Napoleon Ta is a former professional poker player who used his winnings to fund his education and now applies his risk-reward thinking and pattern recognition skills as a venture capital investor at Founders Fund. He runs the firm's growth investing efforts and takes board roles at breakout companies like Rippling and Cognition, focusing on AI and enterprise software businesses that modernize fundamental infrastructure rather than incremental applications. Napoleon Ta is a former professional poker player who used his winnings to fund his education and now applies his risk-reward thinking and pattern recognition skills as a venture capital investor at Founders Fund. He runs the firm's growth investing efforts and takes board roles at breakout companies like Rippling and Cognition, focusing on AI and enterprise software businesses that modernize fundamental infrastructure rather than incremental applications.