Strachman looks for 'hyperfluency' when evaluating young technical founders
Danielle Strachman · Inside the $750B+ Thiel Fellowship · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea · Aug 29, 2025 · at 39:23
Danielle Strachman, co-founder of 1517 Fund and former Thiel Fellowship director, outlines the primary communication trait she looks for when evaluating young deep tech founders.
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“There's a trait that we look for that we call hyperfluency, and All the old Teal fellows had it. People like Dylan and Vitalik and Laura and now our new founders that we work with, some of which who have become fellows, people like Augustus from Rainmaker, Ethan from Mock and Human from Solkoa as examples. They have this deep, deep passion in an area and they can talk backward and forwards about it all day, all night. And there's an additional quality where they can scaffold their language so they can talk to the geekiest geek in their area, but they can also talk to just anybody about what they're doing. And we find that particular trait is a very high indicator.”
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