Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea
"SpaceX ended up being the best investment I'll probably ever make. It's completely changed the trajectory of my life."
Rockets were blowing up on the launchpad when @LukeNosek convinced Cyan Banister (@cyantist) to go all-in on SpaceX:
Nosek (@LukeNosek), co-founder of PayPal & Founders Fund, was one of SpaceX's earliest believers. He led Founders Fund's $20M investment in 2008 & has served on the board ever since.
Today he's estimated to own a .22% stake worth more than $4B at the $1.77T IPO price.
Here's how he got Cyan in:
"He went to college with my husband Scott Banister & Max Levchin (@mlevchin). They met in a computer lab back at University of Illinois."
"Luke formed a relationship with @elonmusk, & I would say probably was his strongest second believer. I've never seen anyone champion a company or a person with more heart than Luke."
"He came over to our house. He's a very emphatic person. Wears these Vibram shoes, & gets on the floor, & he's like, 'Banisters, I need you to dig through your couches, whatever money you have that's spare. Anything liquid you have, I need it. SpaceX needs it.'"
"At this time, the rockets were blowing up on the launchpad. People all around were just like, private citizens have no business in space, and that's why it's failing."
"I had just exited from IronPort. I had my first liquidity event. So Luke and Scott convinced me to put everything that I made in IronPort, when we sold to Cisco, into SpaceX."
"I just literally put all my chips on a color & just let it ride for 20-some odd years now."
"It ended up being the best investment I'll probably ever make in my life. It's completely changed the trajectory of my life."
