Menelaos Mazarakis
28 May 2026etn. Live at Panathenea
Menelaos Mazarakis (Mene Capital): Backing Untracked Talent and Hunting Secrets
Menelaos 'Mene' Mazarakis introduces Mene Capital, a San Francisco fund backing unconventional, untracked young talent doing 'very weird things,' arguing the most generational companies aren't pattern-matchable — like a YC team that pivoted three times in ten weeks and still raised an angel round. He hunts for 'secrets' — ideas most people don't know or would disagree with — noting the best time to back OpenAI, Anduril or SpaceX was years before consensus, and cites Peter Thiel's 2019 non-consensus Series A in Quantum Systems and European defense re-industrialization. He also pokes fun at Hummingbird's viral 'founders with trauma' thesis and lays out his edge framework: know the edge, get to the edge, stay on the edge, and redefine the edge.
Dark Factories, Factorio and Greeks in San Francisco
Menelaos reveals an unannounced investment in a young global founder building 'dark factories' — peopleless factories where machines build machines that make custom parts — comparing it to an in-real-life Factorio, which sparks a detour on the game and Shopify executives' LAN parties. He explains his 'first believer' approach: no competitive deals or hot founders, but being the deepest level of trust partner and owning significant stakes at low prices before anyone knows the founder exists. The chapter closes with the Greek diaspora in San Francisco (Nico, Resolve AI's founder), his hot take that the next decade belongs to hardware, physical AI and manufacturing rather than software, and his upcoming 'Everything is Factory Tour' — five cities, five days, five factories.