Uncapped #53 | Trae and Delian from Founders Fund
About this episode
Trae Stephens and Delian Asparouhov from Founders Fund discuss their unique culture, market concerns, and the challenges in the semiconductor industry.
Trae Stephens is a Partner at Founders Fund and co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense technology company building autonomous systems for the U.S. military and its allies. As of May 2026, Anduril is valued at $61 billion. Prior to co-founding Anduril, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he led teams focused on the intelligence and defense space. Delian Asparouhov is a Partner at Founders Fund and co-founder and President of Varda Space Industries, a company manufacturing pharmaceuticals and advanced materials in microgravity that can't be made as effectively on Earth. Delian was a Thiel Fellow in 2013 after dropping out of MIT computer science. Prior to Founders Fund, he was Chief of Staff and then Principal at Khosla Ventures under Keith Rabois, and before that founded Nightingale, a healthcare startup backed by Y Combinator. We discussed what makes Founders Fund's culture uniquely truth-seeking, from its 1% personal co-invest requirement to a structure with no partner meetings and no residual economics. Trae shared why he believes Series A boards are largely a waste of time, while Delian reflected on working alongside Keith…
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