The Exchanges

Q In the first example you gave for Dylan Field, you mentioned a couple questions that you would have to assess the founders at the time. Do you remember the questions you would ask to assess them? Cause I know it was like, it was quirky. It was a little weird. Like, What were those questions?

A There were a number of questions. There were questions on the application, and then there were questions that actually we had in the, in the finalist round. So I'll go over some of the application questions. Um, at the time when Dylan was applying, we actually did ask for SAT scores, uh, and things like that. I'm not a huge fan of standardized tests as like a creativity indicator. It might tell you about some horsepower. Um, but I also think you might negate looking at certain people Uh, just based off a score like that. And Dylan was really interesting because the way he answered that SAT question was, this isn't important or like, this isn't relevant is what he wrote. And for me, I was like, yes, this is great that he's saying it. Um, cause I wasn't yet ready to go to battle on that question of like, should we take it off or not? And then we had a second question, um, which was sort of like what has almost become like, Farcical at this point, but at the time, no one was asking questions like this, which is, what's something you believe to be true that no one else believes? Like, what's your contrarian truth?

AI assessment note: “what's something you believe to be true that no one else believes?”

Q Could you explain the structure of the fellowship a little bit more?

A So the fellowship structure was that we were offering 20 young people a 100,000 dollars to work on a project of their choosing. And we use the word project a lot because we didn't have it as startup or only research or only nonprofit could be like any of the above. Um, the conditions were that they couldn't be in school. Um, you know, they couldn't have like a full, they couldn't be like employed somewhere working. Um, maybe someone who would mentor even do a little bit of interning somewhere to, uh, get their chops up in a subject, but we really wanted them to be working on their own things. And the whole idea was we were saying, Hey, the cost of college is so prohibitive. What if we gave a young person what they might spend on school and say, Hey, you're going to be self-educated. You're going to drive your future forward and we're going to give you the resources to do so. And then within the fellowship itself, I come from the homeschooling world and in the homeschooling world, everything is about the individual who is in front of you. It's not about saying, Hey, here's a class of 20 fellows and we're going to treat them all the same. It's about catering individually and figuring out, Hey, who do we need to connect this fellow to? Um, you know, to help them move forward and, and go the distance. So a lot of it has that sort of homeschooling feel to it of we would work with ea…

AI assessment note: “we were offering 20 young people a 100,000 dollars to work on a project”

Q why we've trusted fourth wall for all of our brandware at Sorcery since day one. Use my link in the description to get free credits for your first order. And for any VCs DM me on X and I can get all your portfolio companies set up with a free samples credit deal. I'd love to hear from you. How did you first get involved and what was that like?

A Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, let's see. I got a phone call one day. And the phone call was from a woman named Lindy Fishburne, who worked at the Teal Foundation. And I picked up, and her exact words to me were, Danielle, the foundation has lost their minds. They're starting this new program. They have nobody running it, and you have to get over here. And I had seen the announcement, uh, I think it was the day before on TechCrunch Disrupt. Peter did an interview with Sarah Lacey, and it looked like the program was all fleshed out and speaking about it in the present tense. And previous to the fellowship, I had been a charter school leader and founder, and it takes a lot of operations work to get a charter school off the ground. So sometimes we, uh, assume what we had to do for something else might be similar elsewhere, but this was not the case. And Peter had, Uh, the idea for the fellowship, launched it immediately, and then we got to build it together thereafter. Um, but, uh, but yeah, that first phone call was really amazing, because I remember seeing the interview and thinking, wow, this sounds really right up my alley, a perfect thing, but I had assumed that they had a team and a staff and everything like that. I interviewed, uh, that same week with Jonathan Cain, who is the president of the Teal Foundation, And what I loved about interviewing there or that interview was that it was …

AI assessment note: “I got a phone call one day. And the phone call was from a woman”

Q If the Teal Fellowship has one, and I'm sure many would argue that it has, and Dropping out is now acceptable. Going your own path is acceptable. What comes next?

A Well, I think in general, just younger people being taken seriously is sort of what comes next, like even younger. Um, so sometimes people will ask me, especially with 1517, where do you want it to be in 15 years and where do you want that to look like? And I tell people I want to be funding eleven-year-olds, um, because I think they're incredibly creative and interesting and can be starting things earlier. Um, so I think it's helping to show people that the barrier to entry on getting started Doesn't need to be even when you're 18 anymore. It can be quite a bit younger than that. Um, I think the fellowship does open up The field for other people to start fellowships. I was talking to, uh, a woman in Brazil who's starting basically an iterative Teal Fellowship project there that actually, uh, she just got 600 applicants in for in Brazil. Like, this is pretty amazing, uh, and is starting a new program, and so I love to see that spreading, like, hey, this is, like, getting really out and really global at this point. Um, so I think it's just giving more people permission, and even today, I ran into someone who's running like a climate, uh, program and they said, uh, like, and we were talking and they were like, oh, your work has influenced so much of what I'm doing because we're bringing in people who are younger, who don't have degrees or people who have maybe gotten their degree…

AI assessment note: “just younger people being taken seriously is sort of what comes next, like even younger.”

Q Yeah. So I'm curious from your, from your point of view, what do you think the biggest impacts are to venture capital and the tech ecosystem in general?

A Well, I mean, certainly younger people are getting taken more seriously. Um, which is something that we always wanted to see. This is why we stepped aside from our roles at the foundation in 2015 and started 1517, because we couldn't find that many investors who would take a young person seriously and say, and at the time, and this has changed over time, there was a lot of lip service to young talent in Silicon Valley, but usually back in like 2010 through 20 15, even, even through 2020, usually what that meant was come work at my portfolio company, not I want to give you money. Um, and so I think the outcomes of the fellows have shown people, hey, this is an investable asset class. Like these people are interesting and deserving of being taken seriously. Um, I do still think that too many people in venture are interested in looking for where, you know, where did you go to school? Where do you have an internship? Things like that. Um, but I'm liking seeing that younger people are getting more access to resources.

AI assessment note: “certainly younger people are getting taken more seriously.”

Q Yeah. I think it's great. Okay. So as we close out, what are you most looking forward to for the next year?

A One of the things that we've come to learn over time is that spending unstructured time with people is a huge, um, value add in terms of getting to know people over time. Um, and just building relationships with people before you end up funding them is a great way to get to know folks. And so We're doing our first, like, larger camp, actually an all ages camp. We're calling it 1517 Unplugged. It's happening in September, and I'm really excited to see what comes out of it, because from past events we used to do at the Teal Foundation and the Teal Summits and things like that, we would hear these outcomes from people like, oh, I met my co-founder at that summit, or, you know, I met my, like, dearest friends at this, and we're still friends to this day, or, like, we've built companies together, and I'm very curious to see what comes out of Putting people in this, like, unplugged sort of nature environment for 36 hours and just getting to actually be with each other instead of sort of the FOMO of running around the city with there's seven things happening tonight, and I'm gonna try to go to all seven and things like that, so I'm, I'm excited to do some, I'm, like, I love programming, like, I love building these types of environments for people and seeing what comes out of them, uh, so that's one thing. I'm really excited seeing younger and younger people working on Uh, sci-fi tech.…

AI assessment note: “We're doing our first, like, larger camp... We're calling it 1517 Unplugged.”