Podcast Summary: How I Invest with David Weisburd — E271: The Future of VC: Space, Energy, Defense
Date: December 29, 2025
Guests: Host: David Weisburd (A), Guest: Jonathan (B), with brief cameo from Sponsor (C)

Overview

In this episode, David Weisburd speaks with Jonathan (a pre-seed VC investor) about the evolving landscape of venture capital, focusing on the growing opportunities in frontier technology sectors such as space, energy, and defense. They explore the differences between deep tech and frontier tech, the signals that indicate shifts from non-consensus to consensus investment opportunities, strategies for investing in hard tech startups, and the essential characteristic of grit in founders. The conversation also dives into venture strategy, fund construction, the importance of founder vs. thesis-driven investment, and the critical nature of alignment with LPs. Jonathan shares personal anecdotes about his journey as a founder, key lessons learned, and advice for emerging VCs.

Main Themes and Key Discussion Points

1. Frontier Tech vs. Deep Tech in Venture Capital

[01:59–04:33]

• Definition and Distinction:

  • Deep Tech: Rooted in scientific breakthroughs, often involves lab-based innovation with high scientific risk and long lead times.
  • Frontier Tech: Science risk has largely been solved; main challenges are engineering, execution, and market adoption.
  • Quote:

    "Deep tech startups are focused on answering the question 'is this scientifically possible?'...frontier tech startups ... the risk has shifted from a science risk to more of an engineering, execution, and market-based risk." — Jonathan [02:35]

• Transition Examples:

  • AI: Once deep tech in academia, now a mainstream 'tech' field after breakthroughs.
  • Autonomy and robotics have followed a similar pattern.

2. Economic Cycles and Venture Formation

[00:46–01:41]

• Great companies arise in both bull and bear markets.
• Economic adversity can, paradoxically, encourage bolder ventures as founders take risks others might avoid.
• Quote:

  "Great exceptional companies are born out of bear and bull markets... sometimes the overall volume of people leaving when economic conditions are strong may actually be an inverse correlation with the potential courage it takes to leave and start a business at that time." — Jonathan [00:54]

3. Timing: Non-Consensus to Consensus Investments

[05:43–09:05]

• Key Signal: Follow the migration of top talent from leading companies (SpaceX, Tesla, etc.) into new fields as a sign of emerging consensus.
• Strategy:
  • Be early in identifying non-consensus opportunities.
  • Avoid crowded consensus markets, as price discovery evaporates and top founders have often moved on.
• Quote:

  "A consensus market signals that there's a democratization of an insight that is widely accepted and that price discovery itself has all but disappeared." — Jonathan [07:30]

4. Founder-Led vs. Thesis-Led Investments

[12:41–16:41]

• Pre-seed/Seed: Must heavily rely on founder-led investments due to the lack of an established market or even a company in many cases.
• 50/50 split in Jonathan’s firm between being “prepared” (thesis-driven) and being educated by the founder (founder-led).
• Real-world examples:
  • Castilian (hypersonics): Pre-existing thesis, prepared mind.
  • True Anomaly (space defense): Founder-educated, learned about market acutely through interaction.
• Quote:

  "When you're an early stage investor...we're evaluating companies that haven't even been formed yet, or we're evaluating whiteboard sessions." — Jonathan [13:14]

5. The Value of "Name Brand" Founders

[16:41–18:48]

• Historically valuable to have founders from companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Anduril, but with ecosystem growth, top-tier tech talent now disperses across many late-stage, hardware-oriented ventures.
• The opportunity now is to identify emerging leading companies and star talent early, not just from established "tent poles”.
• Quote:

  "It is now consensus to back a SpaceX founder spinning out and starting a company. And I think the emerging opportunity... is to find and identify talent spinning out from other great hardware oriented late stage companies and helping them become first time founders." — Jonathan [18:27]

6. Assessing and Building Grit in Founders

[18:48–29:12]

• Grit is even more critical in hard tech due to the longer timelines, entrenched incumbents, and scarce early data.
• Extended personal interaction—beyond formal pitches—is key to assessing passion and perseverance.
• Personal reflection on grit from Jonathan’s journey building Jebit (sold to Vista), highlighting the nonlinear, challenging journey most founders face.
• Factors that signal grit: deep market obsession, history of hard problems solved, persistent motivation, and the “compounding” effect of staying in the fight over years.
• Quote:

  "I want to seek evidence of a long-term obsession. Have they been thinking about this problem set even casually for a long period of time?" — Jonathan [20:10]

7. Mission vs. Economic Motivation in Moonshots

[29:12–31:24]

• High personal wealth (exits) can enable pursuit of challenging problems, but mission-driven founders often thrive best in hard tech sectors, especially in fields like defense and energy with existential stakes.
• Quote:

  "There's a larger existential reason for this company to exist and certainly with our founders in the space and defense and energy ecosystem, this is an existential battle..." — Jonathan [30:15]

8. The VC Rationale for Frontier Tech

[32:05–33:56]

• The biggest companies in the world are often rooted in hardware/frontier tech.
• Frontier sectors (especially defense, quantum, energy) are winner-take-all or “outlier” markets—fewer unicorns but massively valuable.
• Venture’s outlier-driven dynamic magnifies the importance of early, concentrated ownership in “future unanimous” winners.

9. Fund Construction and LP Alignment

[33:56–42:16]

• Evolution from Fund 1 to Fund 2:

  • Fund 1: Focused on space/defense.
  • Fund 2: Doubled down on pre-seed, concentrated investments, and expanded into broader frontier tech.

• Key Learnings:

  • Communicate differentiated, concentrated strategies to LPs.
  • Seek LPs already aligned with your worldview; don’t try to “convert” them.
  • Strong, transparent LP relationships improve fundraising and partnership dynamics.

• Quote:

  "Fundraising as a VC firm is less about convincing an LP of your worldview or your strategy and matchmaking, more about finding LPs that already share that worldview..." — Jonathan [38:49]

10. Personal Lessons and Advice to Emerging VCs

[42:16–46:29]

• The single most valuable experience: Direct exposure to world-class founders early sets a higher bar and benchmarks for future investments.
• Patience in capital deployment is vital—over time, as deal flow improves, so does the quality of opportunities.
• Venture success compounds with experience, context, and network expansion.
• Quote:

  "If you look back at yourself two or three years ago and you're not slightly embarrassed, then you're not growing quickly enough... Can your rate of learning and growth compound more quickly and can that give you a systemic advantage to being a partner to best in class founders building in frontier tech?" — Jonathan [45:54]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Great exceptional companies are born out of bear and bull markets.” — Jonathan [00:54]
• “The deep in deep tech refers to the depth of the innovation... Frontier in frontier tech refers to being on the near frontier of mass adoption or mass commercialization.” — Jonathan [02:20]
• “A consensus market signals that there's a democratization of an insight that is widely accepted and that price discovery itself has all but disappeared.” — Jonathan [07:30]
• “We are as a pre seed investor investing at inception stage when the name of the company often changes, bank accounts are being created for the first time, company formation docs in Delaware are being submitted. We have to be founder and people focused and driven.” — Jonathan [10:57]
• “Fundraising as a VC firm is less about convincing an LP of your worldview or your strategy... and more about finding LPs that already share that worldview and strategy.” — Jonathan [38:49]
• “If you look back at yourself two or three years ago and you're not slightly embarrassed, then you're not growing quickly enough.” — Jonathan [45:54]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:12] - Frontier tech investment activity in 2025 vs past years
• [01:59] - Deep tech vs frontier tech: definitions and examples
• [04:51] - How technology risk transitions along the innovation curve
• [06:15] - Recognizing inflection points from non-consensus to consensus
• [09:24] - Bipartite asset classes in VC: pre-seed/seed vs. scaling investments
• [13:11] - Approach to founder-led and thesis-led investments; hypersonics and space defense examples
• [18:48] - Assessing grit in founders and the challenges of building companies in hard tech
• [21:39] - Jonathan’s founder journey with Jebit; resilience through challenges
• [32:05] - The economic rationale and outlier nature of frontier tech investing
• [34:05] - Evolution and strategy from Fund 1 to Fund 2; lessons learned
• [38:49] - LP alignment and differentiation in fundraising
• [42:46] - Advice to Jonathan’s younger self: importance of benchmarking and patience in VC
• [45:54] - Compounding learning as a sustainable VC edge

Takeaways for Listeners

• Success in frontier tech venture capital is driven by deep qualitative assessment of founders, understanding nuanced technology risk, and timing investments as markets shift toward consensus.
• Grit, genuine motivation, and long-term obsession are key predictors of founder success, particularly in hardware and institutional markets.
• VC firms benefit by leaning into their strengths, focusing, and aligning with limited partners who share their worldview.
• True excellence is recognized not only by pattern-matching to known greats, but by developing a benchmark for raw, day-zero potential in founders.
• As an emerging VC or founder, patience, long-term thinking, and continuous improvement are vital to enduring and thriving in the space, energy, and defense sectors.

End of summary