Thread by @john_c_palmer

Tweet thread as pitch deck: Capitalist Grad School (this is a rough start of an idea)

Slide 1: The famous startup question: Product, Team, or Market?

Slide 2: If you're early enough, Team matters more than Market. You can select a team earlier than you can for Market or Product because a company doesn't need to exist yet.

Slide 3: So where do you find great founders? No good answer. They're everywhere. Innovation is decentralized amongst many companies, schools, etc.

Slide 4: Now take the founders' perspective. Where do I go to pursue great ideas?

Slide 5: There are historic examples.
- The Roman Forums
- Bell Labs
- Grad school

Slide 6: But no good answer today. Where should founders go pre-startup or in between things? There's no central place for great minds to interact and work around each other. It's too decentralized amongst all startups.

Slide 7: Grad school is close, but perhaps too academic. Not focused on leveraging great ideas to become products or businesses with maximum impact.

Slide 8: Maybe the closest thing is Y Combinator. But YC is mostly investing in companies, and founders' time there is spent working on those companies. At a high level the strategy is to make a large number of bets and hope that some work.

Slide 9: What would it look like if instead of selecting for companies, you selected for great founders? What if you did something more considerate? Even earlier stage.

Slide 10: In this market, the best startup investing approach looks different than it has for the past 10 years. Swing back towards centralization of great minds, and give them the right conditions to take a slow approach. How do you do this?

Slide 11: With a new kind of school. A capitalist grad school. If you can get in, it's completely free of tuition. Select the top potential founders, give them an incredible 6mo/1yr education where they spend time working together. Take 5% of any company they start in the future.

HOW IT WORKS
Slide 12: The Test: Create a new kind of test. The ultimate test for selecting super bright generalists. Test everything: Emotional IQ, math, writing, sales, conceptual thinking, coding, improvisation, etc. This type of test could eventually replace the SAT or GMAT.

Slide 13: The Education: Optional courses on anything related to founders. Coding, design, sales, new technology, etc. A big part of the education is free housing and time spent working amongst the other students.

Slide 14: The Business Model: For first few months, the students do innovation lab type work for big companies like Ford and GE. Those companies pay for the work. This funds their free tuition.

Slide 15: The Premises: Need a feeling of community with the right amount of mixing, but separation when necessary.
Cheap Option: Buy an abandoned mall and convert to apartments, cafeteria, classrooms.
Expensive Option: Buy an old abandoned European town and move everyone there.

Slide 16: Move in chefs for cafeteria, a gym, cafes, classrooms, open eating areas, computer labs, sports courts.

CONCLUSION
Slide 17: Great minds need a place to explore, but one that is set up with their goals in mind. Founders take time off, but grad school isn't made for them. So this is a capitalist grad school.

Slide 18: Over the long-term, this could be a disruptor to many startup investors today. Could be better for founders, lead to better companies, and be a better approach to owning more of the best startups of the future.

Wanted to put this idea out there after talking about this with @grinich