“You need to make space for weird types of conversations to happen on the fringes that really inform you what’s going on at the frontier.” — Thorsten Claus
Thorsten Claus is a venture investor and builder with more than 15 years of private equity and venture capital experience. He has raised nine funds, managed over $4.8B across global platforms, and led or overseen more than 120 direct investments, generating returns of 3x–7x net to investors.
His current work focuses on dual-use technologies at the intersection of defense, security, and national resilience. Guided by the discipline of Howard Marks, the systems-level thinking of the Consilience Project, and a commitment to internalizing externalities, he invests in teams and technologies that strengthen sovereign capability and long-term societal stability.
Beyond capital, Thorsten is a hands-on builder. He machines defense-critical and space components, restores historic race engines, and writes on production systems and resilience at blog.thinkstorm.com. This grounding in physical production complements his investment practice, keeping judgment tied to real-world constraints.
You can find Thor on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorstenclaus/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/thinkstorm
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[02:31] Downhill skateboarding
[05:58] How do you see behind a corner when downhill skateboarding?
[07:42] Hill hunting
[10:15] How long does it take to go down the Sierras?
[11:41] The most important part of the body for downhill skateboarding
[16:02] David’s dumb question of the day
[17:25] The accident that pivoted Thor’s life
[19:34] The first race car Thor bought
[20:51] Why Thor is a terrible race car driver?
[23:52] How did Thor come to use the race oil that Porsche Racing uses?
[24:59] The 3 things you need to welcome fringe conversations
[27:07] Just another David misattribution
[27:34] Truth is difficult these days
[29:20] How do you prioritize which advice to take?
[30:33] Thor’s weird definition of risk
[31:59] How do you know if someone is giving you authentic advice?
[34:40] How does Thor understand someone’s past without asking about it?
[39:42] Lessons from fictional storytelling in diligencing GPs
[43:22] Questions and responses that reveal a GP’s past
[46:10] Books that Thor read to ask better questions
[49:18] What is the USMC Christmas Tree?
[53:40] The Christmas Tree in an investor’s portfolio
[57:49] Can beggars be choosers?
[1:00:41] The difference between capital formation and fundraising
[1:03:00] Production vs product for a GP
[1:06:54] Thor and cardistry
[1:10:21] What are moments that reminds Thor we’re still in the good old days?
[1:13:50] The post-credit scene
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Thor’s blog
- Thinkstorm
- NATO Innovation Fund (NIF)
- University of California, Berkeley
- Northeastern University
- Northgate
- NextWorld Capital
- Bamboo Longboards
- Target
- Liam Morgan
- Louis Pilloni
- F1 (movie)
- AC Shelby Cobra
- Porsche Racing
- The Messy Middle by Scott Belsky
- Eric Schmidt
- Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
- Mike Maples Jr.
- Jocko Willink
- Michael Polanyi
- The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi
- Brandon Sanderson
- Brandon Sanderson’s 2025 Writing Lectures
- Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- Leadership Strategy and Tactics by Jocko Willink
- René Girard
- Howard Marks
- Oaktree Capital
- “Jocko on Startups: What’s an A-team?” by Thorsten Claus
- United States Marine Corps (USMC)
- USMC Performance Evaluation System (Order 1610)
- NAVMC Fitness Report
- “Capital Formation is not Fundraising” by Thorsten Claus
- Sequoia Capital
- Accel
- “Production, not Product, as Competitive Strength” by Thorsten Claus
- Thor performing cardistry
- Michael Stern
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“You need to make space for weird types of conversations to happen on the fringes that really inform you what’s going on at the frontier.” — Thorsten Claus
“Risk is the probability of a fatal outcome within given resources.” — Thorsten Claus
“Is it really out of conviction that they’re acting on [the advice] or is it just a belief? You know, I believe in many things, but do I act accordingly? That’s the difference between belief and conviction.” — Thorsten Claus
“The self audit of our actions, behaviors, processes, and decisions is so important.” — Thorsten Claus
“What I find more interesting than the question about ‘what’s the one thing you don’t want me to know about you’ is what it reveals about what you think about me. So, a social interaction is always with me with others, or you with me as well, and a group with others. If I’m worried that you know something about me, that reveals something more about what you fear my attitude is or how this is seen or how you would think I would act. And that is super insightful.” — Thorsten Claus
“If you want to find out something about the why and the what, you ask open-ended questions. If you confirm bad news, you voice it for them.” — Thorsten Claus
“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” — Jocko Willink
“There was a whole time when I grew up here in America where everything was great. […] Everyone gets a participation prize. I hated that because it really devalues people who are truly great. And the fact is that there are only very few truly great people.” — Thorsten Claus
“Capital formation is a design principle. Fundraising is a sales process. Without true design around a customer base and a product, you will fail eventually.” — Thorsten Claus