoin. And the other one is that the Fed raises the interest rates way up. And then things like what happened to Silicon Valley Bank happen.

And we get bank failure after bank failure. And people are saying, I got to have some Bitcoin. So I feel like it's a parallel universe right now that will eventually be a big part of our world economy. So is the bare case for Bitcoin that the U.S. Congress gets its act together and reigns in debt? Yeah, that would be a bear case. So, you know, it's crazy. We just had this. So good luck with that.

So we just had this clarity bill not pass the Senate. Yeah. And yet the price of Bitcoin rose. But it wasn't just didn't pass the Senate. They didn't pass the idea that they would then talk about whether they would want to vote. on the Clarity Act. I mean, there is so much process in Washington. Nothing is ever getting done.

And I think people were just relieved to have it over with. And I think, and also we got the halving coming up. Havening. Used to be the happening. Having was sort of more mysterious. Now it's the having. We have the having coming up. And so people are kind of going, hey, there's going to be one half of the supply.

So there's going to be the same amount of demand, so the price will go up. I mean, at least that's what I learned in economics. Well, speaking of the financial system, and Jack and I have a relationship with Vlad and Bezier, the guys who co-founded Robin Hood. And it's incredible what they've done to change the financial system. We were curious, though, they faced 25 nos when they were first pitching. You were the first one to say yes to Robin Hood. What was it in that meeting?

What did they say that convinced you? So first, my son Billy Draper of Path Ventures brought that to me. And the two of us sat there in that meeting. And we were a little concerned that the two of them, Vlad and Bijou, were going to pay themselves a lot. And they didn't really have, and we knew how hard it was to get a broker-dealer license. Yeah. And so I said, well, look, you know, I'll put up some money as long as you guys don't pay yourselves until you have a broker-dealer.

So they couldn't have a salary until they got- Buizu tells that story. It's like he's still mad about it. But it was really, for us, it was that was the issue. The market issue was nothing. I was thinking, oh, my God, I can trade stocks on my phone. This is the coolest thing. But they hadn't even built it.

And do it for free. No, they were pitching a trading system on the, it wasn't going to be an app. It was just going to be mobile app. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what they were working on. Anyway, what an amazing company. And they're still going.

Still going. And Vlad just keeps going. And Baiju is doing this. Cowboy. He's going to do servers in space. Yeah. Beam energy down. Yeah.

And Beam Energy. down. Yeah. All that. You know, you only invest in companies that plan to change the world. That seems to be a pattern of yours. Tesla changed automotive, SpaceX changed space, Twitter changed communications, Robin Hood changed finance. What's the one industry you think is ready for its world-changing moment? Oh, I'm glad you asked that question. You guys are so good. That was a great question. So, so here's what I kind of look for. I look for industries that are run by oligopolis now or monopolies. And they've been that way for a long time.

And the business is getting a little fat and lazy and the consumer is losing. So it's like things were going well and now they're kind of not. I mean, business is going well. They're charging a lot, but they're providing bad service. So you go through and it turns out it's kind of every industry. that starts with the word big. Yeah. So I'm going to be going after every industry

that starts with the word big. Okay, big pharma. Big pharma. Mm-hmm. Big accounting. The big three accounting. Big pool. Bulge bracket banks.

Big pool. Big government. Big, would I say big accounting? Oil? Big legal. Well, big oils. Yeah, we already have.

With Aklow, which you interviewed. Yeah. That was the. No, that was not the best one yet. This, this is the best one yet. It is. You are such a great hype man. So anyway, I look for that, and then I look for technologies that are coming along

that are going to challenge those industries. One I haven't mentioned, which I'm about to, is AI is just like magic. It's so amazing. It is the thing, just like the Internet, was way back when and what Bitcoin was to finance. AI is going to transform some of the biggest industries in the world. And the one that is ripe for the picking that is a monopoly and nobody thinks about it as big is education.

So we have a huge opportunity in completely transforming education. So I'm looking for entrepreneurs who are in the education space. Okay. Now, of course, I went after big pharma recently. Because they go for chemotherapies. They put chemicals in your body, and then they go for it. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, there are these side effects. Take this chemical. Oh, side effect, take this chemical.

And they make lots of money doing that, but we're living shorter lives. So the key here is that we have new technologies that are bio cures. So it's like biological cures, stem cells. and cloning and biochemical engineering and using AI and robots to figure out what works on a body. Similar to what we covered in that nuclear episode, how nuclear isotopes can be used to cure cancer. Yeah, something I learned from that.

Didn't you guys say that an atom, maybe I read it, but an atom, like the whole atomic bomb was, you know, splitting the atom only generated one 1,000 of the energy that's in an atom. And so we can go a long way with this. And, you know, so. And that breaks up big, you know, think about flying cars, whatever. Yeah, it's going to be amazing. Tim, you want to ask about AI?

I actually wanted to get to his university. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Tim, you know, part of your success is the access you've had to investments that most people don't. You were able to invest in Tesla and SpaceX way before most people. I have two questions about that. First is, what parts of your investing strategy

that focus on startups and a very founder-centric analysis, what parts are applicable to the public stock markets where we can all participate as well? So, yeah, I mean, I have all that access mostly because I would, you know, there were only like 10 venture capitalists in the world when I started,

I went to all of them and I said, give me you're tired, you're hungry, you're weary. And then I started to build my own judgment and that helped. And now, you know, we've been entrepreneur friendly and that's been our model. We always love the entrepreneur. What I would do is, I'll just pitch my own business. We, I would suggest we. back companies and a lot of them fail. And if they start working and they get to the size of being public companies, they are doing something really extraordinary because we make these investments

and a lot of them don't work. But the ones that do become really extraordinary and the market sizes are much, much bigger than most other public companies. So you might just just follow our lead. And when they are about to go public, I mean, Aklo, it's fantastic. It's just this, that thing probably has many, many. A nuclear stock. Yeah. And what's great about Tim is that.

Robin Hood is going to just keep going. Tim puts out here. Space is the final frontier. It's like space. It goes far. Anytime you think we should sell SpaceX, go out at night and look at the stars. It's like, whoa. And what's great about Tim is he's talking about this publicly all the time, which is what's cool.

You know, for audience. Well, I'm old. I need to educate. Tim, for audience here, you know, there is, especially in the last week, AI anxiety. There's anxiety about a lot of things, maybe, for audience. Some of them living right down the street in the marina who may be a product manager at Uber right now. Everyone has that feeling. So we kind of want to turn the tables and have you pitch the audience.

And what should I pitch the audience on Jack? Why should we be optimistic about capitalism, technology, and the markets right now? Oh, my God. Audience. First of all, capitalism is, I mean, they talk about the homeless. Who's going to build those homes? Capitalists. They aren't going to be built by your politician who's going,

I don't know. Should we build it? Not. It's going to be built by a capitalist. Capitalism is what gets you the hats. I see a lot of hats. Your clothes. It's your food.

It's your lodging. It's your, it's the services. It's Uber. It's DoorDash. It's awesome. It's like all these amazing things. I actually had a day once when Melissa was very mad at me, my wife. And she said,

I'm hungry. hungry and you're late and and I'm sitting there and I'm going well my car is in the shop and I'm at the office and I don't really know what to do and I hit two buttons Uber door dash and I come home and the door dash arrives just as I do and I walk in with dinner and I'm a hero that doesn't happen with socialism so I okay look so socialism has never worked all you need to do we took a trip to Cuba. They are so lost. They have no customer orientation.

They have no sense of doing service for each other. It was horrendous. It was horrible. And I'm sure North Korea is that way. I'm sure, I mean, Russia, God, try to get anything done in Russia. It's just a nightmare. Socialism doesn't work. And then they say, oh, what about, you know, those northern European?

countries, they're socialist. Turns out, I did the analysis, every time they grow, it's a capitalist in charge. And every time they flatline, it's a socialist in charge. And they swing back and forth.

So, okay, that's socialism. Now, what else am I selling these guys? The markets. Markets. And AI. Okay, markets are really, this is really important. If you get on an airplane or a bus, or whatever, turn to the person next to you and ask them what they do.

And then what's going to happen is you're going to put a patchwork quilt together in your head of how capitalism really works and how the markets work. Free markets are just magical. They pull us all together. And, you know, some guy does a deal with somebody else. You know, some guy from India does a deal with somebody from China. You're benefiting. and you don't even know it.

And we all are benefiting. The iPhone, this iPhone that you all have, this is made up from geniuses from 80 different countries, and they've all added something new to it. And they've all done something, and it's helped you, and you don't even know it. So make a deal with someone, because when you make a deal with someone,

you're both better off. And let's say, you know, people go, oh, you know, that Bezos, whatever. And I think, oh, my God, I will kiss his feet. This guy is so extraordinary. He has made the most deals with anybody ever. I can push a button. I say I want a toothbrush.

And it shows up in four hours at my door. And that's all because Bezos made so many different deals. And we are all making deals all the time. And every time you make a deal, you're both better off. One of you spends money, the other one provides a service, you're both better off. Everybody benefits. And we are one big global patchwork quilt. And that is the way I see it, and that's the way I will always see it.

There's the one socialist he's leaving. He's got a door dash order. And Tim, finally, on AI for our audience, how do you think they should feel about it? Okay. You know, when electricity showed up, it was witchcraft. Nobody wanted to touch it. When the car arrived, all the saddle manufacturers and buggy whip manufacturers were so mad. They were spreading fear throughout the land.

These things are going to crash into each other. You don't want to have anything to do with it. when the computer came, first computers, they said, we'll never need another mathematician or another accountant. I'm not sure it's worked out that way. There are a lot of accountants out there. And when the internet came, you know, they were freaking out about the Melissa virus,

named after my way, that the Melissa virus was destroying everybody's computer because of Google had some virus in it. Nobody was going to put their credit card on that internet thing. But what have we done with the internet? Oh my God, we all communicate for free? I remember my daughter calling her boyfriend from Africa, and we had to pay $80 a minute for that call.

And now it's free. The whole thing's free. And you can see the boyfriend. She could have dumped him earlier. So all these things add up to AI. The sky is falling. We're going to lose all our jobs. We're going to, you know, the end of the world.

And even some of the guys who program in AI are saying, oh, this is going to take over all humanity. I think they think it's a little bit of hubris. It's like I can program software to completely eliminate the need for humans. But on the other hand, it's like, no way. way, we always come up with new things to do based on the tools available to us. AI is the coolest tool. It's so fantastic. I use AI every day in a hundred different ways. We have a data lake that spits out 550,000 companies, it spits out five companies a week.

And I go, let's look at that one and that one. And then it learns. It gets better. and then we use AI to evaluate companies. Even when they're sitting in the room, we kind of go competition to X, Y, Z Corp, and then I have something intelligent to ask them. Hey, well, what about this company? Tell me why you're better. In real time.

In real time. And then we can even do, you know, like check out this guy in AI, and it's all there. AI is basically, think about this, it's the Borg, it's basically the use of the 6 billion people that are connected and the knowledge base of 6 billion people. And it's learning and it's getting better and better and better. And God, it's amazing. It's really, don't tell all my friends, but it's really good for fantasy football.

Tim, before we wrap, I did want to give you credit for something because, you know, there's a critique or just an observation that venture capital has an unfairness element. You know, you have access to investment opportunities that others don't, but you've done two really great things to, you know, I mentioned earlier, we're intellectually generous. You're also generous with the opportunities you present. Draper University gives people the opportunity to join an accelerator program, and I've watched the video. They've come from 104 different countries. That's awesome. And the show, Meet the Draper's, you are just telling anybody who's willing to take a risk and come step up onto your platform.

You're giving them the real advice they need. In many cases, you're giving them a million-dollar checks to pursue their businesses. So it's really, really cool what you've done at this stage in your career. Just being very generous. But I'm not that generous. I don't give them the million-dollar investment. It's an investment. It's an investment.

And it's an investment in their stock in hopes that that stock becomes a big way. You're giving them an opportunity. And it started out. I was just grabbing anybody I could to get on that show. We were just trying to experiment, try it out. We tried it out with crowdfunding. And then the SEC came and knocked on my door. And I went, whoa, okay, I don't need crowdfunding.

But now we get about a thousand applications for every four slots we have on the show. So now the quality is. super great and it's a huge deal flow machine for us. So, you know, deal flow is kind of a insider term for the generosity that pays dividends. But Tim, it highlights something about you. We said at the beginning of the show that our guiding brand word is brighter, make our audience smarter and happier. And you're the ultimate optimist. I don't think we met anyone who's more optimistic than you about everything we just covered. So thank you for putting that out into the world. But before we let you go, we did have a few quick, rapid fire questions for you. Okay. Fire away. Okay, first.

The question can come fast. The answer may not. I'm a storyteller. This could go on for a while. Best brand you love. Best brand I love. Yeah. It's gone.

I mean, that's a tough one because here's what's rolling through my head. The first thing that came to mind was Apple, and that was really awesome. Because they've really, I remember the first Apple computer I bought, I opened it up, and everything was perfect and beautiful. And, you know, I thought Steve Jobs, this guy's fantastic. It was just welcome to the Apple community. It felt really good. You felt that brand.

And you knew what you were getting. And it was very positive. We did say rapid. So I think Apple is the answer. We'll go with Apple. Best restaurant in San Francisco. God, I haven't been to a restaurant in San Francisco for a lot. Oh, there was a great steak place.

Of course, I won't remember the name on it. I like the mystery. Who is the best business leader? We suspect they're going to say Elon, so someone else, because we've heard that answer before. Steve Jobs. And finally, what four-letter stock ticker would you be if you, Tim Draper, were a publicly traded company? H-E-R-O. Nice.

Nice. So, Tim, we like to end each of our stories. But the hero is not me. The hero is them. That'll be in the S-1. So, Tim, what's the takeaway on starting or funding the next $1 billion business? Be your own media company. Love your customer.

Do everything you can to make them happy and bend over backwards for them. Don't try to overcharge at the beginning. You can always get that later. And then make it so your customer loves you so much that. they can't help but spreading the word. So create a viral marketing effect. Tim, the DoorDash is ready. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for being part of the show. And thanks for everything you've done for so many people. Here, all together. Here we go. You got to give it a bell. Oh, we got to go. All right. Give it a good game.

There we go. There we go.