Latest / The David Rubenstein Show / Noubar Afeyan

Transcript

Noubar Afeyan · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: New Bar f A n is a parallel entrepreneur, meaning
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: he doesn't just create one company, he creates multiple at
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the same time. And one of the companies he created
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: is Moderna, the COVID vaccine maker that has inoculated hundreds
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of millions and it's now more valuable than Merk. On
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: this episode Appeared Appear, new Bar explains his brand of entrepreneurship,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Moderna success and his next big idea. But when you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: came up with the idea of Moderna, did you ever,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in your wildest dreams, think that it would change the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: world in the way that it has? Absolutely not um.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: What we had thought of was that we might well
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: have the next generation of biotechnology, uh and something that
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: had never been even dreamt before, which is the body's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: own ability to make its own drugs whatever it needed.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So the notion would be, we would introduce a molecule
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: that would code for the drug that we want, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the body would in turn translate and make the drug
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that it needs. That was the basic idea, which was
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: itself a fantasy at the beginning, in other words, an
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: act of imagination with relatively little proof. That platform would
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: go on to create twenty different products that were being
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: tested in the clinic when this pandemic hit was something
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: we could envision, But the pandemic itself and the ability
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: for this technology to be used overnight to fight against
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: this very nasty virus that we could not we did
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: not imagine. When you come up with an idea for
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a company like Moderna, do you then go get somebody
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to be the shet yo? Do you get somebody to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: be on the board? How did it work when you
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: start a company. So our process of starting companies, which
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: is what my company, Flagshire Pioneering does institutionally professionally, if
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: you will, we don't start with an idea for the company.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We start with a range of things that we could pursue,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of which we try to find which one actually gains
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: advantage and goes forward. So Maderna followed the same exact
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: process we have, which is we ask questions that start
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: with what if. So in this case, it was what
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: if we could make a code molecule that, when introduced
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to the body, could make any medicine we wanted. With
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: that question, the question is how do you do that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Is there a way to do that that's been tried?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: What gets in the way how how reliable is it?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: There's all these questions ahead, and so we don't start
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the company based on the question. We start an exploration,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: which is what we did. So in the summer of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: two thousand ten, we began to explore these issues. Is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: it even possible? Sometimes I've likened it to kind of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: an archaeological dig, except of the future, not of the past.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: You kind of pick up pieces and you look, is
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: their value here? Is their value there? So we were
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: in the lab setting we started doing experiments. Now as
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: we went forward, we started realizing that there was actually
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a path that we could at least point to forward
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to be able to make this MR and a molecule.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And once we get to a stage where it's becomes
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to be clear that there's some intellectual property there, that's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: when we actually say, okay, how are we going to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: actually create a team to lead it? And what's the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: leadership structure with a CEO. Now the company has a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: market value that's greater than marks. It's a market cap
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of about a hundred and ninety plus billion dollars. When
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you first invested, and how much money did you put
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: into Maderna, Well, we capitalized the first couple of years
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of the company's existence. So altogether, my firm deployed about
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: eleven million dollars to stand up the company over a
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: period of a couple of years, and that eleven million
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: dollars has has a return of infinite amount practically no
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: well north of a thousandfold. But this so when Maderna
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: was moving forward and coming up with the idea of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: coming up with this vaccine that's helping in the pandemic. Um,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: what did the CEO say you did you say, I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: think I've got the way to really cure the pandemic,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: or what did you say to him? Well, when the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: beginnings of this pandemic, we're beginning to show themselves. This
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: was back January of two thousand and twenty. We had
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a discussion about the possibility of starting a program just
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to be in a position in case this's got serious.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And and interestingly, the reason was not because it was
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a pandemic. It was not a pandemic at the time
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that nobody was using that word, but because we thought
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: we'd have an opportunity to also demonstrate one of the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: hidden advantages of our apply from which was just speed,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: speed of execution, speed of design, seeing the traditional biotech
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: pharmaceutical world, speed is hardly ever an advantage because things
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: take such a long time in being approved and regulated
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: that going even faster often doesn't really result in much
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: of a game, whereas in a pandemic or epidemic we
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: thought we would have. Speed becomes a life or death difference,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and so that's what attracted us at first, And then
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of course the situation caused us to put a lot
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of our efforts into this right. But Moderna was a
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: relatively small company. Very few people heard of it. You
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: go to the government of the United States and say,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: guess what, Forget Merk, forget vis or, forget all these
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: other companies, give us somebody. Did they laugh at you
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: at the time and they said we whoever heard of you?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Or was it clear that they were so interested in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: anything that they gave you money that you needed? Um,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: it's more the second, but even more, we were well
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: known in all the circles in the government from the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: beginning of this effort. We partnered with nih ni H
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: was testing our vaccine in humans forty days after we
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: actually started our process. So it wasn't that they left
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at us. From a point of course, they were worried
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that how can a company that we don't know withstand
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this type of uh capital slash importance if you will,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: how can it scale up quickly? So a lot of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: unknowns good news for us. Starting with Stefan and the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: team he had assembled. There were all stars from all
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the major farming companies. So when it was hard to
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: get um did people call you up all the time
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, so I guess, why
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: can you get me some of the molderner Did you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: unlist your phone number or something. I did get calls
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that I never thought I would ever get before from
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: many many country leaders. They got missed. The reality is
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything. I was completely I mean, nobody
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: could do anything legally. The entire vaccine supply was a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: possession of the US government, the ones we were making
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: in the US. It had not been authorized for any
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: other use than emergency use, so any supply kind of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: under the table, if you will, would be an illegal act.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I in fact told many people that I would more
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: readily get an assault rifle here than I could a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: vaccine because it was completely illegal to do anything with it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: So I I just it was very difficult for me
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to understand because they've viewed it as as an innovation.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Surely you must have some lying around and people don't
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: realize just how carefully governed this whole thing was. And
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in a way it made it a bit easier for
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: us to be honest with you, because had we been
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: able to do this, the demand was in the hundreds
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of thousands of demands not want to do so. The
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: applicacy is around ninety three and a half percent or
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: something like that, which means that if you get it,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you have a pretty good chance of not getting the virus. Right.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: That's right, But now the delta variant has come along,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and presume it they're gonna be other variants. Is uh,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the moderna vaccine going to be working against Saturday? You
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: have something just for the delta variant. We are as
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: technology developers preparing for any eventuality, including looking at what
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: our baseline of vaccine after two doses does, which so
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: far six months data we have available is very, very robust.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: We haven't seen any real deterioration of our protection. That's first,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: against the delta virus. We have very strong protection and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: we expect that will continue for a period of time.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: The problem is we don't know for how long, because
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: do you find out when your guard is down after
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: your guard is down. So in order to prepare for
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that eventuality, we have begun to make variant vaccines, vaccines
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: that have different sequences that, if needed, we could accelerate
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: so that we can actually use that. So I think
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: we're gonna work very closely with regulators f d A, C,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: d C here and the Europeans to figure out from
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: an arsenal of the beauty about the MR and A
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: technology is that we can actually do this type of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: rapid response versus conventional about technology that takes years and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: years to do the same thing. To get to the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: heart of the problem my own personal situation, so I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: got to moderner shots. Do I need a booster shot?
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I think that the best advice so far is that
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: people after a certain age, and I cannot tell you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: right now what that age cut off will because that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: would be set by the government are most likely going
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to need a booster to be well protected against the variant.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And over time, again public health are gonna to decide
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: if everybody should get a bits a shot. My guess
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: is that given enough time, we may well end up
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: in a situation where we have yearly, let's say, at
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a minimum, yearly vaccinations, just like the flu. So Tony
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Falci has said that we should use this example of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: what happened with the coronavirus to prepare for other potential
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: viruses down the road, and that hopes companies like yours
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: will do that. Are you working on that kind of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: thing and now already are absolutely? Absolutely? A very big
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: part of my Darn future will be in being the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: leading vaccine developer, but also with mrn A technology, but
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: also additional new technologies that we're considering to augment our capility.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But I should also say that within the broader flagship
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: pioneering context, which is where I operate, we have multiple
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: projects as well looking to expand the security net for
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: future pandemics. As we talk today, we're in Boston, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: it's probably not a surprise that many people would say
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that people from m I. T. Or Harvard were involved
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: in MODERNA. But your background is different than many people
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: are in M I. T. And Harvard. You did not
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: grow up in this country, is not correct, That's right.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: So I was born in Lebanon, Lebanon of Armenian parents
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: lived there till the Civil War in nineties and ended
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: up escaping the Civil War and growing up in Montreal, Canada.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So you were a teenager when you went to h Canada.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Was a teenager and I was extremely fortunate my family
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: was that they took us with basically as political refugees.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: We escaped Lebanon and she went to McGill University. And
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: what did you major? In chemical engineering? Which was an
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: interesting field at the time because that's the field that
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: first got drawn into biotechnology when that industry started. Okay,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: so after you graduated, you and then went to m
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I T. Yes, I was the first graduate from the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: by what was called the Bioprocess Engineering Center. It was
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the first time engineers were being trained to really do
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: kind of advanced work in biology. And the notion was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: this new industry was being born, and so you needed
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: engineers to come up with how tom make the products.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: That's how I got in from where there are a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: lot of Armenians in this MT program. I don't think
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that I mean them t for many many years had
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: been some, but no, it was not. I was not
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: surrounded by familiar faces when you got your PhD. Where
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you're gonna go teach, which is what sometimes people do
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: with PhD s and that, or did you want to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: go into the industry and what do you decide to do? Well.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It was an interesting time. I've reflected on it quite
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a bit because, uh, because this was a new field,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and I've since realized that's how kind of advanced education
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: systems work. The most prestigious things would have been for
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: me to go teach. And here was a field and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: which didn't exist biochemical engineering, and so I could go
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: teach anywhere. I mean, this was that they needed people
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: who came, you know, who were proficient in this UM.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I did not really seriously think about that personality wise,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: kind of what I saw a lot of the professors doing.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I just felt that this was not my temperament. Basically,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: by the way, I've since because I've taught m idea
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: in our business school course courses, I've since realized that
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: education itself, higher education has changed so much that you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: can be an entrepreneur and be a faculty member at
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the same time. Back in the eighties five eighty three,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that was not the case. So that that's that was
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: not something I pursued. The choices then were joined a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: large pharmaceutical company was just beginning to hire people who
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: were engineers in this field. UH. And then what I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: ended up doing, by a chance encounter I had with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: somebody's actually the start a company, which was extremely rare
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: back in the mid to late eighties, let alone for
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a twenty four year old immigrant with zero experiences. Your
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: family say, get a real job Downstarrow company. Absolutely absolutely,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I mean even though my father was an entrepreneur in
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the more trade, you know, import expert type of entrepreneur.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: But but it was definitely the risk was throwing away
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the education and the brand. All right, So you start
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a company when you were twenty four years old, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: how did that company do? Company failed to fail, and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: therefore it succeeded eventually in becoming the largest instrument company
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in UH in the bad field at the time, which
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: was the late seven time frame. We invented a number
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: of new technologies that could be used to study and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: make proteins, and we grew to about a hundred and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: ten million revenues, about nine hundred people. Was a public
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: company for a number of years, lots of ups and downs,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: lots of learnings, but it was for the for the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: period ultimately a successful adventure, So you sort of a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Perkin Elmer. Eventually, yes, and so you cashed out. You
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: got a lot of money for a young person. Uh,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: did you say I'm gonna retire now or just go
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: teach or just relax? What did you decide just how
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to do? It was a little more complicated because I had,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: along the way in the last few years, started a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: co started, co founded a number of other companies. So
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: between ninety seven I've been involved as a co founder
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of four other companies. Each of them went public, three
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of them got sold. And so actually, in a way,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it was worse than just doing one thing and then
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: kind of calling it a day, because I had not
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: also exampled doing multiple things and and instead actually so
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I did not consider retiring. But one thing I did
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: realize is that doing yet another company wasn't gonna accomplish
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: much just because you know, I was not drawn into
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: this notion of being a serial entrepreneur. And so that's
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: kind of when I started thinking about ideas that have
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: led me to do what I do now, which is
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineties, I got enamored with this notion
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of parallel entrepreneurship uh. And at the time there was
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: not even a thing. Even now probably it isn't. But
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the notion of parallel entrepreneurship was why can't you simultaneously
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: think about deeply about major new innovations and organizing companies
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: all at the same time. I was doing it individually
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: by partnering with different folks, and that led to institutional version.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Norm would be serial entrepreneur, where you start a company,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you finish it and go on next one. You're doing
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: several at the same time. Yes, not unlike what Elon
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Musk is doing. He has SpaceX and he's also Tessay
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: years later. Yes, So when did you start raising funds
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: where people could give you money to invest and you
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: would then invest in various biotech ventures. Why did you
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: start doing that? So since two thousand we have operated
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a series of funds, some of which has been my capital,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: increasingly so even in the larger ones now and and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and the reason we did it that way, it was
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: very interesting, was that our idea was to deploy the
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: funds exclusively to companies that we conceive create the science
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of which we generate, so as opposed to the typical
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: investment deal flow diligence, select the winners, etcetera. We don't
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: have any of that. Whatever projects make it through our
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: system get capital and they get advanced. If I had
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: been lucky enough to know you in two thousand when
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you raised your first fund and I put a million
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: dollars in, how much would I have made by now?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't have a simple answer to that,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: but I'd say it's safe to say that over the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: last fifteen years we've we've operated north of that are
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: are across everything we've done. Okay, So recently you went
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: out and raised a new fund three point four billion
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: dollars and that money came from individuals all over the world,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: institutions who who beg you to come in And did
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you turn people away? We did have to turn some
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: folks away, but we were very, very pleased with the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: interest we got. Much of the capital came from investors
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we've had for well over a decade, but upon some
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of it was also new. These are endowments, UH, large,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: large pension funds in this country. I'm happy to say
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we probably represent the best the best investment multiple states
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: have made. It's up to them to say so. But
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I know there I know the results, and it makes
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: me proud to look as an immigrant. It does make
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: me proud to have a state in some place actually
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: feel good about what we've been able to generate for
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: their own people. A lot of companies in Silicon Valley,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and I guess in the Boston area as well, Boston
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Cambridge are started by immigrants. Maybe they are harder working
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: where they're trying to prove something. Have you observed that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: money companies are immigrants founded. Well, factually they are the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: majority in by different counts, certainly in the in the
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Silicon Valley area. And I've been involved in various discussions,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: certainly over a few years ago when the political environment
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: was quite against immigration, even of talent. But but indeed
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: it is the case that, um, there's a lot of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: immigrants who tend to get to the cutting edge of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: frontiers of things, whether it's because there's things to prove
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: or by nature they're taking very little for granted, and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and and therefore they're comfortable with the discomfort you know
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: when if you change countries, let alone forcibly, it's you
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: really don't have much time to say what's owed to me?
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And and how come I got disadvantaged. I mean, these
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: are all privileges of rooted people. If you're unrooted or uprooted,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you don't actually you need roots to feel like you're entitled.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: That there is a completely connected concept. Now, Sometimes when
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you have a great success in life in whatever area
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: might be, it's hard to do it a second time
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: because it's rare that somebody has a second great achievement.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: You've had a great achievement with moderna which really did
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: incredible things to help save the world from the pandemic
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: in many ways. Do you think you can do anything
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: as great as that in the future, So so, David.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: What matters more to me even then, one instance is
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to actually create, And that's what Flagships all about. Is
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that we're an experiment in whether you could institutionally make
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: breakthrough innovations with huge impact, regardless of what field we're in,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and to create companies that can realize that impact. If
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: we could do that systematically, over and over and over again,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that is such a defiant thought to conventional wisdom that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: says rare things only happen rarely. Well, we're saying we
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: can generate an engine that can produce companies that might
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: be a Maderna or ten times a Maderna, or a
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: tenth of a Maderna. Maderna itself was not kind of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: what our design goal. Maderna was the result of a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: process that we had already operated multiple. Maderna was called
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: l S eighteen when it was born. It was the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: eighteenth set project we've done. We're now on number eighty eight.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And in terms of projects that are born exactly the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: same way. Sometimes people say, well, I don't like to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: see people to be too successful, and therefore, can you
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: make people feel better by saying and you fail that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: something any of your company has not worked out, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: you just said this is not going to work, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I just write it off, or that ever happened, many
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: many of them, many many of them, and and in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: our case quite a bit differently than it's an investment.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So before I write it off and I move on,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I can't write it off. We own the entire entity,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: so we can't wash ourselves from a particular company. Look,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll step back and say very quickly what we're
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: about the reason we use the word pioneering is we
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: leap into things that are not yet known to be viable,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and we try to make them real. So this leaping
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: inevitably you leap to places where there's no value. Now,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: let's suppose, um we're going forward leave vaccines out for
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a moment. What are the one or two or three
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: things that you're most interested in trying to do in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: biotech that's gonna make my life better, other people's life better,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: anything that makes me live longer, live healthier, avoid cancer,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: is anything like that. One major theme that we that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: inspires us and that we're doing a number of things
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: in is broadly what we call preemptive medicine or health security.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And what we mean by that is that we observe
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that what we call today healthcare is really a euphemism
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: for sick care. And the way you know that is
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: because you gotta get sick to get any of it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But and other than that, there's fitness and living a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: good life. But in between, we now know scientifically that
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the beginnings of disease go way before we know we
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: have a disease, and if we could intervene at that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: time and delay or completely deterred the disease, then we
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: have a very different healthcare cost challenge. Let alone a lifestyle.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Currently there's no way of developing products for that for
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that field because the FDA doesn't regulate it. They don't
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: they won't let you do it, the insurance won't reimburse it.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: They need a good disease, let alone a really advanced
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: one to do their thing. We have to change that mindset.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So how how can Flagship contribute to this? And we're
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: doing this. We started five different platform companies that attack that.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Whether it's through that better early detection tests, or whether
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's creating new types of vaccines that protect even before
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: there's a threat. All of those things are all trying
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: to create an environment where government and other corporations start
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: doing that. Now today, the average person, i'd say life
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: span is maybe in the mid eighties or something like that.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's possible, through things that you might develop,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: to live to a hundred or hundred and ten or
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: twenty or is that a good or bad thing? I
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: think it's possible. I'm not so sure it's a good thing,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: let alone in a planet that's dying. Uh. And So
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I think that we have to think of our existence
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: not as individuals anymore than our our Hipathesytes in our
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: liver don't think of whether they're going to live. They
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: think of whether your whole body is going to live.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: If we don't start thinking of whether our society is
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: going to live in our planet is going to live,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: then it's a mood point as to whether we as
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: individuals live to a hundred and ten or a hundred.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So I think there's gonna be this reckoning that we've
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: got to create an environment within which it's worth living.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Did your parents live this year success? My parents saw
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a success back in my I lost my parents in
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the late nineties early two thousands. They saw a far
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: greater success than they would have ever imagined or wanted.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: They didn't see the most recent few years, let alone
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the last of months, but I know that they felt
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that the decisions they made on behalf of their children,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: particularly moving us to North America and giving us the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: kind of opportunity this country gave us as as having
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: been more than validated. So what keeps you motivated? You're
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: obviously wealthy by any normal human standard. You could retire
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: tomorrow and be famous for what you did with modern
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: among other things. What keeps you motivated to work so
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: hard and keep doing all these things and not spending
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: your money on lavish kind of toys that often preach
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: people like to buy. I really do think that we've
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: seen the beginnings of a startup industry in this country
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that has revolutionized the world. I think the next few
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: decades that industry will become professionalized, institution institutionalized, and will
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: do in the creativity world what institutional investors did in
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the financial world. And I'm drawn to being one of
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the pioneers of that if I can show one way
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of doing it organizationally, kind of just methodologically and leads
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to companies that do this for a living. That interests
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: me as as a lasting impact, of course, the fact
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: that every single thing we work on has societal impact.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You know, people told us, what's your social impact strategy?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Everything we work on, either through health or agriculture, has
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: societal impact, and so that keeps me into what draws
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: me and what keeps me instude at two different things.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: It's an an incredible story. I always like to see
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: somebody from Baltimore who's made good, and you obviously have.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So Thanks very much for being with us today, Thanks
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you listen.