Motion Blur13 Nov 2025

Michael Gibson & Danielle Strachman – 1517, The Thiel Fellowship, and Finding Outliers

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!

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🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring 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, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠
Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If 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 Harrison⁠⁠⁠

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