E12: Dropping out of MIT to Thiel Fellowship, Founders Fund and Space Factories w/ Delian Asparouhov

New Year’s Eve special: I recorded this one at the Founders Fund office on Nov 6, 2024, right after election day. It was originally scheduled to be over zoom but I read Delian’s blog post called “Thirty Observations at Thirty” where one of the things he talked about was prioritizing in-person whenever possible so I decided to make the trip to Miami.

Delian dropped out of MIT, became a Thiel Fellow, a program with ~300 fellows who have started companies valued at over $750B. I saw a chart according to which Thiel Fellowship has a 5.9% unicorn hit rate, which probably makes it the best program for entrepreneurs ever. We will cover this story with friend of the pod Danielle Strachman who built the program in Q1 2026 but for now, sharing a tweet below to sum it up:

He interned at Square $XYZ when it was around ~100 employees, got to see Jack Dorsey at work and got to meet operators like Kieth Rabois who he would go on to work with at Khosla Ventures. This would turn out to be an apprenticeship that put him on the path to be one of the best seed investors in the industry.

His record as a seed investor:

Ramp is now valued at $32B, Hadrian and Sword are also unicorns and Varda is going to be probably be the biggest among them. (Disclaimer: I am a proud tiny shareholder in the company)

The narrative around why college doesn’t work at least in my echo chamber is well understood but I wanted to ask Delian what college was actually useful for so we had a conversation around that.

We also talk about that, the experience at Square, what led to the apprenticeship with Kieth Rabois, learning cult building and the very Silicon Valley like pay-it-forward culture of mentoring from the college fraternity and up-skilling for Varda Space among other things.

Delian on the incredible access and opportunity of working with Kieth as his chief of staff of sorts:

“Maybe you have to get a diet coke or coffee but you get to be in an Affirm board meeting with Max Levchin”

Happy New Year and hope you enjoy!

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro00:30 - Writing and Flow State05:12 - Dropping Out 12:13 - What MIT was good for20:16 - Early days at Square25:16 - Parents reaction to joining Thiel Fellowship29:44 - Transferrable skills from frat days34:02 - Lessons from Keith Rabois45:15 - Building Varda52:58 - How Mafias are built57:53 - Culture at Varda

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