Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper is starting a ‘freedom fellowship’ for entrepreneurs to devise solutions to prevent society from spiraling into a ‘dystopia’

• Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper announced that he was launching the ‘Draper Freedom Fellowships,’ where he would provide entrepreneurs with free access to housing and office space, as well as offer fundraising and mentorship advice.
• Applications to the fellowships are ‘exclusively’ for founders aiming to improve society by coming up with solutions like reducing employment, mediating racial tensions, and testing cures for the coronavirus.
• Draper also said that he was looking to support startups coming up with solutions to ‘prevent government overreach,’ a subject that he has been especially vocal about as shelter-in-place directives went into place around the country.
• “We are looking for entrepreneurs who are looking at this crisis as an opportunity to take what seems to be heading toward dystopia, and make it a utopia,” Draper told Business Insider in an email.
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For years, Silicon Valley has prided itself on its ambition to innovate toward an improved version of society.

As the country struggles to tackle a global pandemic, skyrocketing unemployment, and systemic issues of racial justice, that goal may seem a bit daunting. But Tim Draper, a venture capitalist who made early bets on Twitter, Tesla, and (with less favorable results) Theranos, has an unwavering faith in the potential that startups carry.

Draper, who runs a a venture fund, a school for entrepreneurship and a startup incubating space, announced Tuesday that the he was launching the ‘Draper Freedom Fellowships,’ to support entrepreneurs with free housing and office coworking space, along with mentorship and fundraising help. Draper did not clarify whether fellows would also receive seed capital from his accelerator.

The announcement comes with a catch for hopeful entrepreneurs; only candidates working on solutions to help society by boosting employment, elevating racial justice, devising cures for viruses (including the coronavirus) and pushing innovations in education are eligible. Entrepreneurs with solutions aimed at ‘preventing government overreach’ are also eligible, Draper said.

"We are looking for entrepreneurs who are looking at this crisis as an opportunity to take what seems to be heading toward dystopia, and make it a utopia," Draper told Business Insider in an email. "We have a pandemic, riots in the streets, overbearing government, disabled hospitals and schools, a monopolistic banking system, 31 million newly unemployed, and our loving world going tribal again. There is so much to do."

Preventing 'overreach'

A lot of the problems that Draper listed can arguably be questions for government policy to address, but Draper's been skeptical of the government in the past. He's previously pushed efforts to break up California, first into six separate states and then into three.

Most recently, he's been a fierce critic of the lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He told Business Insider that the virus "scared everyone into their holes and kept them from living full lives," when asked about a growing number of companies shifting to remote-work models. "Entrepreneurs do better when they are in vibrant environments," he added.

Draper pointed toward startups like cloud platform OpenGov and blockchain-based Unstoppable Domains as examples of startups able to help governments. He is also funding entrepreneurs who are pitching ways to reduce or mediate the government's control in day-to-day affairs.

"Think of all the decentralized opportunities," Draper, a longtime bitcoin enthusiast, said. "Think of a fully bitcoin economy with governments accepting bitcoin in taxes, with smart contracts and blockchain accounting."

Draper also listed smart camera security and satellite surveillance, among other options, as other ways in which entrepreneurs could help governments.