- Michelle Volz is a solo GP at Pax VC, an early-stage fund focused on American Dynamism — startups at the intersection of technology, government, and the physical world (defense, energy, space, manufacturing, robotics). She is also a Guinness World Record holder for the fastest aggregate marathon time across all seven continents, a goal she pursued for nearly a decade. The conversation covers her running philosophy, her winding path into venture capital, the origins and meaning of American Dynamism, and why she left Andreessen Horowitz to start her own fund.
Running, Pain, and Goal-Setting
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Guinness World Record for seven-continent marathons
- She discovered the record in her early 20s after reading about a Stanford woman who was the youngest to run a marathon on all seven continents; Michelle realized she couldn’t beat the age record but could pursue the fastest aggregate time.
- It took nearly 10 years to complete because of the cost (especially Antarctica) and the training time required; she set up web alerts to monitor if anyone beat the existing record.
- She hasn’t filed the official paperwork yet but holds the fastest times; if someone beats it, she’d need to rerun her slowest continent.
- The record appealed to her because it was ambitious, obscure, and had very little competition — most people who attempt the seven-continent challenge are retirees, making a young, fast runner a rare category.
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Process-oriented vs. outcome-oriented people
- Michelle is strongly outcome-oriented: she needs a specific goal with her ego on the line to motivate training; routine and daily streaks don’t work for her.
- She “tricks” herself into staying fit by signing up for races — the goal forces the process, not the other way around.
- She contrasts this with process-oriented people (like her husband) who find joy in daily routines and streaks.
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Training philosophy and the 100K ultra
- After ~30 marathons, her body is adapted enough that she can “gut out” a marathon with minimal training — which she acknowledges is bad for motivation because it removes the fear of failure.
- She ran her first ultramarathon (100 km / 62 miles) in Zion National Park in 2018, won the women’s race, then passed out and needed four IV bags; immediately said “never again,” but now wants to do more.
- The ultra was transformational because she couldn’t fake it — she had to actually train, do long weekend runs and hikes, and commit to the process.
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Why she loves running and pain
- She chases the meditative “zone” state in trail running where everything falls away — a feeling she compares to the Brad Pitt F1 movie’s description of being locked in.
- She believes endurance athletes and founders share a personality type: people who sign up for pain and find enjoyment through it.
- She traces loving pain back to age 12, when she started running competitively; early success reinforced the drive.
- She notes Marines are overrepresented in tech/startups because Marine culture attracts people who seek the hardest challenge and are comfortable being scrappy with fewer resources.
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Mental game: ego and negative self-talk
- She motivates herself through negative self-talk (“don’t be a little bitch,” “everyone will laugh at you if you fail”) — positive reinforcement makes her complacent.
- Even though “nobody cares” about her race times, the fact that results are public creates enough external pressure to keep her going.
- She frames this as “high ego, low discipline” — she uses the fear of public embarrassment as fuel.
- On the broader cultural debate about ego: she embraces being ego-driven, arguing that founders need some combination of ego and mission to push through the inevitable pain of building a company.
Winding Path into Venture Capital
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From biomedical engineering to tech
- She created her own major in college around entrepreneurship in healthcare, inspired by growing up near Medtronic in Minnesota and a childhood habit of tinkering with simple inventions (e.g., the “Beverage Buddy” — a cup holder velcroed to a grocery cart at age 9).
- She hated biomedical engineering classes and realized she didn’t actually care deeply about healthcare — it sounded good but wasn’t intrinsically motivating.
- After a summer in California, she moved there after graduation and never worked in healthcare.
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Palantir and early career
- Joined Palantir in 2012 (her first tech job), working on product operations for the government product Gotham.
- Palantir had an aura of extreme prestige — ~1-2% offer rate for software engineers, grueling interviews, founder-level final rejections — which attracted top talent.
- She left after ~2 years, not realizing how special Palantir was; joined smaller startups and learned that not every company had the same caliber of people.
- She later realized Palantir’s culture — where everyone acts like the person who does all the work in a group project — was rare and special.
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Business school and discovering defense tech
- Went to MIT Sloan in 2020 as a “lost person” — burnt out from a real estate tech startup, unsure what to do next.
- Co-founded a defense tech club at MIT with veterans who knew defense but not tech; she was the tech person.
- Took a class with Ash Carter at the Harvard Kennedy School during which Russia invaded Ukraine — a pivotal moment that made national security feel urgent and real.
- Realized she enjoyed advising founders more than being one herself; she had ideas but no single mission she was passionate enough to work on for 10-20 years.
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Getting into a16z
- Developed a defense/dual-use investment thesis while most VCs told her “there’s no money in defense tech.”
- Followed Katherine Boyle at General Catalyst and then Andreessen Horowitz, where Katherine was starting an American Dynamism team.
- Ran a months-long campaign to get in front of Katherine and David Ulevitch (the other GP) through mutual connections — essentially “incepting” them to hear her name repeatedly from founders and ecosystem people.
- She was transparent about wanting the job, asked for help openly, and had no ego about potential rejection — a breakthrough for someone whose resume looked “weird” with many role changes.
- Got the job and gave herself a two-year trial; it turned out to be the perfect fit.
American Dynamism
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What it is
- Encompasses defense, space, energy, manufacturing, robotics, industrials — anything at the intersection of tech and the physical world, or technology and government.
- Government can be customer, regulator, or major stakeholder; it’s not just Department of Defense but also DHS, DOE, HHS, etc.
- Also includes companies innovating around government failures (e.g., ride-sharing replacing inadequate public transit).
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Why now: the cultural and talent shift
- Palantir, SpaceX, and Anduril trained a generation of people who learned how to build for government and hardware — lessons that are now being applied to new companies with shorter timelines.
- Geopolitical instability (Ukraine, China competition) created a cultural shift toward wanting to work on hard, important, impactful problems — defense is the most obvious place to see your work in the wild.
- The movement is bipartisan: Anduril’s co-founders include a Democrat (Brian Schimpf) and a Republican (Palmer Luckly); energy and manufacturing companies get funding from both administrations.
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Investment approach at a16z
- The American Dynamism team didn’t market-map the space because it was too new — instead they solicited founders to tell them what categories were emerging.
- This attracted founders who resonated with the philosophy (building hard, important things) rather than just fitting a category.
- The team became the most active at the firm during her tenure, investing in unexpected categories like maritime defense (Seronic) that they hadn’t planned for.
Starting Pax VC
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Why she left a16z
- She loved the zero-to-one stage — helping founders figure out co-founders, law firms, and how to approach VCs — but a16z’s size made it hard to spend time on very early companies when further-along deals demanded more capital deployment.
- She saw a gap: no dedicated early-stage funds that were high-conviction, could lead rounds, and help founders graduate to larger firms.
- Every mentor who had started a fund told her not to (“I would not wish this upon my worst enemy”); founders she consulted all encouraged her — and their empathy for taking the risk convinced her.
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The fundraising reality
- She told her boss at a16z before talking to any LPs, wanting his blessing and involvement; he responded supportively and offered to be her first check.
- LPs are lagging indicators — they follow founders and VCs; many are still focused on AI and need to be convinced about American Dynamism, which is a losing game if you have to start from scratch.
- She operates on a “default no” principle for time management, only saying yes when she feels “I have to do this” — a lesson learned from overcommitting early on.
- She currently works without a salary, betting entirely on fund upside — a risk-reward profile she explicitly wanted to mirror a founder’s.
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Competitive landscape and differentiation
- Many new funds have launched in the American Dynamism space, but she believes many lack deep sector experience and will fade as hype normalizes.
- Her competitive advantage is her network and credibility from a16z’s American Dynamism team, combined with her focus on the earliest stage where she can have the most impact.
Personal Philosophy and Closing
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On founders and pain
- She looks for founders who have a history of opting into painful, ambitious situations — not necessarily ultramarathons, but evidence of seeking hard challenges.
- She believes founding teams in complex sectors (government, hardware) need at least one person who has done it before — the lessons are too expensive and painful to learn from scratch.
- She’s drawn to founders driven by mission and outcome rather than hype and flashy fundraising.
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What she wants to be remembered for
- Someone who took big swings and went for it — not someone who coasted.
- Her daily grounding practice: walking her dog Rhubarb in Pacifica, which forces her away from screens and into quiet, meditative thinking.