Date: 2026-09-17 Attendees: Blake Stewart (Megaphone), Blake Emal (Megaphone), Michelle Kwok (Draper Associates)
Summary
Weekly content strategy call. Three posts were workshopped:
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Longevity biotech post: Michelle wants to reframe the narrative away from “living forever” toward extending healthy lifespan. She pushed for more emotional storytelling (watching grandparents lose mobility, knowing people with neurodegenerative disease). Key science to weave in: brain cell replacement therapy, stem cell rejuvenation, limb/skin regeneration via bioelectric signaling. Cancer framed as an aging disease, not a separate issue. No image needed; narrative carries the post. Length can grow slightly.
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VC mega-fund signal post: Michelle is questioning whether investor co-signs still carry meaningful signal. Mega funds ($1B+) must deploy fast and at scale, which she argues leads to random deployment and a drift toward PE behavior (roll-ups, $50M checks, healthcare IT clinics). True early-stage VC bets on the founder and stays open to something that has never existed; PE mindset forces comps to existing things, averaging toward the mean. “The edges of innovation get lost.” Format: short-form, question-led, minimal context.
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Recent Draper investments post (all anonymous): Through-line is wild, non-incremental bets on industries unchanged for decades or centuries. Companies discussed (not to be named or tagged; some deals not fully signed): wearable biomagnetic sensors, animal embryo editing (horse), biological cloud-seeding agent, spermatogenesis company, US pathogen-free monkey facility, church workflow AI (founded by executive pastors; Pope now partnering with Anthropic), living neurons on chip (biocomputing).
Draper success metrics shared informally: newsletter open/response rates tracking investor intro requests, reinvestment (internal), deal volume (primary but “blunt instrument”).
Decisions
- Longevity biotech post: add narrative depth, no image, length can grow
- VC signal post: short-form engagement-only format, question-led
- Recent investments post: anonymous, no tagging, lead with through-line of unconventional non-incremental disruption
- Drafts to be sent to Michelle within 2 weeks
Action items
- Blake Stewart: revise longevity biotech post with personal narrative framing, submit draft within 2 weeks
- Blake Stewart: draft short-form VC signal engagement post (question-led, minimal context)
- Blake Stewart: draft recent Draper investments post with all companies anonymous
Notable excerpts
Michelle on longevity biotech framing:
“Longevity biotech is not just about living forever. It’s about we all may suffer from cancer… it is an aging disease… brain cell replacement therapy could get rid of neurodegenerative disease, eradicate it… so nobody has to not only themselves not have Alzheimer’s dementia, but their grandma, grandpa never have to have it.”
Michelle on mega-fund VC vs. true early-stage:
“In the truest form of VC is the most open way… you’re completely open that they might build something that has never existed before… if we’re looking at things like it’s private equity, you can only comp it to something that’s already existing. So then we just go to the mean or the median. We just keep averaging to the mean or the median, and then the edges of innovation get lost.”
On investment through-line:
“It is ultimately the wild, weird, unconventional. For us, the things that are so crazy that most people are not crazy enough to go after it.”