Lili Rogowsky & Chris Wake / Atypical Ventures

Lili Rogowsky and Chris Wake are building Atypical Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in what they call “plausible science fiction”.. think data centers on the moon.

Chris’s background is in frontier tech. He was the first employee at satellite company Spire, then worked in early ops at Clearbit and Vercel. Lili brings experience from running her own law firm, helping companies from pre-incorporation through Series A.

Atypical bets on founders who pair breakthrough technical ideas with real emotional intelligence. “The brightest minds in the world should have every single advantage,” Chris says. “If they win, we all win.”

Our conversation gets into what they mean by investing in empathy. “Empathy is an amorphous thing. But what we really mean is intellectual humility. You can be one of the top people in the world, but you realize the shores of your ignorance are wider than the shores of your intelligence.” The best founders walk the line. They share their vision with confidence, but they also show taste. Atypical holds themselves to the same standard. Fund I was $7.5M. For Fund II, they scaled back to $15M from a $25M target.

How do you find the people building data centers on the moon? You don’t wait for them to show up in your inbox. Chris reads papers, cold emails researchers, and follows ideas most investors overlook. “The outliers aren’t ever in the group chats.” They look for ideas that create new markets and net new value. They invest across atoms, bits, and cells because the frontier is always moving.

Full episode below, or on Spotify / Apple Podcasts