Brian Singerman

Who they are

Brian Singerman is Co-Founder and General Partner at GPx — a Stanford CS grad who co-founded iGoogle at Google, wrote a $400M check into Anduril at Founders Fund, and launched GPx in 2025 with Peter Thiel as its anchor backer.

Person

Brian graduated from Stanford with a BS in Computer Science in 1999 and started as a software engineer at There, Inc., an early online virtual world, before joining Google in 2004. At Google he built iGoogle, the personal web portal, and quietly launched the XGYC Fund — a $1M angel vehicle for ex-Google, Y Combinator founders — signaling early that he was more interested in backing builders than becoming one permanently. He also co-founded Postini, an email security and archiving company that Google acquired in 2007. From Google he moved into venture, rising from Principal to General Partner at Founders Fund, where he spent over a decade and became known for concentrated, high-conviction bets — most visibly writing roughly $400M in checks across rounds into Anduril and publicly praising Palmer Luckey as one of the great innovators. He appears to have left Founders Fund around late 2024, and in July 2025 he launched GPx with co-founder Lee Linden, targeting over $500M with Peter Thiel as its anchor backer. He's spoken across 20VC, Invest Like the Best, This Week in Startups, and Software Engineering Daily on themes of upside maximization, founder evaluation, and venture philosophy — and won national Settlers of Catan tournaments in the 1990s, a detail that surfaces regularly enough that he clearly doesn't mind it.

Company

GPx launched in July 2025 as a hybrid venture fund co-founded by Singerman and Lee Linden, with Peter Thiel reportedly backing up to 50% of the over $500M target. The fund's structural twist is a fund-of-funds model that helps emerging managers exercise pro-rata rights and also leads later-stage rounds directly — a two-sided bet on the next generation of VCs and on staying in winners as they scale. One co-founder, Andrew Tulloch, departed mid-2025 to join Meta, a notable early team change. The fund closed at $500M with Thiel as its cornerstone LP.

Market

GPx sits in an increasingly crowded field of VC fund-of-funds and multi-stage vehicles, though its specific angle — arming emerging funds with pro-rata firepower while also leading later-stage rounds itself — is a differentiated structural position relative to traditional fund-of-funds players. The broader venture industry in 2025 is experimenting with new ownership-preservation models as top-tier startups stay private longer, and GPx's design directly addresses that dynamic.

Network

Singerman's two most concrete current relationships are Lee Linden, his GPx co-founder and formerly managing partner of Quiet Capital, and Peter Thiel, Founders Fund co-founder and GPx's anchor LP. His Founders Fund years also put him in sustained orbit with Ken Howery and, most prominently, Palmer Luckey, whose Anduril became his most publicly championed bet.

Lee Linden· Co-Founder, GPx; formerly Managing Partner at Quiet Capital
Peter Thiel· Anchor LP, GPx; Co-Founder, Founders Fund
Palmer Luckey· Founder, Anduril — Singerman's most publicly backed founder
Ken Howery· Key leader at Founders Fund

How they likely show up

Over a decade at Founders Fund followed immediately by launching his own fund → thinks in long cycles and acts decisively when the moment arrives, not incrementally.
Writing roughly $400M across multiple Anduril rounds in a single company → high-conviction concentration, not diversification by default; he doubles down rather than hedges.
Launched the XGYC Fund as a side project while employed at Google → high agency; doesn't wait for permission structures to run experiments.
Repeat podcast circuit (20VC, Invest Like the Best, This Week in Startups, Software Engineering Daily) on consistent themes → comfortable being a public intellectual on venture philosophy, not just a quiet check-writer.
Possibly — PhD candidacy in Computational Biology at Stanford alongside an engineering career signals genuine intellectual range across hard science and software, which likely shapes what he finds fundable.
National-level competitive board gamer → enjoys systems thinking under uncertainty, probably enjoys sparring over frameworks and first principles.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the Anduril memo specifically — he's spoken at length about Palmer Luckey as an innovator and the DoD/Silicon Valley relationship; he has strong views and will engage if you come in with a specific angle, not a generic defense-tech question.
→ Ask about the structural mechanics of GPx — the fund-of-funds + co-investment hybrid is the thing he's betting his post-Founders Fund reputation on, and he'll have thought deeply about why that model wins.
→ Don't treat him as purely a financier — he was an engineer who built iGoogle and co-founded Postini; the operator lens is real and he'll respect questions that engage with the product or technical side of companies he backs.
→ He's on record saying VC is about upside maximization, not downside minimization — if you frame a risk or opportunity in loss-avoidance terms, expect pushback.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the GPx structural model — it's a fund-of-funds that also leads later-stage rounds directly, a specific bet that emerging managers lose ownership too early; that design choice alone is worth unpacking.
Bring up the Anduril memo: he wrote roughly $400M in checks into Anduril across rounds and publicly called Palmer Luckey one of the greatest innovators in history — a rare on-record superlative from a typically measured investor.
Mention iGoogle: he built Google's personal web portal from the inside, then turned around and started a $1M angel fund for ex-Google, Y Combinator founders while still employed there — an early signal of how he thinks about operator-to-investor transitions.

Discovery questions

GPx's model gives emerging managers pro-rata firepower while you also lead later-stage rounds directly — how do you manage potential conflicts when the fund-of-funds angle and the direct co-investment angle point in different directions?
You've said VC is about upside maximization, not downside minimization — how does that philosophy translate into how GPx underwrites emerging fund managers versus direct positions?
The $400M Anduril bet is the most concentrated public example of your conviction style — what does a company have to show you before you're willing to keep writing checks at that scale across multiple rounds?

Avoid

Don't lead with portfolio diversification logic or risk-mitigation framing — he has argued publicly and repeatedly that venture is about maximizing upside, and framing deal selection around downside protection will signal you haven't done the work.

Make it yours