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Tim Draper

Founding Partner, Draper Associates · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderauthor@TimDraper ↗LinkedIn ↗timothydraper.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Tim Draper is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who founded Draper Associates, co-founded DFJ, and established Draper University. He is known for early-stage investments in companies including Tesla, Skype, Baidu, SpaceX, and Hotmail, alongside early backing of Bitcoin.

11statements → 6claims → 3claims resolved → 0%fully supported → 3.73/5average certainty → 2.64/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 47said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 2 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Tim argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Tim Draper: I created viral marketing by putting messages in Hotmail
“I created the idea to put a message at the bottom of everybody's email at Hotmail.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 19:44 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
25% certainty 4
0% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.8 · coherence 4.5 · precision 4.3 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 17 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

216 words/min while actually speaking · 32.7 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,905 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 85%

Everything Tim Draper said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tim Draper: Bitcoin is more secure than money at Goldman Sachs
“And Bitcoin now is, you know, my Bitcoin is more secure than money at Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 17:27 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tim Draper: Bitcoin and blockchain will disrupt venture capital like Uber
“All of these things, Bitcoin, the blockchain, there are going to be new technologies applied to venture capital just the way file sharing was applied to the music industry, or Uber was applied to the taxi industry. I think venture capital is going to be change…”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 5:45 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tim Draper predicts widespread Bitcoin adoption will occur by 2018
“Yeah, I think the adoption, I thought it would be three years and that was two years ago. It might be another two years because all of these entrepreneurs who have worked very hard to create uses for Bitcoin, those uses are starting to be adopted.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 16:57 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Assertion Contradicted
Tim Draper: I created viral marketing by putting messages in Hotmail
“I created the idea to put a message at the bottom of everybody's email at Hotmail.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 19:44 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Insight
Tim Draper: Aspiring VCs do not need prior entrepreneurial experience
“Some people are become very good venture capitalists just coming straight. I think if you want to be an entrepreneur, you should just go be an entrepreneur. If you want to be a venture capitalist, you should just go be a venture capitalist.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 3:22 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Disclosure
Tim Draper: We funded Tesla before Elon Musk took over
“And it was actually true of Martin Eberhard when we funded Tesla before Elon Musk came in and refund, refinanced it and took it over.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 9:16 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Opinion
Tim Draper: Elon Musk is very thoughtful, unassuming, and nice
“And he's very thoughtful. Unassuming, and one of the nicest guys out there.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 9:40 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Insight
Tim Draper: Enormously successful founders share enthusiastic but quiet confidence
“In all the cases of the greatest entrepreneurs, I think it's been enthusiastic, but quiet confidence that I see in the ones that became enormously successful.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 8:41 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Assertion Partly supported
Tim Draper: Bitcoin makes cross-border transfers almost free compared to fiat
“People, people spend 10 to 20% of their money just Moving it across. And if you use Bitcoin, it's almost free.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 16:44 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Assertion Contradicted
Tim Draper: Plug and Play founder Saeed Amidi created the first incubator
“Saeed Amidi, who has, who really put the first incubator together.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 20:50 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups
Disclosure
Tim Draper prefers investing in early two-to-three person teams
“I like investing when there are two or three people in the company and they have a really good mission. And that can be before they've gotten any revenue or just after.”
Tim Draper Feb 22, 2016 ▶ 6:43 20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Venture and Startups

The other half of the tape: Tim Draper's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 46 times in 10 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 26Emily Melton 6Beezer Clarkson 4Adam Draper 4Jason Calacanis 3Vlad Magdalin 1Steve Jurvetson 1Jeff Morris Jr. 1

Statements about Tim Draper, by other people (1)

Disclosure
Tim Draper hired Emily Melton at DFJ after a 10-minute interview
“I actually emailed a number of VCs. There were investors in a couple of the companies that I was thinking about joining, and one of those was Tim Draper, and he agreed to meet me, and I walked into a meeting. He was late, too, and I was extremely nervous. I ha…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 3:20 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0013225420162017201820192020202120222023episodesmentions
02420162017201820192020202120222023episodes it came up in
007.5215420162017201820192020202120222023episodesmentions per episode
2023 4 mentions in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 15 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
2016 24 mentions in 2 episodes 12 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Tim Draper on Investing In Tesla, The Best Pitch He Has Ever Seen & The Evolution of Feb 22, 2016 17m
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