Past Events
Invited Speakers
Adam Draper
M.D. · Boost VC
Adam Draper is the founder and Managing Director of Boost VC, a San Mateo-based pre-seed venture capital firm and accelerator with approximately $200 million in assets under management, specializing in "deep tech" and "sci-fi" innovations across crypto, space, biotechnology, AI, robotics, climate, defense, and frontier fields—providing the critical first $500K checks to audacious founders turning impossible ideas into reality, from exoskeletons and jetpacks to de-extinction and orbital manufacturing. A fourth-generation venture capitalist and son of Bitcoin pioneer Tim Draper, Adam launched Boost VC in 2012 with co-founder Brayton Williams after entrepreneurial ventures including co-founding Xpert Financial during his UCLA years and early angel successes in breakout companies like Coinbase (where he was an initial investor), Amplitude, and Plangrid. Inspired by a personal dream of building an Iron Man suit, comic book collector passions, and family lessons chronicled in his co-authored book Breakfast with Pops: A Venture Capital Handbook, Draper has raised multiple funds—including over $87 million in 2025—and backed unicorns like Colossal Biosciences while championing relentless innovation through his Substack newsletter, demo days, and a philosophy that no idea is too crazy for humanity's sci-fi future.
Ali Tamaseb
General Partner · DCVC
Ali Tamaseb is a General Partner at DCVC (Data Collective), a prominent Silicon Valley deep-tech venture capital firm managing over $4 billion in assets, where he invests in transformative startups across crypto, fintech, healthcare, biomedicine, materials, electrification, mining, and construction—backing multiple billion-dollar outcomes while serving on boards and leadership roles at global companies with thousands of employees. An Iranian-American entrepreneur-turned-investor, Tamaseb previously founded and scaled a hardware startup to millions in revenue, holds degrees from Imperial College London in biomedical engineering and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, authored five academic papers on machine learning and AI, and earned accolades including the Imperial College President's Medal and British Alumni Award. Celebrated for his bestselling book Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups (2021)—drawn from the largest-ever dataset of 30,000+ points debunking unicorn myths like founder age or elite pedigrees—he runs the Superfounders Club, networks talent ecosystems, and champions data-driven insights into what truly drives outlier success in entrepreneurship.
Bilal Zuberi
G.P. · Lux Capital
Bilal Zuberi is the Founder and Managing Partner of Red Glass Ventures, a Menlo Park-based early-stage venture capital firm he launched in 2025 to invest from formation through Series A in technically ambitious startups at the intersection of AI and the physical world—spanning infrastructure, autonomy, robotics, manufacturing, automotive, construction, defense, national security, health, and energy. Previously a General Partner at Lux Capital for over a decade (until late 2024), where he led investments in transformative companies like Applied Intuition (autonomous vehicle simulation), Desktop Metal (metal 3D printing), Evolv Technology (physical security), Saildrone (autonomous ocean drones), Ironclad (contract management), Nozomi Networks (industrial cybersecurity), and OpenSpace (construction tech), Zuberi built a track record backing paradigm-shifting deep tech amid Lux's $5B+ AUM growth. Before Lux, he was a principal at General Catalyst, co-founded advanced materials startup GEO2 Technologies, consulted at Boston Consulting Group, and earned a PhD in physical chemistry from MIT (under Nobel laureate Mario Molina) with published research and 30+ patents; a passionate advocate for ethical innovation and student entrepreneurship, he continues shaping the future of frontier technologies through thoughtful writing and board roles.