Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 02 - Dr Chris Mirabelli, Chairman Leap Therapeutics, co-Founder Ionis

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Episode 02 - Dr Chris Mirabelli, Chairman Leap Therapeutics, co-Founder Ionis · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Bio Hub. Today I feel truly honoured to
• 0:09
  welcome our guests. I mean all of what he's achieved
• 0:11
  throughout his career. 40 years of experience across biotech and
• 0:15
  pharma. Currently serving as Chairman of
• 0:17
  Leap Therapeutics where he was the CEO from its founding in
• 0:20
  2015 until 2020. A Managing Director of
• 0:24
  Healthcare Ventures where since joining in 2000 they've raised
• 0:28
  $1 billion across 4 funds and he has been involved in over 15
• 0:32
  investments leading to successful exits.
• 0:35
  Before his VC Ventures, he was the CEO and Chairman of
• 0:38
  Leukocyte from its inception in 1993 until its acquisition by
• 0:42
  Millennium in 1999. Before that he was a Co founder
• 0:46
  of Ionis Pharma who today sits at a $7 billion market cap and a
• 0:50
  workforce of 1000 employees. Honestly, I'm so happy that
• 0:54
  we'll be talking through the career and thoughts of Doctor
• 0:57
  Chris Mirabelli. Welcome Chris.
• 0:59
  How are you? Just great, Max.
• 1:02
  Thanks. Yeah, great.
• 1:04
  Let's jump in. So first question, nice place to
• 1:08
  start. Can you share a bit about your
• 1:10
  early career and what inspired you to pursue a path in the
• 1:13
  pharmaceutical and biotech industries?
• 1:16
  Sure. Yeah.
• 1:17
  Well, I just say I was always growing up in high school and
• 1:21
  things. I was always very interested in
• 1:22
  science and in particular the Biological Sciences.
• 1:24
  And as a result of that, when I went to College in undergrad, I
• 1:28
  majored in biology and got an opportunity to do independent
• 1:33
  research a number of projects. And that really kind of excited
• 1:37
  me about about research and in particularly applied research.
• 1:41
  And as a result of that, I got interested in in the whole area
• 1:46
  of pharmacology, the idea of understanding biology and
• 1:50
  Physiology and how you could modulate it in in the context of
• 1:57
  therapies for disease. And that led me to decide to go
• 2:03
  to Graduate School for pharmacology PhD program that I
• 2:09
  was accepted to at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston,
• 2:12
  TX at the Medical Center, Texas Medical Center in the late 70s.
• 2:18
  And I was very fortunate because when I got there, I was
• 2:23
  introduced to It's one by the name of Stanley Crook.
• 2:27
  And Stan is probably one of the brightest, most talented people
• 2:31
  I ever met. And he was a physician,
• 2:34
  scientist, MDPHD who, in addition to having a faculty
• 2:38
  appointment at Baylor in the pharmacology department, had
• 2:41
  been actually recruited by Bristol-Myers.
• 2:47
  That's Bristol-Myers was what it was called at the time back in
• 2:51
  the 70s and to really lead a number of their camp oncology,
• 2:58
  drug discovery and development activities.
• 3:01
  And one of the things he did getting very innovative, he had
• 3:06
  he and and Bristol actually decided to fund a laboratory,
• 3:11
  create a laboratory within the pharmacology department there at
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  Baylor to focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms of a
• 3:19
  number of drugs, both ones that that were on the market from
• 3:23
  Bristol, but also drugs that were in development really to
• 3:26
  understand them at the molecular level, cellular and molecular
• 3:29
  level. And so as a result of being a
• 3:32
  graduate student of of his, I got an opportunity to do my PhD
• 3:37
  work in areas of understanding again molecular pharmacology of
• 3:41
  a number of different types of drugs at the time that Bristol
• 3:46
  was was interested in. So then it turned out about 3/4
• 3:50
  of the way through my PhD, Stan Crook was recruited by Smith
• 3:56
  Kline to be their worldwide head of R&D of all R&D.
• 4:00
  And so as I was trying to decide whether or not to go to medical
• 4:02
  school, go do a postdoc, he offered me the opportunity to go
• 4:05
  directly to Smith Kline and get involved in our research and
• 4:10
  development. And so I was there.
• 4:13
  It was fantastic. It was sort of, as I said, tell
• 4:15
  people it was. It was sort of a drug discovery
• 4:19
  and development university at the time because there's just a
• 4:22
  lot going on in particular at Smith Kline and in Philadelphia.
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  And so I was there through much of the 80s and got an
• 4:32
  opportunity to get involved mostly oncology, some
• 4:34
  inflammation autoimmune disease, but but really to understand and
• 4:38
  and and you know at first hand the the whole discovery and
• 4:42
  development process within a pharmaceutical company.
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  And as a result of that one of the areas we're very interested
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  in was the idea of thinking about oligonucleotides as drugs
• 4:56
  both to help you really identify targets and validate targets.
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  But even beyond that really thinking about pieces of of
• 5:05
  nucleic acids as being potential drugs.
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  And of course that led to the, you know, in fact that was the
• 5:11
  entree then for Stan, myself and another colleague, Dave Ecker,
• 5:17
  where we decided that we got very interested in it and
• 5:21
  decided that it would probably if we were gonna do it, we
• 5:23
  needed to do it in a in a different kind of environment,
• 5:26
  one that really focused on on the problem and and and the
• 5:30
  opportunity and and that led to Ionis.
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  And so that was in 88 and 89 that we then left Smith Kline
• 5:39
  and founded Ionis. And so that was sort of my
• 5:42
  transfer for transfer, I guess you'd call it transition, you
• 5:47
  know from a large pharmaceutical company, which you know again I
• 5:50
  really enjoyed, I got to learn a lot, but then into a biotech
• 5:54
  environment which you know was very different many different
• 5:58
  ways. Yeah, I mean I get that a lot,
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  you know, when I'm talking to small companies and the kind of
• 6:04
  people they want to bring in, you know, different mindset and
• 6:07
  all of that and the transition isn't easy and I think that that
• 6:11
  leads really nicely. On to our next question.
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  So as Founder for Fionis, I'm the CEO for Lucasite.
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  Can you walk us through what is the key to building a biotech
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  from the ground up? Yeah, You know, I like
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  everything. I mean, you know, it's
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  complicated question, but but in many ways as I think about, it's
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  really very early on understanding that, you know,
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  these aren't science projects, they're you're really building a
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  business and as a result you have to think about not just the
• 6:40
  science. I mean, it goes without saying
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  that you have to have really good science, both that helps to
• 6:48
  create the idea, but they're also in the company.
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  But you need the other pieces of building a business.
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  You need people who think about a business and business
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  development. People who think about you know
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  the financial side of of building a business and and
• 7:01
  really integrating all of that together and you you need to do
• 7:04
  it early on now it isn't something that well we'll we'll
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  we'll think about the science and in a few years we'll think
• 7:10
  about business development and ultimately we'll bring people in
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  who understand finance. You really need to to do that
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  from almost day one and and again it goes without saying you
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  really need very smart people. You need quality people who
• 7:23
  think, as I've always poll people.
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  I mean you know you really want to hire people who are smarter
• 7:29
  than you. I've always said that it's I'd
• 7:31
  be in big trouble if I was the smartest guy in the room and and
• 7:35
  so it's it's it really. Again it comes down to people.
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  You've got got to have good science, but to really translate
• 7:43
  that into drugs and and a business, you need some, you
• 7:47
  know, really talented people. Yeah, and I suppose that's my
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  advert when I'm pitching to clients, you know, about the
• 7:54
  people you know being such an important part.
• 7:56
  So thanks for backing me up on my recruitment pitch.
• 8:02
  So, yeah, so I suppose on the business side then what, what's
• 8:04
  the decision process between out licensing such partnering versus
• 8:09
  keeping the product rights all the way through development into
• 8:11
  commercialisation? Yeah.
• 8:13
  No, that's a that's an important important sort of process that
• 8:19
  you know especially early stage biotechs and a big part of that
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  decision comes down to access to capital.
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  You need money and you need money to not only in the the
• 8:30
  discovery but to even more money if you're taking compounds into
• 8:33
  the clinic and and well you know it's the the, the the ultimate
• 8:37
  goal is to bring drugs all the way through the process and onto
• 8:40
  the market. You know it requires not just a
• 8:43
  tremendous amount of capital but but brainpower throughout that
• 8:47
  process. And so I think that again is
• 8:50
  something. So if you you know again you
• 8:51
  have to think about where you can get that that access to
• 8:53
  capital and as we all know financial markets and and
• 8:58
  private equity and public equity, you know those things
• 9:01
  fluctuate And so sometimes you know you really have to look at
• 9:05
  where's your other access to capital and that comes from
• 9:08
  partners, larger pharmaceutical companies, larger biotech
• 9:11
  companies. And so it's it's always that
• 9:14
  that trade off. But you know I've always felt
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  that what biotech companies are very, very good at is developing
• 9:20
  innovative products from the discovery and getting them into
• 9:23
  the clinic and early proof of concept.
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  But it's that later stage of development where you really
• 9:28
  need a a whole different set of skills.
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  And then when you have to start thinking about commercialization
• 9:34
  competition that's where the larger pharmaceutical companies
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  have that they've been doing it, they're very good at it.
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  So it is you know I think that's where the the, the, the, the,
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  the, the partnership and the the value of that partnership
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  between small biotech and large pharma.
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  And so many of the drugs that I've been involved in, you know
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  have gotten there not because I was in the company that brought
• 9:56
  them all the way through, but because it really was finding
• 9:59
  that right partnership and the right timing of them to to hand
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  them. And again, it's not so much
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  handing them over, but but taking collectively together
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  through that next stage of final stages of development and and
• 10:11
  then into commercialization. Yeah.
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  And I think going back to the, the financing points, well
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  something I found pretty interesting in this year and in
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  terms of the struggle for fundraising, but also you know
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  deal making this year has been on the rise probably because of
• 10:26
  that. You know, where do you see it
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  potentially going? Well, I I I think it we'll we'll
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  we'll see it. You know I I I think continue to
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  be at a a a key part of the ecosystem that you know drives
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  biotech is the ability and and and again it's what it it it
• 10:46
  causes why why investors are willing to invest in an early
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  stage biotech because they understand it is a very
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  expensive process and so the potential return on capital if
• 10:56
  the only access you get is to to investors.
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  You know it's pretty hard to to write that equation where
• 11:02
  they're going to be able to see the kind of it return on their
• 11:06
  investment. But if they know that that that
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  the investment that they're making is going to then be added
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  to by you know pharma buying into the idea and being a
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  willing to enable to help to you know provide the funds.
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  You know it's it's that it's that partnership in a in a way
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  again between not just companies and the large pharma but
• 11:25
  investors in large pharma where you know they'll they they they
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  can achieve the kind of returns on investment that makes it all
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  worthwhile. Because you have to understand
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  it's a very risky business when you're when you're thinking
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  about investing in start-ups that where at the end of the day
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  it's going to be a product that has to come out of it that's and
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  and you know the the the development cycles are longer
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  for example compared to tech and and and things like that where
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  life cycles between you know an idea and a product is maybe two
• 11:55
  to three years whereas in the pharmaceutical business it can
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  be as much as you know 1015, even 20 years sometimes.
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  Yeah, I that that leads perfectly on to our next
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  question which touches on and you as an investment partner at
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  Healthcare Ventures, you know for almost 2 decades and then 24
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  years in totals in venture capital.
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  You know what? What do you look for in a good
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  investment? Yeah.
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  Well, again coming back to a couple of themes I've already
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  hit on, I think it it's it's science, it's the quality of the
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  science, where the science comes from.
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  I mean, you know, I I've never seen it done yet.
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  But I think if you were to look at the history of biotech and
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  and where those ideas have come from over the last 30 years and
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  they come from, you know some of the really, you know, really
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  world class institutions. You know we're really where it's
• 12:52
  not just the science but thinking about you know the the
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  medical element of it and and and and such.
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  So it again quality of science and and quality of people is
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  really what as an investor, you know I've always thought that if
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  you you gotta, there's an element which you have to have
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  luck. But the only way you get lucky
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  is if you've got those two things.
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  You've got some really good science and some good people,
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  and if you have that, you can take advantage of getting lucky
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  every once in a while. Yeah, that's true.
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  That's true. So with with over 40 years of
• 13:28
  experience, you've seen significant advancements in
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  biotechnology. Have you witnessed the industry
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  evolve and and what excites you about the future?
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  Yeah. Well, you know, I guess one of
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  the areas that you know I've probably 80% of my career has
• 13:43
  been in in areas relating to oncology and and cancer and drug
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  discovery development. When I started you know again
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  back in the late 70s, early 80s, I mean much of cancer therapy
• 13:53
  was chemotherapy and radiation and while they had an impact,
• 14:00
  clearly they had limitations from the standpoint of safety
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  and tolerability, therapeutic index etcetera.
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  What's happened in the last 30 years has been amazing with the
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  advent of antibodies, antibody drugs, protein based drugs,
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  precision medicine in in, in in high degrees of selectivity in
• 14:21
  terms of drug mechanism. And now you things like CRISPR
• 14:30
  and and and technologies that you know allow you to be much
• 14:35
  more precise in terms of how you're treating cancers that you
• 14:41
  know, we're going, we're we, I really do believe that in the
• 14:44
  next 20 years the vast majority of cancers will become diseases
• 14:49
  that we not only treat but they basically become chronic
• 14:52
  diseases. Much like we think about
• 14:54
  rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases where cardiovascular
• 14:57
  disease where you know, patients live for a long time, you may
• 15:01
  never cure them, but you know you you're able to treat them in
• 15:05
  in such a way. And importantly, where patients
• 15:08
  have high quality of life, you know, they're chronic diseases,
• 15:10
  but patients really can go on and lead their lives and you
• 15:14
  know, they're not, they're not sick all the time from from
• 15:16
  therapy. And so I really do think that
• 15:19
  that cancer will think about it in a very different way 20 years
• 15:22
  from now than we do even today. Wow, that's actually incredible
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  to hear, and it's a viewpoint I've probably not heard before.
• 15:29
  To be fair, from the other side of things, is there anything
• 15:32
  that worries you about the future?
• 15:37
  You know I I guess one of the areas that that you know I worry
• 15:40
  a little bit about is and and it's it relates to government
• 15:44
  regulation. I mean clearly you require some
• 15:47
  regulation. I mean the FDA is an important
• 15:49
  component of the drug development process and it's you
• 15:52
  know again it's been a critical positive impact on it.
• 15:56
  But at the same time you know it's that that fine balance of
• 15:59
  regulation and over regulation. And I think one of the things
• 16:04
  that we've seen in the US for example in the last few years
• 16:07
  has been the, you know, pressure now being put on from, you know,
• 16:11
  the government regulation not just of the development process
• 16:15
  but also the commercialization process and price controls.
• 16:19
  And as a result, I think why is it that, you know, investors
• 16:23
  have been willing to invest so much money in pharmaceutical and
• 16:27
  biotech R&D for the last, you know 20-30 forty years as well?
• 16:32
  Because they can make a return on their investment.
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  And I think if there's too much of A push on price controls and
• 16:40
  and and such, I think that will have an impact that it and it
• 16:44
  will clearly have an impact on innovation.
• 16:46
  And so that that does if if there was one thing that you
• 16:50
  know, I think could really have a negative impact, it's if we
• 16:54
  get if if we can't find the right balance over the course of
• 16:58
  the next decade or two, no. I agree with that, Yeah.
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  And it's something you know, that's spoken about a lot
• 17:05
  obviously in the industry. You know, like.
• 17:08
  You said earlier you know that investing in the start up is is
• 17:12
  a massive risk, you know and with that risk has to become has
• 17:16
  become that high reward and yeah, I completely get what
• 17:19
  you're saying, but yeah, so next question, what would you say is
• 17:27
  the biggest achievement of your career and and why?
• 17:33
  Well, I guess in part because of why I got into it.
• 17:35
  I mean I I think the biggest achievement is I've been able to
• 17:37
  be involved in a number of drugs that, you know, actually made it
• 17:43
  all the way. And you know, it's it's a kind
• 17:46
  of industry and process where no one person can sit back and take
• 17:50
  all the credit for a drug, you know, being discovered and then
• 17:54
  developed and commercialized. But you know, I've been able to
• 17:58
  play a role in the development process of a number of drugs
• 18:02
  that discovery and development of number of drugs that, you
• 18:05
  know, have actually made it all the way.
• 18:07
  For example, at Leukocyte we had when we were acquired by
• 18:11
  Millennium, we had three drugs in our pipeline that ultimately
• 18:14
  went on to be drugs. Commercial drugs is an antibody
• 18:18
  called Campath for the treatment of at the time fluid air being
• 18:23
  refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia was actually waiting
• 18:27
  for regulatory approval. When we were acquired by
• 18:29
  Millennium, we had another drug called that was actually for the
• 18:33
  treatment of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis that
• 18:35
  ultimately was successfully developed and commercialized.
• 18:40
  It's called Ontivio that is is commercialized by Takeda now
• 18:44
  because Takeda actually bought Millennium.
• 18:48
  And then there was an earlier stage drug that we had just
• 18:50
  started phase one trials called VELCADE or it was ultimately
• 18:55
  called Al Qaeda Proteasome. One of the first proteasome
• 18:57
  inhibitors said ultimately was was developed.
• 19:00
  So and there have been others, there's a drug called the
• 19:02
  Famidus that was not was not it looks like it was actually a
• 19:08
  drug that was developed by a company I was involved in
• 19:11
  through our investment by healthcare ventures in the
• 19:14
  company called Folderex that ultimately was very successful
• 19:19
  in developing a drug for a protein misfolding disease
• 19:23
  Transthyretin amyloidosis. That is was first developed for
• 19:28
  treating a genetic form of a disease resulting from
• 19:31
  misfolding of that protein but also an even larger population
• 19:35
  of patients that or have a cardiomyopathy that is the
• 19:39
  result of that misfolding. And so it's it's it's when you
• 19:43
  get to see that step back and see that you know you something
• 19:46
  you did had a had a big impact on people's lives.
• 19:50
  Yeah, I mean, that's incredible. You know, it's not a privilege
• 19:53
  that a lot of people are able to say it.
• 19:56
  I suppose it's a bit of a strange question, but you
• 19:58
  mentioned it earlier. You know, do you think there's
• 20:00
  an element of luck that you were involved or or managed to?
• 20:05
  To be part of of things like that or.
• 20:09
  Well, you know, I, I, I, I I think I have been lucky.
• 20:13
  You know, I've been in the right place at the right time and the
• 20:16
  mistakes of my career, whether it was, as I said, meeting that
• 20:19
  my my meant my early mentor Stan Crook to meeting some really
• 20:24
  incredible people. You know the I had the
• 20:27
  opportunity when I was at at Lucasite was a company that was
• 20:32
  actually founded by the scientific founder was Tim
• 20:35
  Springer. He's very well known
• 20:37
  immunobiologist who you know played a real role in in in what
• 20:43
  you know the the the, the building of the company.
• 20:46
  The company I described that where Tefamidis came from where
• 20:49
  two very talented scientists Susan Lindquist and Jeff Kelly.
• 20:55
  That was Jeff project that resulted in the development of
• 20:58
  Tefamidis. So I've been really lucky to be
• 21:01
  around some really smart people during my my career.
• 21:06
  Yeah, but like you say you you make your own.
• 21:08
  Look, you know? Yeah, definitely.
• 21:13
  So what advice do you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking
• 21:17
  in to enter biotech and and build successful ventures?
• 21:22
  Yeah, you know, I think one thing I've I've kind of learned
• 21:27
  over my career watching people and and and also from my own
• 21:30
  career, which is, you know, I think sometimes people try to
• 21:33
  rush it too fast. You know, they want to become
• 21:36
  generalists before, you know, they really understand, before
• 21:39
  they mastered the craft, for example, that they they were
• 21:42
  trained. And I was very fortunate in that
• 21:45
  you know as I said, I made that transition from Graduate School
• 21:48
  into pharmaceutical, Pharmaceutical industry and I
• 21:51
  was able to spend a good seven years really you know in the in
• 21:54
  the trenches under getting exposed to drug discovery and
• 21:59
  development and what that all meant.
• 22:01
  And I think sometimes people try to become generalists too
• 22:04
  quickly and and and you know they may be couple years out of
• 22:09
  Graduate School they want to start a company.
• 22:11
  Well, you know, I mean look that that's great.
• 22:14
  But I think you you need, you need, you need that experience
• 22:18
  of, you know, really honing your craft and what you, you know,
• 22:23
  what you specialized in, for example in in in school and do
• 22:27
  that for a few years. And with that you know, then you
• 22:30
  you you have the basis of which to become more of a generalist.
• 22:35
  Yeah. And then how how similar would
• 22:37
  that be, that advice be to if you were giving it to yourself
• 22:40
  as a young aspiring entrepreneur?
• 22:43
  Well, yeah, I mean again that's probably why I, I, I it's been
• 22:47
  my own experience that I think the the reason that you know I
• 22:51
  was able to then, you know each experience I had in my career
• 22:55
  sort of allowed me to kind of move to the next one.
• 22:58
  It was you know Graduate School and what I did going to the
• 23:01
  Pharmaceutical industry, going to the Pharmaceutical industry,
• 23:04
  you know then allowed me to. I mean there was a lot I didn't
• 23:07
  know when about biotech when you know I left Smith Kline with a
• 23:11
  two other founders and you know started the company but it gave
• 23:15
  me the basis with which to then OK I I was able to learn and
• 23:18
  make that transition. The the reason I was able to and
• 23:22
  why anybody was interested in even hiring me as ACEO at
• 23:25
  Lucasite was what I had done. You know for example at at at
• 23:29
  Ionis and the experiences I had there.
• 23:31
  So it is that, you know, kind of using, using the experience and
• 23:38
  the and and the learning that you have, you know, for the last
• 23:42
  five years to allow you to go off and do the next five years
• 23:44
  of your career or 10 years of your career, yeah.
• 23:48
  So if you could go back in time, give advice to say your 21 year
• 23:53
  old self would would you or or what would you say or?
• 23:59
  Yeah, well, I don't. I have to say I don't have any
• 24:02
  regrets or isn't something that I made that mistake.
• 24:05
  I mean, I've made mistakes, I've made mistakes, but they were
• 24:08
  never anything that I couldn't necessarily recover to recover
• 24:12
  from. But again, I come back to an
• 24:15
  important part of the theme behind sort of my careers.
• 24:18
  I always was very fortunate where I I, I had mentors, I was
• 24:21
  around really smart people and people who are willing to teach,
• 24:24
  people who are willing to spend time and and help.
• 24:28
  And I think that's again an important part of it, that, you
• 24:31
  know, a lot of what I was able to learn in my career wasn't
• 24:34
  necessarily because I, you know, had to just do it myself, but
• 24:37
  because I had people who were helping me and people who, you
• 24:40
  know, really took the time and and and and teaching.
• 24:44
  And I still, even to this day, I mean, I I learned a lot.
• 24:47
  And by being around people who know a lot more than I do.
• 24:51
  Yeah, that really resonates with me.
• 24:54
  I think that's so important. Something you said about you
• 24:57
  know not wanting to be the smartest person in the room and
• 24:59
  you know 100% agree with that. You know so much so you know go
• 25:05
  back to your challenges and you must have had some overwhelming
• 25:08
  challenges during your career. You seem to take a lot of risk.
• 25:12
  How do you deal with the pressure of it all?
• 25:15
  You know, I, I, I, I think so. I tell people, I think what it
• 25:19
  is I learned very early on in my career, you know, you have to
• 25:21
  take what you do seriously, but you can't take yourself too
• 25:24
  seriously. I mean, you know, what we're
• 25:27
  doing is very serious stuff and you're you're trying to you know
• 25:31
  make drugs to help people, but you know you have to do it with
• 25:35
  a sense of humour and and and enjoyment of what you do that
• 25:39
  you know you don't just take the, as I said, you know, don't
• 25:42
  take it. Don't take yourself too
• 25:44
  seriously. Mission you're on is a serious
• 25:46
  one, but but enjoy it. Have fun.
• 25:49
  Yeah, that's great advice and and yeah, down to our last
• 25:54
  question, obviously we had, you know, we had an incredible
• 25:58
  career, but one thing a lot of people struggle with, you know
• 26:02
  myself included, is, is work life balance.
• 26:04
  How's that been for you? Yeah, well, again, I've been
• 26:10
  helped. I've got a terrific wife who's
• 26:12
  managed to sort of be a great partner in in all of this but
• 26:16
  but you know career wise, I I have to say I I I've never been
• 26:19
  very privileged and you know it sounds a little corny but I've
• 26:22
  never felt like I did. I I never had worked a day in my
• 26:26
  life in that. I never felt I was my career.
• 26:28
  I never thought of it as work is what I enjoy doing.
• 26:31
  I got a lot out of it. I didn't say that.
• 26:35
  You know, there were days that are, there were days that are
• 26:37
  very frustrating and things don't go well.
• 26:40
  But you know, I never really felt like I, you know, I I
• 26:44
  worked a nine to five job. I do it because I really enjoy
• 26:47
  doing it. I think that is the key, you
• 26:49
  know, or for me, for me it was a key that it's I never, never
• 26:53
  felt like I was, you know, doing like I said the nine to five
• 26:57
  job, it's what I enjoy doing. So therefore, if I'm working
• 26:59
  long hours, well so be it, Yeah. I, you know, I actually did a
• 27:04
  bit of research on this earlier this week and both Richard
• 27:09
  Branson and Jeff Bezos said very similar things.
• 27:12
  So Jeff Bezos basically said, you know, he calls he doesn't
• 27:15
  like the term work life balance. It's work life harmony.
• 27:18
  You know, going back to that, if you enjoy your job, then you
• 27:21
  know, it shouldn't feel like a chore basically.
• 27:24
  And Richard Branson said a very similar thing, which is, yeah,
• 27:29
  basically what you said. So.
• 27:31
  Well Max, I have to say this is the first time I've ever been in
• 27:36
  a sentence with those two guys. So great company.
• 27:41
  Definitely great company. And you know what?
• 27:43
  When I was doing my research as well, Bill Gates and he was
• 27:47
  speaking about it and he he was talking about it took him way
• 27:51
  too long in life to realize about work, life balance.
• 27:54
  You know, before he was a father, he said he didn't
• 27:57
  believe in vacations or weekends, you know, which is,
• 28:00
  which is crazy. And I think it says it all that,
• 28:03
  you know, once he was a father that that's the point he got to
• 28:07
  saying how important it is to spend time with family and, you
• 28:10
  know, not not being in work all the time.
• 28:14
  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I know that.
• 28:16
  You know, I, my wife and I had our son when, you know, I was in
• 28:21
  my late 30s. And you know up until then I
• 28:24
  would be you know working on weekends and you know pretty
• 28:29
  much non-stop and and I enjoyed it but you know when our son
• 28:33
  came around you know that changed.
• 28:36
  It didn't mean I didn't still work hard and everything, but I
• 28:40
  you have you made time. You you you found a way to make
• 28:42
  the time. So yeah, it's it it it is a
• 28:48
  balance. But it's one that if you're if
• 28:50
  what you're doing is what you really enjoy doing, well you'll
• 28:53
  find a way to make that balance. Yeah, I mean, I'm not quite
• 28:56
  there yet. Fatherhood, that is.
• 28:58
  So I haven't quite got that perspective, but you know, even
• 29:02
  myself, you know, sorting down a little bit, not quite a child,
• 29:06
  but I have a dog and all of that.
• 29:08
  So we're settling down a little bit.
• 29:10
  But yeah, still still full steam ahead for me.
• 29:16
  But yeah, look, honestly been a pleasure, Chris, to have you.
• 29:20
  You know what I was saying at the beginning in your
• 29:22
  introduction, You know, I meant it all.
• 29:24
  You know, I had a unbelievable career and it's a privilege to
• 29:27
  have you on here. Well, thanks Max, and I'm still
• 29:33
  enjoying what I'm doing, so hopefully it'll be a career
• 29:37
  that's got a few more years in it.
• 29:39
  Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Chris.
• 29:40
  All right. Take care.
• 29:41
  Bye.