Venture Capital and Advancements in Biotechnology
About This Episode
In this episode of the Modern CTO Podcast, host Joel Beasley and I have a conversation about pivotal career moments, the future of the biotech industry, and the crucial partnership between venture capital and medicine.
We discuss the essential role of personal growth through overcoming challenges, using the example of when I started to reevaluate my career after becoming a board-certified physician and surgeon. Though it was difficult at the moment, I can see how this period of my life expanded my perspective on what it means to succeed.
Throughout our discussion, we touched on the importance of following one's authentic path and how this philosophy underpins the work we do at Northpond Ventures. I highlighted the impact of our projects, like the partnerships with leading academic institutions and our investments in groundbreaking biotech firms, which are redefining the possibilities within healthcare and medical research.
Joel and I also reflect on the importance of staying curious and engaged with emerging technologies, and I share my advice for young professionals on the pursuit of passion.
Episode Outline
(00:32) My decision against pursuing clinical medicine and shift towards entrepreneurship.
(04:10) Support from my wife during my career transition and the importance of supportive personal relationships.
(09:35) The ecosystem of investment and innovation in biotherapeutics and molecular diagnostics.
(13:23) Discussion on the potential of DNA storage and advancements in biotechnology.
(14:20) Biotechnology in food synthesis and the cost dynamics of biosynthesized products.
(16:39) The ethical and practical considerations of biotechnology in food, like lab-grown meat.
(20:00) The broader implications of biotechnological innovations on healthcare and medicine.
(26:02) The role of venture capital in medical and scientific innovation.
(29:45) Measuring the impact and success of venture capital in advancing technology and medicine.
(34:09) The simplicity and effectiveness of naming businesses after meaningful personal experiences.
(35:01) A look at multi-omics and its integration with IT to advance medical science.
(38:26) The future of medical data analysis and its impact on patient care.
(41:46) My three P's of success: Prepared, Passionate, and Personal.
(48:15) The unique interests and aspirations of my children and the joy of seeing them develop their personalities.
Resources
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Learn more about The Modern CTO
About This Podcast
The Modern CTO Podcast is one of the number one leadership and tech podcasts in the world, with over 150,000 active listeners, including CTOs, lead developers, and rising tech leaders. Joel’s commitment to creating a conversational atmosphere for his guests to share their experiences has inspired a new generation of leaders and innovators. Through his work on the Modern CTO Podcast and ProSeries Media, Joel Beasley has become a respected voice in the tech industry, inspiring others to share their knowledge and insights with the wider community. His passion for creating engaging content that informs, inspires, and entertains has made him a sought-after speaker and advisor on all things tech.
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Voiceover 00:00
Today we're talking to Mike Rubin, founder and CEO at Northpond Ventures, about how he overcame his depression, the latest advancements in biotechnology, and more. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.
Joel Beasley 00:19
The way that I Found You was I think I was just scanning around LinkedIn. And you had a story about overcoming depression. And I was hoping you could tell me about your experience there.
Mike Rubin 00:32
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting, I had never had any challenges with depression, until I got into the latter stages of my medical training. And I was pretty unhappy during that time. And it was largely because I was training to be a surgeon and surgery ultimately proved not to be the right thing for me. And I was incredibly situational. And, you know, I went to a psychiatrist and explained the situation. And within 15 minutes, I was given a prescription. And those prescriptions are phenomenal for lots of people. And I'm a huge advocate for it. And I was sort of holding on to that bottle thinking, do I do I take this? Or do I not take it, I was like, This can't be right. For me, like, this is not something I've been contending with. And it was totally situational. And I said, Well, I got to throw one of two things away, either got to throw this bottle of pills away, or I've got to throw away this sort of 10 year plus dream of becoming a physician. And I ended up doing the latter, I got my diploma, became board certified and licensed physician and surgeon. So I sort of crossed that finish line, so to speak, but then I, you know, ultimately never pursued that career. You know, unfortunate for me, never had to fill that prescription again. So that that was a profound lesson, at least for me in life, to sort of follow my own authentic path. What
Joel Beasley 02:13
was the delta between that moment in the parking lot and you completing your doctor? Yeah,
Mike Rubin 02:20
you know, it was relatively brief. So I was already a physio, I already got my medical degree, I completed my internship residency, and I was in the later stages of my fellowship. So I was pretty advanced. And so I was fortunate, I knew I would sort of get through it and get through my boards. And it was really just a function of, could I really pursue this long term as a career. And it was really that realization that clinical medicine wasn't the right fit for me. And using that sort of moment, to pivot, that really changed the trajectory of my, my life. You know, it taught me a lot. And so what happened? What did you pivot to? Well, I ultimately decided to enter the world of investing in finance, but not sort of a sharp pivot, I was really still focused on the things that I had loved and been passionate about, and trained in, which was medicine and science. But what I found was, there was a different way to express my passion, my interest in medicine and science. And that way, ultimately proved to be through entrepreneurship. And what I really wanted to do was figure out how do I take all these great innovations and instantiate them within the vehicle of entrepreneurship to impact humanity in profound ways. And I began building that, that skill set and ultimately, where I sit today founded my own business, which is really a venture capital business that allows me to be a part of building these great enterprises that have enormous impact in science and medicine. So it all interconnects it was just sort of finding my own authentic way to be my best self.
Joel Beasley 04:07
And how did it play out with your wife and kids as you were figuring this out?
Mike Rubin 04:10
You know, my wife was incredibly supportive, because she's a physician herself. And we had recently gotten married. And she thought she was marrying this person who is gonna be a physician like herself and practice medicine. And, you know, we had our first child and within a year or so of our son being born, and within a couple years of being married, I was like, Yeah, this is not not right for me, and she was incredibly supportive and she believed in me and knew what I was capable of. If I really focused on my passions and talents and you know, who you associate yourself in life. Obviously, marriage is sort of at the top of the heap is just so critical and if you surround yourself by People who believe in you and support you, it just makes all the difference. And, you know, I was fortunate. I was fortunate to have that in her. So as hard as it was, for me. I was just blessed to be married to someone who supported me.
Joel Beasley 05:20
And then what age ranges are your kids? So,
Mike Rubin 05:22
my my oldest now, who is about one years old when I when I left medicine is 17. He's a junior in high school, and I've got a 14 year old daughter, and then on on the other side, a nine year old boy. So three, three kids to keep us busy.
Joel Beasley 05:41
Nice. We have three, they're all under the age of seven. Oh,
Mike Rubin 05:45
wow. So at least you've got the experience of what that takes from the first I'm sure. So hopefully, there's some benefits to scale there. I don't know if that's the case.
Joel Beasley 05:57
I know we were talking a little bit about family, and all of that. But I am curious, you had said you found your direction and your passion, you started an investment company, and you've been helping bring a lot of these ideas to life and helping invest in them. Do you have any projects that you can talk about that you're particularly excited?
Mike Rubin 06:16
Sure, absolutely. So as I stated, I founded a science driven venture capital firm called North pond ventures, we're a multi billion dollar franchise that's among the most active investors in the area of Biotherapeutics molecular diagnostics, life science tools, really anything that spans the value proposition of supporting the life sciences and medicine. And we actually have structured partnerships with three academic institutions, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, where we run the equivalent of incubators there, if you will, where we actually get involved in the scientific research itself, and then help translate it into new business structures. And it's just extraordinary to see the kind of impact that breakthrough science can have on human life. And medicine. We're fortunate as an organization to be on the board of a business that we recently took public, called caverta, had a very successful IPO recently, and this is a cell therapy company that is able to reprogram an individual's immune system, if you will, to help address various different types of autoimmune diseases from very common autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis to some more esoteric ones. And we literally have these videos of patients who were wheelchair bound, they couldn't take care of their own kids, just because of physical limitations. And now they can ride a bicycle and walk freely after a single treatment. And it's really remarkable to see these new modalities come to fruition, and not just work in the lab, not just work in an animal model, but actually to work in people. This is actually happening today. Yes, this is actually happening today, we have what's called an open label, clinical trial, which allows us to actively enroll patients in various different disease categories using this this platform. And we're, we're starting to see these remarkable results, I should caution that we're still in clinical trials. So you know, this specific company is still in that process of getting FDA approval, but already demonstrating some really encouraging results. And, you know, we've been fortunate to have other companies in the past that have been engaged in things like gene therapy, where are these children who have these highly debilitating, inborn genetic illnesses that lead to horrific morbidity and with these types of treatments, you can really restore tremendous function and normalcy to their lives. And, you know, that's, that's really motivating. And that's at the heart of what we believe in and what we try to bring into the world.
Joel Beasley 09:32
That is unbelievable. Yeah,
Mike Rubin 09:35
no, thank you. And it, it takes a lot of great people, right. So, you know, we're fortunate to be part of this ecosystem. But one of the things that, you know, we really talk about is it is an ecosystem, it's the academic institutions and intrapreneurs and also the folks on our side of the fence, you know, helping support these businesses success, but, you know, these are these are worthy causes and We work really hard to do our best to be part of the solution for, for these patients. I
Joel Beasley 10:06
had done an interview, maybe a year or two ago with a guy who I think was at MIT, Yale or Harvard, one of the big ones. And he had been studying limb region, regeneration, and actually being able to do that. And he was telling me that the hardest thing I don't know if this was in the show, or outside of the show, so one of the hardest things in the world is like the amount of emails he gets from people that are amputees or like, spilling their life store. And apparently, with the limb regeneration aspect, it has to be done within like 24 hours of losing the limb, and their research. And so it's amazing to see these advancements that are it sounds science fiction, it sounds science fiction, you reprogram their immune system and help solve autoimmune diseases. That's unbelievable. It
Mike Rubin 10:55
is unbelievable. And it does sound like science fiction. And we're really living in an era of not just molecular biology, but programmable molecular biology, where we have become accustomed to the notion that we can program in information technology, and we can instantiate code, and then enable that code to actually serve useful purposes. But by extension, the human genome is in and of itself, a code that then gets as we, as we say, in biology, transcribed and translated into these proteins that then serve all these functions. And so if we can then rewrite this code, the impact that we can have on human disease can be profound. And I take it one step further, we're involved in a number of projects. So I'm, I'm actually a visiting scholar at Harvard University. And I helped found the laboratory for bioengineering Research and Innovation at Harvard's VESA Institute, where we are engaged in number of projects to actually expand the letters of the alphabet, if you will, for biology. So many of us learn in school, that DNA has these four canonical base pairs, A, T, C, and G and they interconnect. And everything's sort of written with these four letters. And likewise, there's, you know, these 20 or so amino acids that compose all the proteins, but who's to say that we can't create more letters to these alphabets? If we're programmers, we will, we can create more code that we can then use as sort of building blocks or Legos, if you will to do all sorts of things that maybe naturally wouldn't occur. And so now we're actually engineering new nucleic acids, we're engineering new amino acids that we can then create different and more powerful building blocks. So we're seeing tremendous convergence, Joel, between information technology and biology and a lot of crossover and a lot of cross learning.
Joel Beasley 13:16
There's been one I have followed for a while. DNA storage. Have you looked into that at all?
Mike Rubin 13:23
We have, and it's interesting, and there's lots of folks doing doing great, great work there. And obviously, DNA is inherently biological storage device. So there's certainly rationale to use it in that capacity.
Joel Beasley 13:44
We're still working on the readwrite, though. Yeah. Like, it's I when I talked with catalog, one of the people over at catalog they said right now the commercialization uses right, once read never. And well, that's a use. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Rubin 14:00
It's, you know, oftentimes it starts that way. And the scalability comes later. So, you know, there's a whole industry, which I'm sure you and others are familiar with, which is sort of biosynthesized food.
Joel Beasley 14:20
Oh, yeah. We talked to the fish guy. Yeah. The salmon guy. Oh, yeah. Here and curated me or cultured meat. What did they call it? Yeah.
Mike Rubin 14:31
So you you can you can use yeast, if you will, in in a vat, to basically synthesize all sorts of different moieties including proteins that are critical for various different food types. And it spans anything from eggs to fish to meat and everything in between. And it's it's a fascinating area. Everyone has an opinion about it. But the reason I sort of brought it up in this context is to sort of emphasize your initial point, which is, you know, the cost of that first biosynthesized stake is probably in the millions, right? And so there's probably not a huge market for, you know, a million dollar steak, or a million dollar piece of fish. You know, that said, you know, that's, that's where we start, right? It's that Moore's Law phenomena we saw, you know, Moore's law in spades, in fact, an even more pronounced Moore's Law phenomena in, in genomic sequencing where the cost went from, you know, the multibillion dollar, you know, first genome sequence to, you know, 100 $100, or certainly less than $1,000 today. And so, you know, this industry is going to see that that kind of progression, but that, you know, that's where you start, right, the right once read, never phenomenon. But that's innovation for you are the $100,000
Joel Beasley 16:06
an ounce salmon. Exactly, yeah, wild type foods is who I got to speak with Ari, over there. And they were they were tracking the cost of it coming down from like, a million to 100,000, to where it's going to eventually be more cost effective than actually farming the fish from the sea.
Mike Rubin 16:28
Right? And then you think about, well, the probability of infection gets a lot lower, you know, sustainability, and there's a whole host
Joel Beasley 16:39
ick factor, like, am I, I'm not the only one that feels like I'm a very forward thinker, science guy. And I'm like, Look, that half my brain is like, that is so cool. It could solve lots of problems, high quality, you could take the best salmon ever and replicate it and always have the best salmon, right? Or do that with any food and always have super high quality things without antibiotics without, like, there's a really cool aspect. And then when I see it, like grown in a vat, I'm like, Nah,
Mike Rubin 17:06
yeah, that's a fair point. What I will say, in our country, in particular, is highly processed on natural foods seems to do incredibly well. There's a long list of ingredients that no one can pronounce, or possibly understand that eventually they're like, yeah, it's small print, it tastes good. You know, I get over it. And you know, if you thought too hard about all the things that you're eating there, you might think twice, but I think
Joel Beasley 17:37
hard about the things I I'm very, I have a very strict diet. Yeah, we live on a farm, we do the best we can to eat our own food and things of that nature. So Well, that's
Mike Rubin 17:48
wonderful, Joel. And, you know, there is another way to look at it, right? Like there's the Impossible Burger, right. And what they do is they they synthesize leghemoglobin, which is one of the major components that give meat, the taste that it does. But the reality is, you're not getting an artificial version of that protein, you're getting the protein, it's just you're using yeast as sort of a manufacturing tool to create this protein that's already in the meat itself. But rather than sacrificing the cow to get that protein, you're you're just synthesizing it and asking the yeast to create that protein for you. But if you were to then to go and do biological analytical assessment of what it was that you were actually eating, you wouldn't be able to differentiate, at that level at the molecular level, the difference between, you know, a protein that was derived from here or there now we're getting there. So it's a process. So I won't quite say that's the case today. And there's a reason why your Impossible Burger tastes a little different than your normal burger. But, you know, it's tastes like a burger. I mean, that's a pretty good start. I love my burger. So, you know, I I'll be the first to tell you, you know, I'm not invested in the company. I'm not invested in that particular or space. But, you know, it's, it's a it's a worthy exercise, and I'm glad you're doing it. And, you know, though, they'll they'll come a day where that will come more prevalent. I'm pretty confident of that. It
Joel Beasley 19:38
is I mean, they just released it into two or three restaurants. And this was four months ago or six months ago. I heard that yeah, they're serving chicken. They were doing it outside of the states quite a bit because of the regulation. And I think they have a couple maybe one or two McDonald's or something like that with either hamburger or chicken that's grown in that fashion. Yeah,
Mike Rubin 20:00
and we're starting to see that, you know, and the initial, the initial thrust of the comment was less to go into the food, although it's fascinating and relatable, but also to go in these other applications as relates to human health and interventional medicines, where we can use this sort of rewrite capability to help the body's own immune system. Or you can create your own vehicles with its own genetic mechanisms that can then insert themselves into the human genome and create, you know, normal byproducts that are defective otherwise. So we're already in that era, we're in the beginning of it, we have a lot more diseases to conquer. But we've never had better tools, and never had a better understanding of biology than we do today. And so it's really the onus of this in the next generations to really harness the power of all this breakthrough science to do good. Well, that's
Joel Beasley 21:05
what I'm getting excited about, right? Because I've grown up and my dad was a hardware software engineer, and he taught me and I got to watch the progression. I'm 36, for context. So I've gotten to watch that much of the progression. And now I'm seeing all of the advancements from the compute now being able to be applied to the biology, and I'm very excited. Like, I want to have wings one day, that would be cool. Let's get back, though. And,
Mike Rubin 21:32
yeah, we'll work on it. You know, one of we are working with a professor named George Church, who's a prominent geneticist at at Harvard. And we have two businesses and two research projects that were close and collaborating. And I've done a bunch of work with him. And he has another business, which I'm not involved with. But the thrust of the business is to bring back the woolly mammoth. Oh, I know, Ariana Yes. And so, you know, that that is demonstrative of what the underlying science could potentially do and why it wasn't the right fit for us. We're rooting for them. You know, and I'll be the first you know, order order my Namath? Yeah, I just gotta convince the wife. You know, but I'd love to, I'd love to have one. Yeah.
Joel Beasley 22:28
I did an interview with Ariana about the woolly mammoth de Extinction Project with colossal. And, by the way, you're getting, you're reminding me of all the cool stuff I've done. That's not tech leadership. But she, she was brilliant. I started that interview, I prepped for it by watching Jurassic Park. And my opening comment to her was Did you not see the movie?
Mike Rubin 22:55
But yeah, we're, you know, we're trying to bring that into into life. So, you know, there's a lot of learnings that come across along all this process, right in between the conception and the actual realization of a mammoth or whatnot,
Joel Beasley 23:09
Arctic elephant, you have to go Arctic elephant, you can't go straight to Mammoth. That's, that's what I learned is I can't just jump to Mammoth, you got to go elephant, Arctic, elephant, mammoth.
Mike Rubin 23:18
There you go. There you go. It's kind of life is kind of like that, too. Right? Like, you gotta you gotta go through these evolutionary steps to get to the point where, you know, you could function in certain ways. So it's Georgia. Cool guy. Have you spent time with the person? I have? Yeah, he is a very cool guy. He's an extraordinary scientist, he is involved in a lot of things. Which is impressive. You know, there's certain people, George is one of them. I'd say, Bob Langer, who's the scientific founder of Maderna, professor at MIT, is another one of these people who has an extraordinary capacity to be involved in a meaningful way and a large number of things. And these are the kinds of people that I admire. It's like, how do you manage to do all of these things simultaneously, and still keep your head above water? So he's, he's one of those guys, for sure. Well,
Joel Beasley 24:12
my one of my big drivers, I went and got to meet Jordan Peterson, about two weeks ago. And he speaks a lot about aim, right? And one of my big drivers is to build wealth while getting to spend time with the greatest minds on our planet, right. And the vehicle in which I'm doing that is a podcast, and I've been doing it for about 10 years and 1000 episodes, you seem to have a similar drive, right? But you're doing it through much better than me from from a wealth building standpoint, but you're doing it through this investment vehicle seems like the way that you talk and the way that you're presenting in this interview seems like you love the fact that you've got this financial way to interact with these really brilliant minds.
Mike Rubin 24:57
Yeah, you've hit it right the nail on the head, Joel That's exactly the way I think about it. And as, as we started out this discussion, I didn't get here the the fast way, or the linear way, the easy way. But ultimately, that's really what I love about what I do is the notion that I get to interact with and work with some of the smartest, most impactful humans on the planet. You know, again, I, I have academic appointments at Harvard, Stanford and MIT and work with some of the brightest people in those institutions, and work with them in a constructive way to actually take this science and enable it to reach its highest potential. So that can impact you know, human human life. And you know, when that works, it's also remunerative, right. So we're investors, we're venture capitalists, we build businesses, and there's just tremendous alignment between science and medicine, working and also, you know, being financially rewarding. And so I'm grateful Grateful for that. And it's, it's, it's a good way, it's a good way to be, we
Joel Beasley 26:02
found a really smart way to do it, it's actually one of my favorite business models, the idea that you can go into these research areas, and then help them take this research and monetize it has always been of interest to me, because when I get to meet those types of people, a lot, some of them have business interest, a lot of them just really want to solve that problem. And they just want to go a mile deep into it. And then if you can come alongside and help build a business around it, you can empower them to take that even farther. And I think that's a really useful part. It's not like monetization is just the second half, it's like, it's a very useful component in the entire lifecycle of advancing humanity.
Mike Rubin 26:39
100%. And, you know, the thing is, Joel, I went through this process of training as a physician and a scientist and lived in those shoes and realized, I had certain skill sets, that enabled me to get up to a certain point. But beyond that point, I also realized that I didn't have the complementary skill sets that were needed in order to raise capital and build the business and go through all these regulatory processes and reimbursement and running clinical trials and building a team and compensating people and all these things. I was like, I didn't learn any of that in medical school, nor should I have I necessarily learned that so I knew what I was getting myself into. And the fun thing is, you can synergize and compliment extraordinary people who are great at what they do. And they have an understanding of what the limits of what they can do, and are looking for people who have those skill sets that allow them to, you know, take these technologies and these solutions into the market. And most of them want to stay in academia and continue you're doing their research, but they also want to see some of their best work actually come come to life in this way. And so it's, it's, it's really great to have that alignment. Yeah.
Joel Beasley 27:58
If you are inventing technology that can help reprogram individuals immune systems to help cure things like Ms. How could you not want to see that go to market?
Mike Rubin 28:10
Yeah, absolutely. And most people, unfortunately, the amount of work being done in academia that has the potential to transform human life, is far in excess of what my ecosystem can absorb. And so in many ways I look at what I do, and my colleagues do is sort of the rate limiting step to actually seeing this stuff succeed. There are so many great scientists doing amazing work, but then they're at this point of I published this paper, what do I do with it? And it requires, as you might imagine, a tremendous amount of work for someone to come in and help them figure out how that's clinically applicable and how to build a business model around it and to raise capital and to build this business. You know, and some 99% plus of all of this never leaves an academic journal. It's just a really cool idea that someone says, Wow, this is amazing. Let's publish it. Maybe a few people read that publication, and then you're on to the next. And, you know, my job is to say, Well, wait a minute here. It's great that this goes into the annals of whatever journal that sits in some library. But, you know, if it's worthy of being published by these illustrious journals, and maybe there's something to be done about all this, and, you know, we need more people to think that way.
Joel Beasley 29:38
And then how do you measure the size of your company? Do you typically talk about funds raised or number of employees?
Mike Rubin 29:45
Yeah, that's a that's a great question. You know, I always work backwards, Joel, from the impact that we want to have. And I always think to myself, what does success look like? What What could this technology do in the hands of a set of customers that would be meaningful, and that's highly variable. You know, there, there are some businesses that require relatively modest mohicans of capital to actually realize themselves. And there's others that, you know, you know, you're going to be in for hundreds of millions of dollars structurally, and everything in between. And ultimately, I think of that as sort of an output rather than an input. So what we're really trying to do is figure out, what is the value proposition? And then you got to ask yourself, does the investment compensate you? For both the risk and the amount of capital you have to outlay in order to get there? And then those are sort of typical business kind of considerations. So the things that we think about are, is this truly sustainably advantaged and differentiated? Is it better than what already exists? And is it sustainably better? Generally, and innovation? If it's 10%? Better, that's not going to be good enough for my industry, right? It's got to be 10 times better, and not just 10 times better. But it's got to sustain that advantage over long periods of time, because takes me years to bring this to the market, so it can't get jumped in a year or two. And then, as the old saying goes, will the dogs eat the dog food? Right? So is there a market? How compelling is that market? You could, and this often happens in science, you could come up with the coolest, most innovative solution that no one wants. Or it's just so prohibitively expensive that it's like, you know, this is 10% Better than, you know, your your current phone, but it's 300 times the cost. And you're like, that's not a trade off, you know, the markets comfortable with even though it's better, right? And so the business model, you know, needs to work, the customer set needs to work. And then the economics, you know, needs to work as well. These are just practical considerations for the flywheel to continue to turn.
Joel Beasley 32:10
How did you come up with the name North pond?
Mike Rubin 32:13
That's, you know, that's a great question. It's personal. So my, my wife and I, we met in in Chicago, and one of the first dates that we had where I knew that, you know, I think there's something here between the two of us and I wanted to take her to a nice restaurant. And there is a pond in Chicago called North pond, and there's a restaurant on the pond, also called North pond. And we sort of really deeply connected over dinner that night, and we discussed our hopes and dreams in life. And even though I was still in medical training, I talked about this notion of I think I want to also do something entrepreneurial. And and I remember having that conversation, I remember connecting. And it was a way to name the business after something that was deeply meaningful to me without putting my personal name on it. And I liked the fact that it was a little bit non descript. I know, different people choose to name their businesses, different things. And that's, that's great to each each their own. For me, I sort of wanted something that was on one hand meaningful. So I could tell stories like this on on the other hand, wasn't too overt. So that's, that's where it came from.
Joel Beasley 33:38
I've heard all sorts of great stories about names. There's one company sticks in my head, because it was one of the most absurd, it's called Rimini Street. I can't remember exactly what they do. But I remember the story. He said, Oh, we're like filling out the paperwork. And we already knew what the product we already knew everything about the product and the customer in the market. And we were just having to file this LLC real quick. And I couldn't think of a name and I looked out the window and I saw Rimini Street. And as I just wrote that. I was like, All right, there you go. There's infinite ways to do it. You
Mike Rubin 34:09
know, Joel, it's so funny that you said that because I actually have a friend who's a family friend who did the exact same thing. He had founded a business with a number of colleagues. And they were going through the names of what they should call it. And they literally looked out the window and saw the name of the street and the street had a total nondescript name and like it wasn't anything special. And they're like, why don't we just call it that and they're like, that works and yeah, it's you know, names can come from all sorts of places, I suppose. But yeah, it's there's always always a story.
Joel Beasley 34:49
That's why when the aim is clear, everything else orient itself towards achieving that aim, and then it just becomes the vehicle, right?
Mike Rubin 34:59
100% yeah. Ah, absolutely.
Joel Beasley 35:01
So tell me about another. I'm not going to grill you on 100 of these. But we talked a little bit about the MSX. One, we talked about food, although I don't think you were making a lot of investments over there. We just kind of discussed it briefly. But what's another area where you're really helping people? Well,
Mike Rubin 35:18
I think another interesting area, especially in the context of, you know, you and your audience is the intersection of information technology, with what we call multi omics, which is genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, the, the the information that underlies all these biological entities. And what we are doing now, Joel and have been doing for quite some time, you know, at minimum, the last 10 plus years is creating an enormous repository of data around all sorts of different disease processes, and individual patients and the genomes of individual patients, and how all this information gets modified by various different drugs and interventions. And now we we are in this position of trying to figure out how do we actually leverage all of this data to make better decisions? And, yes, there continues to be a biological exercise of creating this data. But that is being very much complemented by an entirely parallel process, which is putting the biology aside, how do we intelligently process all of this data to come up with actionable solutions that, you know, impact, you know, patient lives, and, you know, remarkable anecdote that I'll share with you is, as a clinician, as a physician who actually practice medicine, the amount of data that we as humans can really amalgamate into making a decision real time is very, very small, right? So it's unbelievably rudimentary, right? It's sort of like, well, you measure the patient's temperature, and you sort of see their heart rate something, you know, and then maybe you take a blood culture, and you put those three pieces together, and you come up with the decision, and you give them a prescription, right, but there's only so many things that you could sort of calculate in your head. And you've got to use these really high level rubrics. But that's absolutely, as you well know, not the case, once you start, you know, getting the benefit of computational power, right, you can look at huge amounts of data like simultaneously and come up with far more complicated algorithms. And, you know, I ever could, in my head trying to make a decision for a patient. And that's in part where, where medicine is, is going, and so much so that, you know, like, as I was saying, these algorithms, and these processes don't have to be that complex. It's like, three simple data points that you put together, that you as a human, you know, have a difficult time doing. And it's truly extraordinary how much information science can and will impact medicine. And we're just at the very forefront of it today.
Joel Beasley 38:26
My brother and mom are physicians, and my brother and I were talking probably about five years ago, like a Christmas dinner or something, he had brought a stack of patient files home for new patients to read up on, like their own history. And I said, you know, we could definitely I just learned about MLMs, from this legal project I was working on at the time was very rudimentary, not even close to what we have today. But I said, you know, what we could do is we could just push all of that information into one of these models, and like, pick out the things that you that you want, that way it can save you save you time. And he was like, yeah, maybe that's something he's not very business minded. He's really good doctor, though. And he's like, yeah, that's something for the future. But for now, just, you know, sit down and read, you know, read through them, thumb through them. And as like, wow, this is actually happening in the medical field, like these doctors, when they get new patients, they attempt to read like their whole file to understand as they onboard them. This is so inefficient. This is such an inefficient, horrible way to do this, like you could use technology to aid you and this discovery process of bringing on a new patient.
Mike Rubin 39:35
Yeah, it's, it's remarkable, you know, and I, I'm a little bit removed from clinical practice. So I know things have advanced since I was oh, I'm sure there was tools that do that now. Yeah, but it's still advanced, far less than you would, you would think, like you were, we were very siloed in the decisions that we were making so I could be in a hospital. where there was an infectious outbreak. And I would be in a position where I would have to prescribe a certain treatment or antibiotic to a patient. But there were 15 other physicians all encountering a similar thing in a similar setting, all making independent decisions with absolutely no learnings whatsoever from the outcomes of these other patients who are experiencing something similar. And you could sort of imagine if we had the benefit of, you know, real time information analysis, assessment of what was going on and assessment, what was working, you know, some benchmarking, you know, we can make much more, you know, informed decisions, but, you know, in medicine at the time, and still, it's, it's very siloed, based on the discretion of an individual, the, the exact patient that they have in front of them, and the limited amount of information they have with an I will say, an extraordinarily limited amount of time to make that decision, right. And so, you know, you don't have like hours to process a patient's situation, you just sort of have to look at them, you know, and then make a decision based on your best judgment. And I'm not stating that physician discretion should be subordinated to data analysis, I'm just simply stating, the more we can complement our ability to make judicious decisions with data and information that's real time and accurate. And that's complementary to the data we have. You know, we're gonna make better decisions we certainly do and everything else. And that's going to be, you know, continued to be incredibly important for medicine and science.
Joel Beasley 41:40
Let's talk about your three P's of success prepared, passionate and personal. Can you How did you come up with that?
Mike Rubin 41:46
You know, it's, it's, it's a great question. So I, when I founded my first venture capital business, I had never worked in the industry. And it was a common question for people who I solicited for capital. Well, why would we give you money, right? There's all these really established firms that, you know, have great track records, and all these partners, and they're well known, like, you have no team, you have no fun, do you have no experience? I could take my money to anybody. Like, why would I back your fledgling firm? And, you know, one of the questions was, well, how do you source opportunities, right? How do you get these scientists and these businesses to want to work with you? And my initial response, which doesn't sound like much was, well, I show up. And they're like, That's your secret, you show up? And I said, Yeah, as it turns out, most people in life in general, and including in these situations don't even show up. So they may be smarter than me, they may be more experienced, they may have a better track record. But you know, I'm sitting in front of this intrapreneur, and I'm sitting sitting in front of this scientist, and I hopped on an aeroplane, and, you know, and I showed up at their doorstep. And that gave me advantage over all the people, you know, who, quote, unquote, may have been better than me, but didn't show up. And they said, Well, that makes a lot of sense. But there's got to be more than that. And I said, yeah, there is there's these three P's. And I learned it from experience. And the first P is, I show up prepared. And I actually learned this in an amusing way. It was my very first day on my very first job outside of medicine, and I got to meet the CEO of one of the largest healthcare companies in the world. And it was a group meeting with me and two other investors from other firms. And I was really nervous, and I was doing all this preparation to what to ask them. And, you know, I thought I had all these great questions. And the person next to me, just asked the most mundane sort of obvious, not well thought out question. And I was like, That can't be a good way to build rapport with this amazing CEO, who you're privileged to have time with. And, you know, I quickly learned that being prepared would be an advantage. And I built a relationship with the CEO because I asked Mark questions, and so being prepared is a huge advantage. Number two is being personable and the data analysis like people work with people they like, right? And they're like, Yeah, I don't know this other person has a great track record and they've been around but I really like Joel, I want to work with you. All right, and I can choose who I work with, and I want to work with people I like and so, you know, you show up, you show up prepared, you show up personable, and the third thing is passionate and the reason that passion is so important, my industry is, I work in the intrapreneurial industry, I work with people who were incredibly successful in their careers and decided to leave it all behind to take on the risk of doing something different and new. Because they believed in it, and they're looking for other people who share their passion, right? And if you go in there, and you're low energy, and you show disinterest, and you're basically checking your email the whole time, like, okay, maybe that person's a famous investor, but it was kind of an uninspiring meeting. But if you show up, and you're passionate, and you're prepared, and you asked good questions, and you you share in their enthusiasm, you know, it turns out that success, and in that kind of environment didn't require anything super heavy or esoteric, it was just about doing the basics. Wow. And I just sort of learned that from from experience.
Joel Beasley 45:57
Do you have a podcast?
Mike Rubin 46:01
I don't have a podcast of my own. But I'm fortunate, you know, I'm blessed to, to be on on on your podcast, and to be able to share some of these, some of these thoughts and, you know, that's what I'm really bad. I just, I just want to help people, you know, I, I don't come here, I don't, I don't have a product, you know, to sell. You know, I'm not looking for clients, or investors, anything like that. It's just, you know, we started out this discussion of, gosh, you know, I started out in the wrong direction. And then I wish there were people out there who just gave me a few pointers to help me out. And that's, that's what I'm trying to do. Just try to help as many people as I can.
Joel Beasley 46:40
I like you. And that's honestly how I found you. I have time in my calendar every week. It's essentially free time, which I call like, like research, where I just go, mess around on the internet, look at different hashtags, see if there's interesting people I can find. And then if something catches my attention, and I click in and look at the person a little bit, I'm like, this is a fascinating person. And then I just screenshot it and send it to my team and say, See if they'll come on the show.
Mike Rubin 47:12
I love it. Well, I'm privileged to do it, you know, and it's funny, because before we're fascinating, we're incredibly and fascinating, right? for periods of time. And, you know, I've spent most of my life in that, you know, position where I wasn't too interesting, because a lot of the things that, you know, I was doing just wasn't, you know, wasn't quite showing the results yet. And I think all of our lives are sort of like those proverbial icebergs where, you know, so much of it is underneath water. And sometimes I wonder whether there is more to be learned from the version of me that hadn't gotten to the point where I am today, where it's like, yeah, look, look at that version of me that, you know, was was sort of trying to wade through all these, you know, these waters to get to this place. But, you know, just just trying to do what I can to help share some some experience with others.
Joel Beasley 48:11
Are your kids going to join the fun when they graduate? i
Mike Rubin 48:15
Yeah, that would be, that would be fun. You know, I know, you know, Joel, you have the experience of having three, three young kids at home. And it's, it's just remarkable to see them become their own people, right. And you start to feel like, oh, okay, I know who I am. I know, you know, who my wife is. And we're both physicians, and we sort of, you know, we're different, but we're similar in some ways, and you sort of figure, okay, I can do the math and, you know, figure out what our kids are going to be and, you know, they end up being their own people, which is really cool. But, you know, you learn, I don't know, if you had similar experience with your kids, right? You're like, oh,
Joel Beasley 48:57
okay, it's, look, two nights ago, my daughter walks up to me with a stuffed llama and says, Would you like to buy a llama? And I said, Okay, how much? And she goes, Well, how much money do you have? And I said, I said, $5. And she goes like this, huh? You look like somebody that has more than $5 What is going on here? She's like, that's great. I will sell you this llama for $1,000. And she's six and a half, right? And I'm like, Look, I go $5 is all I have $1,000 But I only have $5 for the llama. And then she looks at me. She goes, Well, I'll see what my what my boss says. They're not gonna like this. They're not gonna like it at all. But I might be able to do $10 I was like, Where did she learn this? Like, where did this come about? Where did this happen from and to your point of you watch these kids start to grow and emerge into their own personalities where you're like, there's no way you just solve Something like I don't do that, you know, I don't do that, like you grew up in an environment where my kids, if you come over and hang out, and they want to talk with you, like they'll try to make a deal with you won't be, it'll be I'll get a chocolate chip cookie in exchange for cleaning the playroom or whatever it will be. But they have a mindset of deals and understanding of it. Yeah,
Mike Rubin 50:23
it is. It is fascinating. And it's, it's great to see them develop their own interests and talents and passions and to be able to, you know, call cultivate that. And
Joel Beasley 50:34
so what interests do your kids have? Where are they really congregating? Well,
Mike Rubin 50:38
my, my 17 year old is really keen on on playing football in college, I've never played a game of football in my life. And, you know, when, when he started high school, I think one of the things that my wife and I agreed on is, we would absolutely not permit our son to play football. But, you know, we ultimately decided we weren't going to withhold him from his passion because of, of our sort of philosophies and so, you know, his passions, football, my, my 14 year old daughter, loves, loves playing the guitar, she went through a pretty intense skateboarding phase where she went, he went to skateboarding camp and do all these crazy tricks that I just can't even watch. She goes down these, like, vertical ramps that, you know, like, my heart literally stops when I when I see her do it, but And again, you know, I never, never skateboarded and if I tried, I wouldn't be any good at it. And, you know, I'm not a guitar player, either, you know, I futz around with it a little bit, but she's way better than I am. And, you know, my wife is, you know, doesn't doesn't do any of these things, either. And then my nine year old, interestingly, is, is a DJ like can Oh, come on, I was, yeah, it was his own thing. He's just like, I love this. I want to take DJ lessons he wants to produce and I was like, no clue where this came from, like, and it's not like, his friends or DJs, or his friends introducing, or my daughter's friends skateboard or play the guitar. It wasn't any sort of, you know, peer influence. It was just something that they had discovered and decided that was true to them. And, you know, we're just, you know, along for the ride, you know, with these kids is pretty remarkable. Yeah,
Joel Beasley 52:34
well, I think we did it, Mike, we made a podcast. How do you feel?
Mike Rubin 52:39
This is a lot of fun, Joel, I'm just really privileged, you know, to be to be on your show. And, you know, to be able to have this conversation with you. It's, it's, it's a lot of fun. And hopefully, there's a few things that yeah, sinners can can take away.
Joel Beasley 52:56
Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn, or send me an email Joel at modern cto.io. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.
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