Motion Blur

Today we’re interviewing Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, co-founders of 1517 Fund. We’ve long admired their distinctive approach to backing builders outside traditional paths, and brought them on to dig into how talent, capital, and company formation work when you deliberately look beyond credentials. 1517 backs dropouts, students, and deep-tech scientists at the very first checks stage—often before there’s a company at all.Danielle is a General Partner at 1517 and was on the founding team that designed and ran the Thiel Fellowship, after earlier founding Innovations Academy, a project-based learning charter school in San Diego. Her career has centered on helping unconventional young founders turn early sparks into real companies.Michael is a GP at 1517 and, alongside Danielle, helped lead the Thiel Fellowship before co-founding the fund. He’s also the author of Paper Belt on Fire, a book about funding outsiders and rethinking how progress happens. Grant can attest, it’s a fantastic read.Enjoy!🎙️ Podcast Links⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

The official State of Adventure presentation. Enjoy!🔗 Show Resource LinksThe official State of Adventure deckGrant’s tweet announcing the deckGrant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

This short bonus episode officially marks the one-year mark for Motion Blur.It’s been a great year, with a lot of highlights. We reflect on some of them and Hammad and Grant each share some exciting personal news.Enjoy! And Happy Halloween!🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

One more convo about the State of Adventure! This one is with our close friend Will Quist at Slow Ventures. Will had Grant on their podcast to riff on Adventure Capital, Narrative Warfare, and much more.Will is one of the sharpest minds in venture, and we’re excited for you to tune into this convo.Grant Gregory and Cantos just dropped a 286-slide deep tech mega-deck. They swap inside baseball on narrative warfare, the voting vs weighing machine, and why “precision” in deep tech labeling matters (Waymo ≠ TLM ≠ Shinkai ≠ Anduril). Grant shows his two most important slides: the Deep Tech Score (levels from SaaS to “OpenAI before Transformers existed”) and the “narrative violation” where hardware’s capital-to-outcome multiples beat software in the data he compiled. Chapters: 00:48 Who is Grant? A16Z American Dynamism team → Cantos 01:36 Why capital finally “got the plot” on hard tech 03:13 The two most important slides: Deep Tech Score + Narrative Violation 04:20 Hardware vs software: the capital-intensity myth, with data 05:59 Narrative warfare: voting machine vs weighing machine 06:38 Anointment dynamics; operating between fundamentals and momentum 07:28 Can founders learn the voting machine? Authenticity over mimicry 09:44 Defense FOMO, IBM-ification of venture, and pre-signal markets 14:18 Defense exits: only a few true fund-returners; multi-product is required 17:21 Deck feedback: founders want a real definition of “venture scale” 18:45 Deep Tech Score criteria: risk types, hypothesis legibility, market maturity 22:22 Why concentrated, full-stack investing matters in non-consensus areas 24:32 Non-VC capital in SpaceX/Tesla/Anduril: the uncomfortable truth 29:31 Business physics: power, supply chains, leverage in physical industries30:13 Will’s take: Automation is a terrible investment vs services on top32:10 Advice to founders: narrative warfare + slow convictionKeep in touch with Slow Ventures: X: https://x.com/slowConnect with WillConnect with Grant🔗 Show Resource LinksThe full YouTube video of the conversation, and the tweetGrant’s tweet announcing the deckGrant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

It’s officially out! Grant and Hammad discuss the takeaways and reception from the inaugural State of Adventure Capital deck.The presentation covers every aspect of American Dynamism Cinematic Universe, from capital inflows to dilution metrics, deep currents, and more. We dive into the meaning behind “Adventure Capital”, why the timing is right for these categories, and what investment opportunities exist for startups building in the physical world.In Grant’s words: This is something I’ve been wanting to do for 3 years now (ever since my a16z days), and the goal is to have this be an annual project in similar scope to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. An ambitious goal to be clear! But we believe we have a unique purview of the American Dynamism / Deep Tech / Hard Tech landscape, and are compiling all of our learnings together to share them with our founders, coinvestors, and other people in the cinematic universe. Our hope is that this will be a resource for everyone as they build in these categories.🔗 Show Resource Links​The official State of Adventure deck​Grant’s tweet announcing the deck​Grant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck🎙️ Podcast Links​Spotify​Apple Podcasts​⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠​Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:​Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠​Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

The state of all things Hard Tech, Deep Tech, and American DynamismAfter 9+ months of work, Grant has finished his inaugural State of Adventure Capital deck. And ahead of Grant’s presentation at the upcoming Cantos AGM, we’re giving Motion Blur listeners a special early listen.The presentation covers every aspect of American Dynamism Cinematic Universe, from capital inflows to dilution metrics, deep currents, and more. We dive into the meaning behind “Adventure Capital”, why the timing is right for these categories, and what investment opportunities exist for startups building in the physical world.In Grant’s words: This is something I’ve been wanting to do for 3 years now (ever since my a16z days), and the goal is to have this be an annual project in similar scope to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. An ambitious goal to be clear! But we believe we have a unique purview of the American Dynamism / Deep Tech / Hard Tech landscape, and are compiling all of our learnings together to share them with our founders, coinvestors, and other people in the cinematic universe. Our hope is that this will be a resource for everyone as they build in these categories.The State of Adventure will be formally released next week. Until then, enjoy this early version.🔗 Show Resource LinksGrant’s recent tweets on some of the slides from his deck🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Dan Gray, Head of Insights at Equidam, dives into the intricacies of venture capital and its pitfalls. He discusses how top firms concentrate reputation and capital, potentially sidelining unconventional founders. From the perspective of LPs, Dan explores the dynamics of portfolio risk and the debate over whether VC behaviors stem from collusion or incentives. He also emphasizes the importance of 'legibility' in startups and shares insights on emerging managers and innovative funding strategies. Listen for his hot takes on shaping the future of venture.

“It’s good to be back!” — Tony StarkWe are finally back after a long summer hiatus. Grant and Hammad discuss some exciting personal news, as well as what’s in the pipeline for the next few episodes of Motion Blur.Enjoy! 🔗 Show Resource LinksGrant’s recent tweets on some of the slides from his deck🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Today we’re talking about a topic we get asked about at least once every week: capital as a moat. Should you raise a billion dollars? Should you bootstrap?Grant opens the debate by discussing the merits of durability and the idiosyncrasies of building in different categories. We dig more into Parker Conrad’s tweet about venture backed competition potentially eating your lunch, and Hammad then steps in to discuss his thoughts on capital as acceleration and the quality of leadership.This discussion plays off of many of our prior episodes: chicken sexing, anointment, the hedonic treadmill, and more. Ultimately, capital can be a powerful accelerant in the hands of disciplined leadership, and it’s contingent upon founders (and their investors) to make the most of it. Enjoy! 🔗 Show Resource LinksStrategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. AmazonParker Conrad TweetRavens GM on the NFL Draft TweetRic Elias of Red Ventures on The Drive Podcast (a top recommendation from Grant)🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

We are back after a short summer break! Our first order of business, commodity companies. But not the ones you’re thinking of, we’re talking about businesses that make and sell commodities.Most investors shy away from commodities because they imply heightened competition and structurally lower margins (and returns). But there are benefits – commodities imply massive scale, and many of the incumbents are huge as a result. Which begs the question, can startups break into these markets and capture some of the upside?Grant believes there’s real opportunity to do just that within in the American Dynamism Cinematic Universe. Companies like Shinkei, Solugen, and others are finding ways to provide products at structurally different cost profiles, and that opens the door to large outcomes.We wrap up the podcast by exploring how Hammad thinks about the topic and how it relates to software companies.🔗 Show Resource LinksShinkeiSolugen🎙️ Podcast LinksSpotifyApple Podcasts⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠Subscribe🌀 About Motion BlurExploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.Learn more about the hosts:Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa VenturesIntro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠