Bench to Boardroom with Andrew Fraley, PhD, CTO at Judo Bio & Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture

We just chatted with Andrew Fraley who has had a wealth of experience. He is currently an entrepreneur in residence with Atlas Ventures and he has founded multiple companies, done many interesting things and gives fantastic advice.

If you are somebody who is maybe on the funding trail, he has some really nice advice about how to structure a pitch deck and he really knows what he's talking about. So we hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Building Biotechs, a podcast by Reeconomics Consulting.

We've helped over 75 biotech, life science and and venture capital firms strategize, hire and retain thousands of employees to scale companies that bring life saving drugs to patients.

We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies from the ground floor to the C suite.

We're your host, Karina and Allison. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. We are so excited to chat with you as we do for every single segment. We're going to start us off with the first question, which is what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now? And how did you get there?

Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks for the invitation. Happy to chat today. So I've always really enjoyed being outside in the outdoors as a kid. You know, I always enjoyed kind of the adventure thing. I think that, you know, they say that everybody wants to be two things if they're really interested in scientists, right? You want to be an astronaut or you want to be a marine biologist. For me at least it was maybe a bit of both. But I've really enjoyed the water, being on the water, being outside. And so that really got me interested in science. I'm kind of a hands on person. And so I just gravitated toward being a scientist and working in science and school and math. I was very good at that kind of stuff that just naturally led me into like working in a chemistry lab and enjoying that a lot as I went through my education and really digging into some of, as I moved into college, some of those harder classes in the sciences where you really get to see the fruits of your effort and really kind of thinking about things from a problem solving perspective. So those things really intrigued me and I started thinking about what I was going to do in college, right. And a lot of people in science decide, hey, you know what, it's great, I want to go be a doctor, I want to go be premed. And I looked at those people who I think they're fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I looked at many of them and I said, you know, they're very competitive, right? They're very there to like and they have to be to move into med school. And there's a lot of root memorization. And I also looked at scientists and have scientists moving forward. And it's at least in chemistry where I had my training, it's few, it's a few rules that you really apply across a field and problem solve with. And I, that really attracted me. And so it really led me to think about going to graduate school and doing that full time. And so I did that. I went to graduate school and got my PhD in chemistry, biogenic chemistry. I did a postdoc in Europe for two years as I wanted to live abroad and have some other perspectives on that. In my under, in my grad lab, in my postdoc lab, two companies were getting started, each respective, in each different laboratories. So I kind of got to see, you know, how biotech gets started and where that goes. And I gravitated towards companies when I started applying for my first job that were small, that were more biotechy, if you will. And that's, I think there's two reasons for that. The first is that my training has been in RNA and has been in nucleic acid sciences and how that works from a chemistry perspective, from a biology perspective. And so at the time, you know, 20 years ago, right. I mean that stuff was not being done at large pharma. Large pharma was about how do we make, you know, the next Lipitor. And so really if you wanted to work in that space, you were looking at going to work at these small startups. And I think that, and that's where I found science to be most interesting coupled with that is that I tended to gravitate towards seeing where I could look at the larger picture in a company, right. Really having access in a small company as a startup, as a bench scientist to the CEO, to the chief business officer, reporting into, you know, a VP or a CSO at a company that if I had gone to Novartis or Bristol Mario Squib or someplace that was very large, right, you might not even be in the same country as those people. So I think that those things really led me to go and work in the startup environment. And I just like the speed and pace at which decisions got made. And so I worked at Ensemble Therapeutics, which was David Liu's actually first company. And I ended up running the chemistry platform there. And I had. My first boss was a cto and you know, he was an entrepreneur. He had started companies in the past as well. And so he really gave me the itch, if you will. And so I really wanted to build my career and start to think about how can I, you know, function at a different level within an organization.

Can you tell us a little about what you're doing today?

Right now I'm an entrepreneur in residence at Atlas Venture. I'm a CTO for one of their stealth companies, which I can't get into what we're up to. But in addition to that, you know, I serve on a couple of scientific advisory boards. One's another stealth company, Atlas. There's I serve on Coros Bios, you know, sab, and there's a couple of smaller companies that I'm also assist with from, you know, kind of a strategic or science, you know, advisory perspective as well.

Are they all in the RNA space or have you branched out a little bit from there?

Primarily the stuff I've worked in has really been in the RNA space. Some of them, you know, the science on the day to day might not be RNA work, but they center around that. It's just really where my interest lies. I really kind of fell in love with the RNA as a molecule.

Right.

It has information encoded in it and it's also has a lot of structure as you think about any other molecule you might a protein or a small molecule or a drug molecule. So it tends to be very unique in that. In that, in those properties.

Andrew, you have founded by my account and I could be wrong. So please correct me. At least three companies, is that correct?

I guess technically it's three right now there's other ones that I've either been involved with getting started or as kind of as a founder. But on paper I probably say it's about three. I'd probably say there's a few more that, you know, I've been working with as well.

But yeah.

Can you tell us a little bit about the early days of founding a company and are there some similarities that kind of go through when you're founding a biotech or is every experience just completely unique and you know, the lessons are just going to be learned as they're learned?

Well, yeah, I mean, I think there's an equation to starting a biotech company.

Right.

And it has three components and the first component is the science. Right. You have a scientific idea, question data, you have a story to tell around that. You have a way it's going to get utilized within the field and maybe it's going to be a drug molecule, maybe it's A new platform idea, a diagnostic, whatever that is. Right. You have that, that's the first component. The second component is cash. Right. You need money to do this and so you're really out either working with a venture firm or new investors and you're crafting your science story and you're raising money around that. And then the third component is the people piece.

Right?

And that's who's going to run the company, who are you going to use on your team and your advisors or, or who you're going to work with to really drive that organization and how you create culture and how you kind of create that environment that allows all these things to start to work together, right. Let you get the money, let you tell the story better, let you do the science, get more cash. And so all those things start to play with each other. I think no matter really kind of what the biotech company is going to be or do and how it's going to run. And I think getting each of those three pieces right is really kind of the right recipe, if you will, for success or success in the sense that you have the best shot of determining if the science you're going to go after is going to work or not or you know, how to pivot around that.

Well, one of the things we love to talk about on the show is people. So when you're building out your people team, do you have any guidance on how do you build a really solid team and how do you know, you know, if you're bringing in the right people at the right time?

I think that's something we all struggle with.

Right.

I don't have, I don't really have a great answer for you because I've done it poorly and I've done it well. And I think that as I've gotten, as I've done it and worked with a number of people over my career, there's certain people that I know I can rely on. I know who will be good in a certain role or I know that may not come into a company as a full time employee, but I know I can rely on them for say, legal or IP or I know I can go to them and say I have this scientific problem, help me figure it out. And there's other people that I've worked with who are above me, who are exec chairs, companies or they know the BD side better than I do. It's the same kind of thing there. It's like, who, who do you know that you think is trustworthy, reliable, is good?

Right.

Who you can really have a strong rapport with and really kind of bring those people on your team. So I think it's really about, you know, who you figure out around you that you want to work with, you think is going to do a good job. And you have to start, you have to start moving forward with them, right? You don't always get that, right. Sometimes you get amazingly well and you really end up making lifelong friendships and colleagues. And other times people get in a certain environment, they don't perform well and it's either due to they're the wrong fit or, you know, it's not for them, or they're just not up to the job that you need them to do. So when you bring people in and out of an organization and getting that timing right, I think is a real challenge, right? Because you know, obviously small companies are limited on cash. You're restricted on cash flow. And the question is, when do you really need to bring that person in? Can you wait, can you extend it out a little bit longer, make your cash flow? Or are you going to not fast enough? Because you really need expertise now so you can move your idea more quickly. And we never get that. I don't think. I think that's always a balance you have to strike. And then to compound all that, right, you have to go out and find these people and convince them to come and work with you. And over the past few years, maybe not in the past year, but, you know, past five years, the job market has been very strong and it can be very difficult to hire people in either at the executive level or at the VP or director level who have experience or even people at the lower levels. So I think all those half that dynamic all has to play out. You know, when I took my first job, I interviewed probably at four or five different companies and I was lucky to get an offer, right? And we would interview people once I was there, we could look at seven people and pick the one we wanted. Now granted, that was back in the early 2000s and lately, you know, a few years ago, we would interview someone straight out of school and have to make them an offer within 24 hours. We wanted to hire them, right? So there's this market dynamic that also really plays into how you think about who's going to come on board.

We've seen a really nice shift toward using more of a hybrid workforce where you maybe hire at the earlier stage, fewer full time folks, and do leverage some consultants, some firms, some expertise. Is that a shift you're seeing from within the Atlas ecosystem as well.

I think there is definitely a shift, maybe in two ways. The first way is that there are people who are more, hey, I'm going to be a part time CFO at three companies. Right. And part of it is too that the small companies don't need them full time yet. But also who can you leverage in on certain areas when you may not need their expertise 100%.

Right.

But I think at the same token, you can rent the expertise, but I think you have to hire the talent, as they say.

Right.

And so who's going to really come in and really operate and you're going to have those key people who are really wedded to the success of the company and let them really drive on that, I think in a full time role.

Can we talk about culture a little bit? You've obviously been involved in a lot of different ventures and a lot of different companies and you've probably seen a lot of different cultures. Are there certain things that you think a company can do and establish really early on that builds that robust culture and makes people want to stay and be invested in the actual science and the company?

Yeah, I think we can.

Right.

I think the question is do we want to or not a lot of times, or do we have the right skill set and the leadership team who recognizes that's important?

Right.

And not every person who starts a company or becomes a CEO I think recognizes that's issue. I think the really successful ones and create the right environments too. What does everybody want? They want clarity. I think that's a big piece, clean communication and really kind of knowing where the company stands, where the, at least in science, also where the data stands, where we're headed. Why are we going to work on this? Why is the company going to move in a certain direction and really having that clean communication around what that looks like.

Right.

Because people who are at the bench may not understand what's going on in the boardroom and how do you really kind of connect those two dots for people and really say, hey, look, this is the company's direction, this is the data we need, this is how we're going to utilize that data. This is why it's important and this is kind of where it's heading and how can we all get it moving in the same direction to deliver that? So I think that people don't come to companies to get swag, right? They're not there to get the fleece jacket and get the free lunches. Those are nice, we all enjoy those, but they're not really what keeps people at a company.

Right.

They're not really there, but over the long term, gets people up in the morning. It's really about can they come into an environment and work and know what they're going to do. Know that their work has meaning and that they're appreciated and they have clarity around that and they see a career path for themselves and they get to work with good people and they get appreciated. And I think if you start to really put all those pieces together around clarity, around good science, around, you know, path forwards for people in their careers, you build good culture by doing all of that.

It's funny because when you lay it out like that, like it does sound so obvious, but I do think we see a lot of people miss the mark because you're also distracted. Right. You're looking at so many different things and sometimes the ecosystem and the culture of the ecosystem slides by a little bit. Yeah, I think that's a really good reminder.

Yeah. And I think, you know, there's obviously people have different strengths and weaknesses around that. You know, there's obviously, you know, and companies get pushed more and more for all these different types of things they have to consider about. They think about culture. But I think those, at least in my mind, those are the key pieces. And I think there's ways, I think it comes from the top. I mean, I think that's really gets ingrained from a leadership perspective on these. These are the boundaries we're going to set and how we're going to operate with each other and with our employees and how we really want to build an organization that's going to be meaningful. And I think if you start there, there are ways you can start to ingrain that. Either it's how you, you schedule meetings, how you put things together on paper with each other, how you think about review processes, all those kind of things, how you manage your employees. And you also work with people across from you. You know, really drive a lot of that.

Right.

And I think there's also this piece of the ground up too. It's like, how do you provide that sense of ownership, emotional ownership for people in the company and how do you help them craft, you know, what that looks like?

What are the major hats that you wear as you've formed these different companies? We talked to so many founders and it's, you know, it's interesting what they want to wear, which hats they want to wear and which ones they don't want to wear and which are forced on them.

So my title at many of These companies has always been chief technology officer. And I think that lends itself to the fact that's where I've kind of migrated and kind of been attracted to and what I've worked on in my career, which is early stage discovery, new ideas, how do you get them started, how do you build them out? That's a little bit different to someone who wants to be a chief medical officer or want to run a phase two program. And so when you start these companies, you know, you kind of do a little bit of everything, right. You're the person who helps with the books and the financing. And I really enjoy the aspects of intellectual property law and how that plays into technology and how we deal with all that. And so you start to have to know all these different areas and have to build them out and work with the person you brought in to do finance and accounting. Because you're building the budget to run the company around lease seed companies, other VCs. You don't have a CEO. They're not needed yet.

Right.

And so it's really about how do you start to get those key experiments to really drive on the data that's going to allow you to build a larger company and start to bring in, you know, more, more executives and, and, and build the company scientifically. I think you have to wear a lot of hats, but I think the most, maybe, you know, kind of looking over your question, the most important hat I think you wear in kind of this role is figuring out, like, when you shouldn't do that anymore. It's like, hey, I can build you a budget, I can run it, but I'm not going to be the accountant because I'm not good at crossing my T's and dotting my eyes like that person is. I don't know all the finance.

Right.

But I know enough to get us started and find the right person you can come in and hand it over.

Right.

You know, the right person who can come in and take over on hiring or like, how do you go out and find the expertise you need to build the organization? And I think that's. So if you think about wearing multiple hats, I think the main hat you have to wear is how do you find the people to do the things you need to get done? And how do you take that hat off and give it to them in an appropriate way?

That's super advice. Yeah, I think that's the big challenge, right? Divesting yourself of the hat.

Exactly. Right, yes.

Can we dig into that a little bit? Because you were the CTO and now you're on the advisory board.

Right.

So what did that transition look like? And was it hard to sort of separate yourself out of there? How would someone make a clean break and be like, ah, that's not really my realm anymore.

So Coro, you know, I incubate that with Atlas. There were three co founders we had on that and I came in and eventually was a CTO there in the early days and helped build them out. We brought in a cso, we hired a CEO and the people. And I think there's two things that happen. The first is that these companies that go through changes and phases and people who are going to come in an organization when there's five to 15 people are not going to be the same people who necessarily attracted to work in a company when there's 90. And I usually say it's time for me to leave when we hire the HR department. But I think the point being is that infrastructure you really have to build, some people are really attracted to that and they really enjoy that. And some people really enjoy when things are messy and they like to play in that zone. I tend to be that messy person. And so I think that as Koro grows, grew, and I realized, hey, look, I'd handed off operations to the person we hired. It was just phenomenal. You know, I handed off all this other stuff and I ended up saying, hey, you know what? I think my role's kind of done here. I'm ready to do something else. And so I came back into Atlas to another company with them. And so it's not really a clean break in the sense of, hey, like, look, I'm out of here. Peace out. Like, it's about, hey, you know what? My role as a founder and advisor is going to shift. We can have conversations, you know, we can talk about what's going on. I can help you out technically with things as I might do something else. I can sit on the advisory board and help have scientific discussions. I can function as an ear for whomever might need it and go talk to the CEO or a board member or whatever it might be and really be a cheerleader for the company and the thing we've started and not feel that you're really kind of just walking away, right? You're just shifting. Kind of like how you help make the place successful.

Right?

That's really cool. I think that's a really interesting transition. And I think your point about HR is so funny because we also talk to a lot of people on the show about, when do you Bring in hr and some people like you bring it in early days, like just get started and like have it. And then to be like, I don't know, down the line and like.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a question of what do you mean by hr, right? So do you mean people coming in to ensure that you can hire effectively and recruit and provide benefits or you're really talking about where you really have to manage an organization to 50 people and there's so much more legal stuff that has to get put in place and infrastructure and you know, there's no longer the beer fridge anymore. Right. So like how do you start to draw those lines because you have such a larger, more diverse and more considerations you have to manage versus like are we going to make it or not initially with like five people? I mean the biggest HR policy should have when you have a company of five people is you guys don't travel in the same car together because there's a car accident, the company's gone. I think that there's different needs at different times and how you go through that dynamic is obviously to be a challenge.

I want to touch on that phenotype that you've described too of you, like the mess that is such a common phenotype that we see. We work with really early stage companies. I'm right there with you. I think it's so fun to build and we typically hire in HR, like formal HR at that 30ish person mark so that the, the growth to 50 is smooth and they can start to lay the groundwork because that really is a critical time. But what we see in that same transition is a lot of the folks that started up the companies, the heads of this or that department, they are those people who love to grow the baby companies and they're starting to look for the next thing around that, you know, 40 person mark before the 50 person mark. And I think that's a really, that's an interesting phenotype, but that's the zero to one thinker who really wants to just build, figure out what is the next thing. And so sounds like that's you.

I realized in my career the things I'm really good at, which is starting things, I also realize the things I'm not good at, which is finishing things. So I think that finishing things meaning like a long two year project where we're going to need to run all the way to the end on some big huge project and how do we think about that? How do we ensure that all the paperwork is aligned I really enjoy how do we think about how do we get it started, how do we pull the resources in and figure out the plan and map it out and drive on that. And I think that's why I kind of enjoy this earlier stage stuff versus ensuring we've filed all the papers appropriately or we've really seen completion.

Right.

I think that's not always something that attracts me and I think that once I figured that out, I realized where I should really work at what type of companies and organizations.

And that's valuable to know about yourself. I think that's, you know, that's the key to happiness in work and careers. Hey there. Just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace, but we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show.

Can we talk about like the role of mentorship in your career and how important or non important you may find it for other people who are getting into the space?

I think it depends on where you are in your career. I mean there's, I think if you enter your career, there's that mentor who says, okay, look, here's the things you can do with your career. Here's how you move forward, here's how you might look at this situation. And when you're younger, it's easy to go out and find these people. I think in the sense that you can obviously identify somebody who is like a boss or who is two or three levels above you, who can help you provide perspective and see paths forward on things. And I've had a number of those in my career and it's just been wonderful. Helped me think about how to move forward and how to handle situations that I haven't experienced yet and how to think about them as you progress in your career. I think it becomes thinking about those people become less because you start to become one of them is how I think about it sometimes and you start to look for who are your peers that are going to mentor you.

Right.

How do you have people who are, you know, across from you have the same kind of experience as you do that are different, but you can draw upon to help you think about a problem.

Right.

Or help you think about that. You have to go through something that they might have experienced but aren't necessarily, you know, 20 years your senior within the. Within an organization or just the biotech environment. And so I think that as you think about mentorship, you know, there's kind of maybe those two dynamics, which I think are important, and they can provide perspective, different perspectives. I think there's another piece too, which is it may not be a mentor, but there's people I've worked for that I wouldn't consider my mentors. But I've learned a lot from on either what to do or what not to do.

I think the what not to do is actually such a valuable lesson too. I think you learned so much more when you're like, oh, boy, okay, that wasn't the right thing and how do we pull back from that? Or what do we. How would we do that differently? When things start going a little bit off the rails is where you really start digging into the lesson.

Yeah. Or you can see people who are very successful what they've been doing. But you say, you know what, I really. I wouldn't want to do it that way. It doesn't sit well with me.

A few years ago, I feel like when you looked at a mentor, you were looking for somebody who was just so clearly on top of their game. They were doing all the things right. But I think that we are talking more about failures and how to learn from failures. And so I feel like leveraging a mentor's knowledge the things they've learned from failing. So when we talk to founders, they sometimes they have a great company that they're very excited about. It wasn't the first company they founded. Maybe they founded another one that wasn't. Those lessons are so important, and if you can give those to other people so that maybe they don't make the same mistake, that is equally as valuable as telling them how to do it.

I think you're right. I think also too, I have this kind of theory that anybody who works in leadership in a biotech company has there. Nobody's perfect. Right. But they're all a little quirky in some regard. They all have. There's always something that they do really well or a number of things, but there's things they also don't do well and they're really kind of crappy at. We're all good at certain things. We're not good at others. And how do you kind of justify all that? And really kind of when people come to you and say, hey, can you provide some advice? Like, you could. I can do that. But, you know, hey, I have my own struggles I'm working with on the same time on the side, which, you know, you probably don't recognize quite yet.

Yeah, I think we see that come through with people who are worried about networking, because that's a big one. You know, we tell people, like, go out and network, but that can be so overwhelming to people too. Like, just go out and stand in a room and, like, introduce yourself to people. It's like, okay, that's the most unnatural way to meet another human being ever.

It is, yeah. But I think that, you know, I think the question is, like, you know, if you think about finding mentors or you think about networking or all these types of things, or having, you know, realizing that you're at a certain particular point in your career and they are theirs, and that doesn't necessarily mean you guys are different in that regard. I think a lot of people say, let's go to a network event, maybe meet somebody. That's great, but I don't think that's super effective either. It's really about, like, who are the people out there that you really would want to talk to? How can you help? How can you help them and how can they help you? It's really how you start to build relationships, right? There's somebody I might meet and talk with and build a relationship around, and just because I want to get to know that person and we have similar interests in the space, or there's something going on that we both enjoy it, and down the road, two years from now, that might then be a card you can pull out from your hand and play. And so I think that networking, in my mind, is really about who are the people out there that you can really help and how can they help you? But more importantly, too, is like, how do you start to build relationships with people in the ecosystem or at your current company or wherever they are that can be really impactful in how you appreciate what you do and what you work on. I mean, I've had conversations with people, and you ask them, you know, what are your. What are the things you want out of your career? And at least for me, you know, I enjoy doing interesting science and working on things and starting stuff. But I think a big piece of it for me, the one thing that gets me up in the morning is I want to go and work with people I really enjoy, right? I want to go work and be in an organization or work in an industry or environment where there's people out there I can really appreciate. We can learn from each other, we can have fun together and that there's colleagueship and friendship that comes, that can come along for the ride over the long term. Because I think if you look back on your career 20, 30 years, you say, you know what? I really enjoyed working with so and so. And, you know, we became lifelong colleagues, and that's very important. And I think that all starts with, you know, how do you start to network with people and how do you start to build relationships just for the sake of the relationship and not necessarily because you're trying to find your next job?

That's really good networking advice. We work with a lot of candidates and they're very nervous about building their network. And one thing that they think they need to do is go out and identify a company that they want to work with and then like, link in with the CEO or the founder and they're, you know, coming out of their postdoc. It's like, no, build your network of people who are in a similar space. You know, link in with the scientists. Those are the people that are going to follow you through your whole career. And you may forge genuine bonds with. You may work at multiple companies with them. I mean, we see that all the time when we work with small companies. A lot of people migrate over to these new companies that form and bring a little bit of the culture they love, the mission they love with them.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think maybe when you're early in your career, I think that's kind of hard to figure out, right? It's like, I need to get a job, right? Like, how do I pay my mortgage? Or like. And so I think that. But as you move your career and progress it forward, that network you've built around you and those people that comes back to you in a different way, right? It's like, hey, I need expertise in this. As I start with this company, who can I call, right? Who can help me out or who's going to call me because they've got something interesting they think I could take a look at. And that's really, I think, where the wealth comes in. It's like an investment, right? It's like building your 401k like when you start a new company, don't just start putting Money in your 401k, which you should do, obviously, but also like how you start to think about a network you're going to build over 20, 30 years, right. Versus like, how do I use people around me to kind of get a job?

Right?

There's the acute, but then there's the really, like, how do I really make investment into that? I think that's really important.

So switching gears a little bit, for someone who is thinking about building a biotech Startup now In 2024, what advice would you give them?

I guess there's the advice of like, hey, look, the markets are really crummy right now. Wait till interest rates drop.

Right?

That's the kind of advice people get.

Right.

And so how does investment play out? I think that some of the themes we've talked about earlier on about, you know, what are the ingredients to start a company. I think all those things hold true, right? You might have to think about, as you think about science and cash and people, that those dynamics are kind of constantly changing.

Right.

The market might be looking for more things right now, at least, which aren't big platform companies. They're more like, hey, I have a single asset that I want to move forward. I'm willing to put more money on that right now than I might be on the platform. And that might swing away three years from now, right? People might be back and like, let's build 500 member CRISPR companies again. So understanding that and understand that you're really going to do good science in that kind of sphere and then the people sphere, understand who's out there and how you can start to build that and then the cash and that equation, I think, and how that plays out in 2024, it's just the dynamics start to change a little bit. I think that I'm a big believer that good science gets funded and good science that has opportunity to move forward on something that become a product, however you want to find that create value and can line up well with where the investors want to put money, you know, is going to get funded.

Right?

And I think that's a big question for biotech companies. Starting a biotech company is not just the science and doing that well, but getting the cash piece in it. So I think that, you know, I think that really kind of understanding that environment and those components and putting people around you who can help with those areas, I think if it's 2024, 2025 or, you know, 2030, whatever the year is I think those don't change.

The fundamentals remain the same. I like that.

Good fundamentals win games, right? That's what they say.

Well, on that note, one thing that also comes up a lot on the show that I think is really interesting and actually really helpful for people listening. In raising money, can you tell us a little bit about what you think makes for a good investor pitch or what you've seen fail miserably? Have you had any experiences that would be really helpful for someone who's about to maybe start raising capital?

I think you have to have a good science. You have to good science. You have to, you have to understand like if you think about what a pitch deck is, it's really telling your story. And what is that story going to look like? You know, what is it, why do you want to do it and how are you going to execute on it. And so I think if you kind of put those pieces together, but what, why and the how that's a pitch deck in my mind and having very clear communication around what that looks like and how you communicate those pieces, which is, you know, the science, what it is, why it's important, what are you going to do with it and how are you going to show that you're going to de risk it and move it forward and operationalize it? I think those components are important and then it's really too about that story and who's the team is going to be, right. If you think about people want to go out and pitch a company, it's also about like do you have the right experts around the table? Have you thought about that? How do you think about the people piece?

Right.

The science piece. And I think getting that arc right on that story and having those components that you have competency, you understand what you're going to do and you're going to the people who are the right investors to talk to, right? Because you could take an idea on a large platform, play to an investment firm that has no interest in doing that and you're probably going to know, right? You could have a single asset that's going to go to someone in oncology who doesn't want to put oncology in their portfolio and you're going to get a no, right? But I think it's like how do you start to think about that and think about the feedback you're going to get from initial investor pitches and talks and take that and rework your ideas and rework your story and really be open to, you know, what investors are telling you as you start to share your story with people or mentors you might have around you, that really enable you to kind of hone and craft, you know, what you're going to go out and pitch and try and race around.

Can you tell us a little bit about Atlas Ventures? Kind of what is the philosophy? How does Atlas nurture companies? What does that look like?

Yeah, so Atlas is a partnership that there's a number of partners who run the firm and they focus on everything from single asset to platform companies to all kinds of stuff. They've had interest in RNA therapeutics, and I've worked with them on a number of companies for that. I think that as you think about company formation, and I think a lot of investment firms do this, it's really about how do you seed an idea?

Right?

How do I say, hey, look, here's a new idea, here's something that I think could be interesting, here's where it could go. That pitch. It's like, how do I de risk that idea? How do I take risk off the table? And how can I do that with a little bit of money so I can get it to work so I can go out and raise more money? And so I think this notion of how do you see the initial idea? How do you build a seed company that you can kind of, you incubate the seed. And so how do you do that in such a way that you can show that the idea has legs, it can reach a certain point that you've agreed upon with your investors, which Atlas does with its seed companies, that's going to allow you, enable you to start to build a company around that. And so I think that Atlas, at least that's kind of how they operate. They're like, okay, we have an idea. How do we see that idea? How do we move forward to get to a point that we can get comfortable with? And bringing other investors around the table, putting more money into it? I think also too, I've learned from, you know, the partners here is like, how do you really approach these ideas? And really, if you're going to put your money behind it, and how do you really help ensure its success? Does it need patience? Does it need other people that you can bring around the table to help it out? And so how do you enable success out of the, out of the seed idea that you want to bring forward? Or how do you refocus it if you need to refocus it? And finally, how do you decide not to work on anymore and kill it if you think it's not going to go anywhere. And I think that in all those pieces that it comes back down to is really good science.

Right.

Do you really have the right experiments to run the right controls? Are you really going to drive around an idea and really show clarity on what it can do and where it can go and you understand the market base on it, so that when you get your results, you really can get to a yes, no decision on what it's doing. And I think good science and culture really can help drive that clarity around, showing that these seed ideas have legs or not.

Right.

And I think that people can get comfortable with killing an idea if there's good science to show they've done it appropriately.

Right?

Because you don't want to spend money. You want to work on a project, even if you're on the entrepreneur side or the operator side, if it's not going to go anywhere. Right. So I think those kind of components, as you think about that, are critical.

I think one of the most interesting conversations I had this year with someone was talking about, when do you call it quits on your idea? Like, when is it? Like, yep, the idea was great, but the science doesn't back it up or the, you know, something's just not right, it's not happening, and how difficult it can be to get to that point and what sort of the break point is. Obviously, running out of money is a very clear problem, but, you know, ideally you'd maybe wrap it up prior to like having no money left. So I think that's a really interesting point because I think it is something that it's really hard to give up on a dream right now. You can kind of reroute your dream and maybe change it up a little bit, but it is really hard to get to that point for people. So I think having that outside counsel is also really helpful.

That's right. And I think that obviously as you start companies, you have a board of directors who assist with that thought process. You have an advisory board who helps with that process. But I think really defining clear goals on what a company is going to do and what they're going to prove out and not hopefully prove out.

Right.

Is really where you kind of get crystallization around that. And I think it's. I think it's important and it's not just on the company success. It's also about, like, you have a company that's already moving forward, like, what are they going to work on or kill? And I think that be able to say no is extremely important.

So I heard you say the word de risk a few times and I want to just circle back around that because we hear a lot about telling a good story in these pitch decks. But it sounds to me, and we've spoken with a few guests recently who have also used very similar language that especially in this funding climate, it is telling the good story and following on with exactly what that next de risking point is and what are the milestones to get there? Is that accurate? Am I interpreting that correctly? Ish.

If you think about de risking, I think that's a question of like what can I do to really maybe another way to think about it is like how do I frame the buy to get. Which is like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a company. You're an investor. I'm gonna do X, Y and Z to show this system works as a seed company, right? I want. The money I'm gonna ask for is gonna pay for that. And here's exactly how I'm gonna use it. Here's my budget, right? And the experiments I'm going to run and the work I'm going to do is really going to show that this new idea that comes out of university or that we have or whatever it is. I know that if I can get to here, the next step is to move it to here. And I want to show how you can get it to here. Or I want to show that I can reproduce academic work. As an example. If a professor has a new idea, here's a great example, say okay, look, I've got this new molecule that does X, Y and Z. If I can bring that in and start a company around it. My aim initially is to just replace produce that. And so that's the de risking process. It's de risking showing that you can put another person's hands, you can get to work. You also maybe de risk not just the science, but like where it's going to go. I've seen compounds that are very interesting or ideas that are work, but there's no payer around them for an eventual therapeutic.

Right?

And so the question is, do you really want to develop that? So how do you do your risk? Like what are you going to do with it once you move forward? Are you going to be able to find investors who really want to put money in it for the next round or is the market going to have appetite for so all those types of things as you de risk the idea and the science and where it's going to head. Some of it's paperwork and some of it's wet work in the lab.

Right.

And so it's just really about, can you get to the next point? Can you make it strong and reproducible and that you think, I can go someplace.

Thank you. That was really actionable. I feel like we want to crystallize those sorts of thoughts for people because we know from talking to venture partners that most of the decks that come through are really just a bunch of data without that next step, that next component.

Andrew, what do you want to achieve in the next 10 years? What are your goals?

A good friend of mine has told me that you go through three phases in your career, right. Which. And the first phase is really the learning phase. The second phase is really the productivity phase, and the third phase is kind of the giving back phase. And so I kind of feel like I'm about two thirds of the way through, right. And maybe not entirely done with the productive phase. I think that can obviously run as long as you want it to. But I think the thing is, over the next 10 years, you know, how do you start to think about the giving back process? And I mean, more than just saying, like, how do I start to give back and have mentorship to say, who's someone younger in an organization that you work in, but really about how do you start to do that from an industrial perspective from, you know, your other colleagues that you worked with, how do you help them out? How do you start to think about the broader picture that the environment you work in, or even on the macro or micro scale, and so how do you kind of turn that corner and start to kind of not feel that you have to be the person who's driving everything, but the person who can really kind of play coach? And so I think that as I look over the next 10 years, you know, moving to that kind of environment, I think is where I'd really try to push my career. Career.

What a great framework. I've never heard it, your career described that way, but that's a really interesting progression. And I think, I think a lot of people are going to relate to that.

Yeah, I turned 50 this year. I turned 50 last year. Damn it. So. But, you know, I think that's like, you know, 10 years from now, do I really want to be working full time and spending, you know, 100 of my time working at a company full time? Probably not. How do you kind of start to figure out different ways you can kind of contribute that may not be having a job and sit working at the same thing, you know, you know, six days Six days a week. So how do you start to think about that more broadly? I think is very interesting.

If you were to start mentoring some junior scientists, what would you tell them today as they're finishing up their degrees and thinking about jumping in?

I think that, I think the thing for me is, which I missed out on, right. Because when I was in grad school I was a scientist. Like you're going to go become a professor at know a university or you're going to go work for a large pharma if you're in the commission program. And all these new career paths that have really creeped up for scientists is I think fantastic. And there's paths for them now, there's mechanisms for them which like didn't exist when I was in school. You know, if you want to think about working at an Atlas venture or an investment firm, there's associate programs now and fellow programs that run all this kind of stuff. Colleges are so much more open to going and getting MBAs along with a PhD at the same time. And thinking about that or how you think about law or IP or whatever that field is that you're in, how do you think about taking your science degree and figuring out what you want to do with it?

Right.

As opposed to just becoming a scientist. I love being a scientist, but I think the question is how do you augment that in a way that can be very beneficial to you as you progress in your career. And I think that now at least I see so many of these different opportunities that people have as they exit, you know, an undergrad or graduate program that they really can access that just weren't around, you know, 30 years ago.

What about biotech itself? What do you anticipate being a huge breakthrough in the next 10 years or so?

I think there's a number of things that we've really dug our heels into lately that are starting to become successes. Obviously I work in RNA therapeutics and the RNA therapeutic world has just blossomed enormously.

Well, right.

And it's really now, you know, a drug entity that sits alongside, you know, all of the small molecule drugs of the world.

Right.

And as we see that progress into from rare to common indications, I think is going to be wonderful. But I think all those things that come along for that ride, that genomic tidal wave, if you will, how do we really start to things like gene editing, you know, AAV based approaches on gene therapy, how those things really going to start to play out over the next 10 years? Years? We're just on the cusp of those now, we have a lot of problems we still need to solve either around talks or efficacy or delivery or manufacturing or whatever those things are. But I've seen what's happened on the Si field over the past 20 years and where things are headed there. I mean, there's obviously that next step in the chain that I'd love to see what happens over the next 10 years. And then I think you start to throw in all the computational stuff. Everybody has to say AI these days, but I think that as those things start to kind of dovetail in with each other, I think that's going to be fascinating. Interesting to see how that plays out.

You said it. We weren't going to say it, but you said it.

I was just going to say this is our first podcast where I think we didn't say AI.

Oh, well, you have to say it these days. It's part of the rules.

It is. Yeah. We get fired if we don't. Yeah, yeah. I think the implications that I'm excited about are just the increased pace of being able to get through some of these huge data sets that we have and maybe even unifying some of those data sets we have. We're just such a disparate world in terms of people have. We have sequencing data all over the world, and we can bring that together.

I think one of the big drivers, at least as you know, we built Quora, was one of the issues was that we didn't have enough compounds yet to really kind of use all these computational AI ish tools.

Right.

It's like, how do you get numbers up to really be able to start to utilize all of that math? And so I think that we're getting there in many regards. So this is kind of why I mentioned this dovetailing of the. I think is going to be. There's the wet work that has to happen along with the in silico work. And so as those two come together, you know, over time, that's where I think, you know, the play is really going to happen.

What is your favorite nonfiction or a fiction book that you think everybody should read?

I will tell you. One of my favorite nonfiction books for scientists is called a book called Storytelling with Data. And it's a woman who's a data scientist, and she's written this book and truly shows you how you can actually think about the data you want to present and how you can plot it out to be. To really kind of tell your story.

Right.

And I can't tell you how many pitch decks you see and how many scientists present information. And it's just like I can't look at that and understand it because it's just too complex for my simple brain. So I think that's one thing I think, and I'll tell you from the fiction side, one of my favorite authors is Hemingway. And I'll tell you why is because if you read some of his work and you think you read, you know, a Movable Feast, he really talks about how he spends so much time trying to craft his wording so elegantly.

Right.

And he spends so much time. He's obviously someone who doesn't use a lot of words. Right. He's very terse, but he's also very descriptive at the same time. And so I think as you think about biotech and science generally, how do you really kind of utilize this notion of honing your craft and really kind of being very descriptive, but at the same token, really do that in an efficient way that really communicates effectively?

Where can our audience find you to connect with you and get some of your great mentorship going forward?

Yeah, LinkedIn's obviously a great place to start.

Right?

It's. I think if I look at any social network, it's the one that has probably the most function and most value in the world, assuming.

Right.

So I think that's great.

Yeah. We'll put your LinkedIn in our show notes so people can click through. Thank you so much.

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