The episode features Delian Asparouhov, partner at Founders Fund (self-described "village idiot"), co-founder of Varda Space Industries, and former chief of staff to Keith Rabois at Khosla Ventures.

Delian discusses his contrarian approach to venture capital, including his open disdain for AI investing despite its dominance in Silicon Valley, and his focus on "atoms over bits" - building companies that affect the physical world.

The conversation explores Delian's decision-making philosophy of focusing on only 2-4 truly important things per year, his experience leading Hadrian's Series C as essentially his only meaningful 2024 investment, and the long feedback loops inherent in Varda's space manufacturing business.

Delian shares stories about his public seven-year campaign against Benchmark for firing Travis Kalanick, his formative years working 24/7 with Keith Rabois, and the existential FAA crisis that nearly killed Varda but taught him the importance of working on something you truly care about.

The 2-4 Things That Matter Per Year Philosophy

Delian forces himself to focus on a very limited set of priorities, recognizing that at certain career stages, adding more activities doesn't create more impact - "there were like a multitude of things that I could do throughout the day that in theory could have impact but if I tried to do all of them I would just run out of hours in the day"

Early career required 996 work ethic because there was no one else to create motion, but as responsibilities grew, the job became about directing motion rather than creating it through individual effort

In Q1 2024, Delian identified Hadrian as his single priority - a portfolio company going through an inflection point with tens of millions in revenue and improving unit economics, requiring a decision on leading their Series C

Despite initial skepticism from Founders Fund colleagues ("limited time, these economics are really hard, cutting metal, what's the differentiation?"), Delian spent months digging into critiques and convinced the entire team to lead the round

"Reflecting on it at the end of the year, it's probably the only important thing that I did at Founders Fund basically the entire year" - Delian on the Hadrian Series C being his sole meaningful 2024 investment

Delian maintains gaps in his calendar rather than filling every moment with activity, recognizing that free space allows for reflection on what truly matters - "sometimes it's in those gaps where I just have the time to sit and reflect"

Varda's 12-18 Month Decision Cycles

Varda's government business requires choosing which customers to serve 12-18 months before actual flights happen, fundamentally different from fast-feedback software businesses

End of year involves critical decisions about customer mix - "you may end up over rotating too much on commercial and then there's not enough demand there or you don't do enough commercial and you have too much demand and customers are frustrated"

Delian's co-founder is a systems engineer who requires extreme precision ("each bolt on a Varda satellite has to an exact amount of torque bolted onto it"), creating tension with Delian's disorganized approach

"There'll be a quarter where he just gets frustrated with me where he's like you've just been completely disorganized this quarter... and then it's like 3 weeks ago I closed the biggest deal the company's ever had" - Delian on complementary co-founder dynamics

Keith Rabois Chief of Staff Masterclass

Keith Rabois hired Delian as chief of staff from 2017-2019 with zero formal onboarding - "here's my calendar, I expect you there at every meeting, just figure out how to make yourself useful"

Delian attended every meeting 24/7 including Max Levchin's Affirm board meetings, Coastal Ventures GP pitches, and watched partners like Venod, Samir, David Weiden, Keith, and Sven debate businesses

Got exposure from Fair's first seed-stage board meeting all the way through to when the company reached $1.5 billion valuation, watching the entire journey compressed into two years

"I got this insane exposure across so many different elements of startup building in such a compressed period of time... not sure that I've ever have or will learn that amount in two years ever again" - Delian

The Seven-Year Benchmark Vendetta

Within months of joining Founders Fund, Delian publicly criticized Benchmark in a Business Insider interview for how they fired Travis Kalanick from Uber

"Travis's mom died in a boating accident, dad got critically injured, and basically 24 hours later two Benchmark partners cornered him in a hotel room in Chicago when he was still processing his depth of grief and made him sign papers that gave over control"

Delian received a call from a Founders Fund GP warning that Benchmark partners didn't like him anymore, but was told "it is kind of the ethos of the fund" so he continued poking the bear every six months for seven years

In 2024, Benchmark partner Chetan finally responded after Delian critiqued Bill Gurley for "going to China on a regular basis and being basically a commie spy"

Chetan tried to call out hypocrisy because a Delian portfolio company raised from Sequoia China, but Delian responded: "you fundamentally misunderstood the message - at Founders Fund we do not tell portfolio companies how to run their companies, so yes this person decided to sign a term sheet with a Chinese VC but unlike you I'm not going to fire him for it"

Why AI Bores Him and Atoms Matter

"I just find AI so boring and not interesting... I just want to work in the world of atoms" - Delian openly admits wishing AI would fail so people stop talking about it

Delian hasn't made a Bay Area investment in 5.5 years despite working from Founders Fund's Presidio office, staying west of the panhandle and avoiding the east side of the city entirely

"If you told me Delian you need to go invest in a Series A AI application layer company, join the board, tweet about it and be super enthused, I'd be like I literally just go jump out that window instead"

Delian admires Peter Thiel's ability to strip away biases and invest capitalistically even in areas he doesn't personally like, recognizing his own inability to do the same with AI

The same bias existed in 2019 when Delian didn't enjoy SaaS software - "I just keep wanting to affect the real world" even though AI might become a major lever for affecting the physical world

Space Manufacturing Economics and China Competition

Delian obsesses over how "the invisible hand of the free market is going to drive humanity to the stars much more so than anything else" and whoever wins (US, China, or third party) will dominate the solar system for remaining human history

Varda's strategy is tapping into markets larger than space itself - "the R&D budget of a Merck is larger than the entire NASA budget" so a single pharma company could have more impact on space economy than NASA

Success metric for Varda: when manufacturing facilities become large enough that it's economically justifiable to send humans to do maintenance because "the amount it costs to send that person up there costs less than the total value they generate by improving the output of the factory"

"That's how we make sure the first city in low earth orbit is a free democratic republic run by America not by a Chinese communist genocidal dictatorship" - Delian on Varda's ultimate mission

China takes a state-driven approach but still connects to economic value through in-space manufacturing on their space station and bringing back lunar samples to study ice, rare earth minerals, and helium-3

Most valid remaining critique of Varda is the "why not SpaceX" thesis - SpaceX announced Starfall program (leaked by Wall Street Journal) for smaller reusable autonomous re-entry capsules planned for 2027

Delian argues pharmaceutical manufacturing requires 15 PhDs along the supply chain (crystallization scientists, process engineers, bioreactor makers, FDA approval experts) - "it's just not a thing any other company is going to do for a very long time"

The FAA Crisis That Defined Varda

Varda faced an existential crisis when the FAA essentially banned them from bringing their capsule back down to Earth with no clear regulatory path forward

The company had raised $145 million, employed 65-70 people, and had significant reputation on the line - "there was not even a plan for a plan" within the regulatory framework

Delian panicked for 4-5 days, initially falling into the same depression pattern from his first company: "I was like well screw this, I don't even like the idea that much, why am I even bothering, I'm just going to be depressed"

"What the hell am I doing? It's my life's work. This is the thing that I care about. If this thing fails I don't know what else I would work on. I've had one idea in my entire life and it's going to be this"

After picking himself up, Delian's solution was firing everyone involved in the decision to ban Varda - "eventually every single person that was involved in that decision is now no longer working for the government"

The crisis taught Delian that caring deeply about your work matters because "in that existential crisis you'll pick yourself up and do the radically difficult thing" - took 6 months to get the capsule back and remove those officials

Peter Thiel's Contrarian Interview Question

During dinner before Delian joined Founders Fund, Peter pushed hard on whether Delian was truly a founder versus investor, discussing measures of impact including net worth

Peter pointed out that while the very top of the Forbes 100 are entrepreneurs (Elon, Zuckerberg, Gates), "the remaining 97 are actually largely capital allocators" - suggesting if you want top 0.1% impact, default path is capital allocation not founding

When EV (now GP at Benchmark) suggested during COVID that Founders Fund team members should incubate companies given reduced deployment, Peter gave the strongest pushback Delian had ever seen

"These things are really hard to do, they only happen in special moments, I want to intentionally set a very high bar on internal company building because it's such huge opportunity cost relative to continuing capital allocation" - Peter's philosophy

Peter's early questioning was preview of him supporting Varda but also "pushing back on Varda way more than an average investment" to test Delian's conviction since investors are so valuable to the team

Personal Brand Without Trying

Delian's personal brand came naturally rather than through strategic planning - "it's not a thing that I prioritize or think about, it's just a thing that comes naturally to me"

Early breakout moment was posting long-form essays about Keith Rabois - "I do think there's something around long form writing that can be truly differentiated rather than just short form"

Had an OKR to tweet once per day back in 2018-2019 when trying to break out, but now often deletes the Twitter app and tries to tweet as little as possible because "I just find the ecosystem annoying"

Despite trying to stay off Twitter, Delian couldn't resist responding when Benchmark's Chetan tweeted at him - "literally I deleted Twitter, paid a bet on whether I could stay off for the entire week, and then four people texted me Chetan's tweet"

Burning Bridges and Having Beliefs

"If everybody likes you, it probably means nobody actually likes you because there's nothing you really stand for" - Delian on the importance of having core beliefs

Delian doesn't advocate leaving jobs without two weeks notice, but also doesn't think careers should be about networking with everyone and being universally liked

"Do I think Benchmark is going to hire me? No. But there's a whole set of funds and LPs that really like me for the fact that I consistently stand up for founders even when it comes with professional consequences"

"If you come up with your own belief system and feel like hey this doesn't actually make anybody hate me, I think it's just not an interesting enough belief system - there should be people that hate you for your beliefs"

Waffle Boy Summer and Class Empathy

Summer before Thiel Fellowship, Delian had been a professional programmer with great salary but decided to work as a dishwasher and waffle maker at a mom-and-pop restaurant

"I could clearly just do programming for the rest of my life and be very comfortable... but if I never do a food service low-income job, I'm never going to have deep empathy for what I consider actually sometimes the most difficult work"

Owner would critique Delian for being too much of a storyteller: "I'd explain the whole history of Belgium and the waffles and how we make them, and he'd be like just sell the waffle man, there's a line behind them"

During busy farmers market rushes, Delian struggled so badly making waffles that the owner had to step in: "you're clearly messing up the waffles so badly that we're so far behind, I'm going to do the hard job and you do the easy job"

When Delian mentioned potentially working during the school year, owner responded: "you should just go back to school, I think we're about to fire you anyway" [laughter]