Why Tim Draper is Tim Draper?
I just came back from the tech event Collision’19 in Toronto last week, got a great deal of learning and had many thought-provoking discussions.
One of the encounters was with the venture capitalist Tim Draper, who was behind the investments of Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, Baidu, and a few other names.
Tim has been in the VC business for 33 years, and is still going strong. He’s been a big proponent for cryptocurrency and blockchain lately. His view: Bitcoin is a form of “apolitical” currency, once more people realize that, “political” currencies will see their values diminish to oblivion.
That’s of course a strong statement hard for many to accept, but given his experiences in the tech space, it’s something worth considering.
However, I’d like to share a side story while meeting Tim. As I wanted to know his feedback for Joint Commonwealth Fund (JCF), which is our crypto index fund to realize Universal Basic Income (UBI) from the private sector, I tried to spend as much time as I could to meet him.
We had an exhibition booth on Day 3 of the event. Out of so many booths, Tim actually drifted to ours by chance on his way towards the Center Stage.
Although I met Tim before at last year’s WebSummit and even had a couple of chats, he knew my face but had forgotten what we were doing. I tried to explain again.
“So you’re a non-profit!” Tim proclaimed, and started to walk to the next booth. I was surprised as we obviously are setup as a company and intend to operate as one. But he got the impression that we’re not a for profit entity and thus wasn’t interested to learn more.
To be sure, we do have a “social mission”, but we do take a capitalistic approach where we ask people to invest on the blockchain/crypto trend, to accumulate wealth and then redistribute the profit so it won’t be just another “rich gets richer” tool, but accessible to ordinary people.
So I wanted to seek his second opinion, and waited for him after one of his talks was over.
This time I was part of a long line of people wanting to speak to him, and soon enough I had my turn.
This time I asked him about what he thought was “wrong” about our design. “I’m not fully convinced UBI is the solution,” said Tim. He was referring to the fact that our main goal, should the project succeed, is to realize UBI by the private sector.
As there was a long line behind me, he indicated that he might need to talk to the rest of the line.
Now I understand that as a VC, Tim is probably looking ways to profit handsomely from investments, which is of course sensible. Social benefits is “nice to have” but not “must have”. If the company won’t achieve handsome profits (or user base), likely it’ll fall outside of his interest.
But I still wanted to know exactly what he thought was wrong with UBI. So I decided to wait for him, until he finished talking to all the people in line.
That was a turning point, as it gave me a rare opportunity to observe Tim up close and learn more of his work and a little bit of his life.
Basically, I stood besides him (perhaps a bit awkwardly) and watch him talk with one after another. Though I didn’t fully hear or understand all, I had some shares of the content. But the thing that impressed me the most was: Tim stood there for the next 1.5 hour!
Tim was been a real gentleman, and allowed everyone who desired to talk to him a chance (some also wanted a photo). While standing sides him, my back was already aching, though he showed no signs of discomfort.
During this time, I also witnessed how a girl, who spoke to Tim once, came back a second time (perhaps seeing I was waiting too), and expressed interest to work for him. Tim immediately did a quick interview on her background and mentioned her to send in the resume.
I don’t know if that girl will get the job (though she was certainly very glamorous, with a dance major and economic minor), but I did see first hand how being proactive will land you with good opportunities.
As Tim finally finished and walked towards the speakers’ lounge for lunch, we chatted.
“Thank you very much and I’ve got deep respect for your patience in talking to everyone,” I said.
“I know what your job is like, now you know what my job is like!” Tim joked.
Tim then explained his main concern about UBI is that with the money people get, they might waste it on drugs or other things unproductive to life improvement.
I listened, though I hadn’t the chance to explain hat, under our design, such thing is unlikely to happen, as we’re not trying to spread UBI to “everyone”, just those within a small community.
JCF would enable passive/basic income first within a small community who mostly know the people who’ll benefit from the redistribution (family and friends, or organizations the investors would like to support).
However, it was good enough, to learn of Tim’s main concerns, and also got his impression about our project.
“Shun-Yun!” he called out from my name tag as we parted, as if trying to remember. He then disappeared into the speaker lounge.
So why Tim is Tim? I learned of his secrets that day.
With his experience and status, he didn’t have to do what he did that day at all. He didn’t have to walk over to booths of the small “alpha-stage” startups, he didn’t have to stand there for 1.5 hours with possibly some back pain. He could’ve let his team do all that for him.
Yet he did all that himself.
That’s impressive. And it showed that Tim really has curiosity, an apprentice’s mind, and a genuine desire to learn, about the latest happening, about what young people are thinking and doing.
That’s why I believe he ended up investing in all those great companies such as Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, and Baidu, and why he’s still a VC going strong, even after 33 years in the business.
If I learned anything that day, is that I’d like to be like an apprentice, even after 20, 30, 40 years in the same business. So that I’ll always be learning, growing, and perhaps still able to contribute.
Just like Tim.
