The Invisible College is an idea/R&D stage investment program that 1517 is launching this summer and fall to support founders who would rather build than go to school in the fall. To be considered for the Invisible College, you must: * Be in North America * Have at least 1 member of your team with no undergraduate degree * Plan on working full-time on your company Learn more at 1517fund.com/post/invisible-college Apply at 1517fund.com/take-action
Alex Gladstein joins 1517 Fund for a 1517 at Home conversation about how Bitcoin protects human rights, its applications around the world, and the coming death of cash that totalitarian and authoritarian regimes world over want to accelerate. Alex is the Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation and the Oslo Freedom Forum and the co-author of The Little Bitcoin Book. To request an invite to a future 1517 at Home conversation, visit 1517fund.com/at-home.
Ryan Kulp is a self-taught developer, marketer, musician, founder of Fomo and Fork Equity, and the author of Fitness for Hackers. He joins a live audience of the 1517 Community to discuss how the hacker mindset can be applied to fitness, nutrition, and how he stays accountable to constant learning in his personal development. Mentioned during the conversation: Nassim Nicholas Taleb Indistractible by Nir Eyal Switch by Chip and Dan Heath Nick Winter Ryan's Twitter Ryan's personal website Fitness for Hackers If you would like to join as the live audience during a future 1517 At Home, please request an invite to a future session here.
There are at least 12 identifiable Dark Ages in the recorded history of human civilization. Although we are all fascinated with the idea of the collapse of civilization, have we considered why civilizations actually collapse? Join Samo Burja, founder of Bismarck Analytics and research fellow at LongNow, to explore the causes behind civilizational collapse and how people like yourself can stay ahead of the curve. You can follow Samo on twitter @samoburja. Suggested readings from Samo: “Annoyance or Armageddon?” “Intellectual Dark Matter” “On the Loss and Preservation of Knowledge” “Institutional Failure as Surprise” Suggested Book: 1777 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed
Why do economic bubbles happen? Historically, theorists have proposed competing theories like the efficient market hypothesis, the easy money theory, and a “heroes and villains” theory. In this workshop and roundtable discussion we explored the mimetic desire theory of bubbles. Based on Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, the mimetic theory of bubbles states that bubbles arise not from copying behavior, but from copying desire. Byrne Hobart (@byrnehobart)is a finance and technology analyst and writer. His career spans working as an investment analyst at large-scale hedge funds and as a research provider to digital marketing, strategy, and business development at media conglomerates and startups. His writing and research interests cover economic history, technology trends, the startup industry, and applied finance. He has been cited and quoted across business and technology publications like Stratechery, Techcrunch, NPR, and the New York Times. His newsletter is at diff.substack.com. This is part of the 1517 At Home series of live workshops. You can request an invite at 1517fund.com/at-home.
We give some updates for our subscribers on our new podcast, Founders First, what we'll be doing on this podcast soon, and some new distribution channels we have.
Frederick Turner is a poet, philosopher and the Founders Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has authored more than two dozen poetry books and philosophical treatises. With Genesis and Apocalypse, he revived the epic poem by turning to science fiction and in his research, he has explored the nature of time, cosmology, evolution, and self-organizing complex systems. He joins Subversion to discuss how to heal the divide between science and the arts through metaphor, poetry, and understanding the philosophical foundations of this divide.
Mark Lutter is the founder and executive director of the Center for Innovative Governance, where he studies, advocates for, and helps build charter cities across the globe. He joins Michael Gibson to discuss what charter cities are, why you would want to start one, how to start one, and what the future of charter cities looks like. Visit medium.com/1517 for show notes and additional info on this month's episode.
Devon Zuegel (@devonzuegel) joins Michael Gibson (@WilliamBlake) to discuss urbanism, the life and death of great cities, NIMBYism vs. YIMBYism, and why cities like San Francisco make it hard to build new housing.
Jason Brennan joins Michael and Zak for the 23rd installment of Subversion. He is the author of When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice and has a radical conclusion from common-sense principles: The conditions under which you can defend yourself from state actors are exactly the same as the conditions under which you can defend yourself from private actors. In other words: "Self-defense is the same for everybody."
Balaji Srinivasan is the CTO of Coinbase and the cofounder of Earn.com (formerly 21.co). He joined the 1517 Fund Assembly in October, 2017 to make the case for escaping the ire of mobs by earning money pseudonymously and living in low cost-of-living regions. You can find a video of his talk on YouTube under "Balaji Srinivasan at the 1517 Assembly."
David Gornoski is a scholar of Rene Girard and a talk radio host in the Orlando, Florida area. He joins Subversion to discuss what founders and those interested in technology can learn from Rene Girard and Christianity. “By using media to expose unjust persecution of scapegoats, we can build energy to look for alternative solutions to sacrifice. And those alternative solutions from sacrifice are actually what make science progress.” Resources mentioned: David's YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/DavidGornoski The Key to Move from Imitation to Differentiation: https://hrfloridareview.org/magazine/magazine-archives/item/683-the-key-to-move-from-imitation-to-differentiation-how-mimetic-theory-unlocks-the-workplace
Thiel Fellow Josh Sakhai on Funding Pre-Product, Startup Media, and Disappearing Tattoos Josh Sakhai is the cofounder and CEO of Ephemeral Tattoos and a 2018 Thiel Fellow. He joins Subversion to discuss how he’s raised millions of dollars before taking his product to market. We also discuss how to fund your company without giving up equity. Some key takeaways: Fundraising is always hard. Exhaust as many resources for free money as you can. Even consider universities that you don’t go to. Talk to mentors and friends. Warm intros will be a lot more powerful than cold outreach. Stay SUPER-organized. When did you first talk to the investor? Who introduced you? How warm are they? Do you need to follow up with them? When was the last time you spoke? Media is less important than you think. It will mostly just make you feel bad about yourself. Recommended resources: Venture Deals, by Brad Field and Jason Mendelson Blogs: Alex Dispol - Techstars NYC - https://alexiskold.net Mark Suster - Upfront Ventures - https://bothsidesofthetable.com
Greg Schroy is an investor with Locke Mountain Ventures and the cofounder of nTopology, a 1517 Fund portfolio company. He joins the podcast to talk about what it's like being an angel investor and how you, as a founder, can do your due diligence on investors.
Micah Green is a Thiel Fellow and the founder, CEO, and president of Maidbot. He joins Subversion to talk about what it's like founding a hardware company, selling to Fortune 500 companies, and moving his team to Austin, TX in order to grow the company.
Marie Schneegans is the founder and CEO of Never Eat Alone (NeverEatAlone.io), an app that helps employees meet each other at major companies. She runs her company from Paris, France. Marie joins Subversion to talk about what it's like to start a company in a country typically not known for its startup culture, and how her company does business in Europe and the United States simultaneously.
Joe Thomas, CEO and co-founder of Loom (useLoom.com) joins Subversion to talk about building a consumer-facing product, pivoting from a totally different kind of product, and how Loom got their first traction by launching on Product Hunt.
Shriya Nevatia joins Subversion with 1517 to discuss how startups and founders can do customer discovery research and UX research. Shriya studied Computer Science at Tufts University and got into UX Design through Human Factors Engineering, the General Assembly UX Design course, and the social entrepreneurship program Project Breaker. She did UX Research at the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and was a UX Intern at Pegasystems. She was the first employee at TenXList, later called Assembled, where she led UX Design for 4 product launches. Over the past 3 years, she's taught a 1-hour "Intro to UX Design" workshop at 10 hackathons for high school and college students.
Tam Pham is the author of two books and a 1517 Community member. He joins Subversion with 1517 to discuss how a young person, even a dropout with no formal credentials, can land their dream internship, can build an influential network, and can overcome a victim mentality.
Nick Arnett, 1517 Fund's Community Partner, joins for Part II of his conversation on getting taken seriously as a young person, starting a highly technical nonprofit without much technical experience, and how to get started outside of the Bay Area.