WEBVTT - Building a Company that Builds Companies 0:00:15.316 --> 0:00:23.716 Pushkin. One of the most interesting, most important companies in 0:00:23.756 --> 0:00:28.036 the world right now is Maderna, this little biotech company 0:00:28.076 --> 0:00:30.236 that almost nobody had ever heard of until a couple 0:00:30.276 --> 0:00:33.116 of years ago. This company built on the wild idea 0:00:33.196 --> 0:00:37.636 of making mRNA and putting it into people's cells. This 0:00:37.676 --> 0:00:41.916 company has suddenly delivered COVID vaccines to hundreds of millions 0:00:41.916 --> 0:00:46.636 of people, including full disclosure to me. And maybe the 0:00:46.676 --> 0:00:50.076 most interesting thing about the story of Maderna is that 0:00:50.116 --> 0:00:52.556 it doesn't start with the founding of the company back 0:00:52.596 --> 0:00:56.276 in twenty ten. It starts ten years earlier with the 0:00:56.316 --> 0:01:01.436 founding of another company, a company called Flagship Pioneering. Flagship 0:01:01.436 --> 0:01:05.876 Pioneering is a company that makes companies. Flagship has created 0:01:05.996 --> 0:01:09.356 dozens of companies, several of which have gone public. Pretty 0:01:09.436 --> 0:01:11.716 much all of them have something to do with biology, 0:01:12.036 --> 0:01:16.316 and they tend to be pretty out there. Companies using 0:01:16.396 --> 0:01:20.356 bacteria as medicine, Companies trying to figure out how farms 0:01:20.396 --> 0:01:23.676 can do more to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, 0:01:24.036 --> 0:01:26.436 and of course, companies trying to figure out all the 0:01:26.516 --> 0:01:34.236 things you can do with RNA, companies like Maderna. I'm 0:01:34.316 --> 0:01:37.076 Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem, the show 0:01:37.116 --> 0:01:39.876 where I talk to entrepreneurs and engineers about how they're 0:01:39.876 --> 0:01:42.756 going to change the world once they've solved a few problems. 0:01:44.476 --> 0:01:47.916 My guest today is Nubar Afaan. He is the founder 0:01:47.956 --> 0:01:51.556 of Flagship Pioneering and the co founder of Maderna. And 0:01:51.716 --> 0:01:54.596 the problem I wanted to talk with Nubar about is 0:01:54.836 --> 0:01:57.996 the problem he started Flagship to solve. How do you 0:01:58.036 --> 0:02:02.476 turn the unstructured, chaotic way that most entrepreneurs start companies 0:02:02.876 --> 0:02:07.476 into a repeatable, systematic process and what can we learn 0:02:07.516 --> 0:02:13.076 about that From the story of Maderna, the origins of 0:02:13.076 --> 0:02:16.916 Flagship Pioneering new Bar's company, the company that started Maderna. 0:02:16.996 --> 0:02:19.196 They go back to the beginning of his career as 0:02:19.196 --> 0:02:23.276 an entrepreneur. He saw at the time that venture capitalists 0:02:23.556 --> 0:02:26.956 had a sort of unfair advantage over entrepreneurs like him 0:02:27.236 --> 0:02:29.876 because they got to see into so many different companies 0:02:29.956 --> 0:02:33.636 all getting built at the same time. I was interested 0:02:33.676 --> 0:02:37.516 in the model that venture capitalists used, and what I 0:02:37.556 --> 0:02:40.676 observed in the early phase of my career is just 0:02:40.796 --> 0:02:44.196 how smart all these people seemed. And yet after a 0:02:44.196 --> 0:02:46.676 while I realized, well, they're two they can't all be 0:02:46.796 --> 0:02:50.436 that smart. And it occurred to me that they had 0:02:50.476 --> 0:02:53.796 seen so many attempts at this, with so many different 0:02:54.116 --> 0:02:58.356 people of different backgrounds, compositions of teams that were only experienced, 0:02:58.396 --> 0:03:02.716 only inexperienced the science the IP strategy in the markets. 0:03:02.756 --> 0:03:05.756 So when you take it all together, they were learning 0:03:05.876 --> 0:03:09.516 at a massive, massive rate that which entrepreneur need to 0:03:09.596 --> 0:03:14.836 learn but never can learn in one go round. And 0:03:14.916 --> 0:03:20.436 so I thought, why can't the knowledge assembly practice, experimenting 0:03:20.476 --> 0:03:24.396 and failing and learning be available to an entrepreneur. So 0:03:24.476 --> 0:03:27.916 all of those things kind of combined in getting me 0:03:27.956 --> 0:03:30.436 interested in this notion that what if there was a 0:03:30.476 --> 0:03:35.676 structure where entrepreneurs such as myself could take experience they 0:03:35.676 --> 0:03:38.396 had gotten, let's say, in one in one instance, but 0:03:38.476 --> 0:03:42.156 then started diversifying it and learning in parallel, and then 0:03:42.196 --> 0:03:44.836 got really good at it. And those are the things 0:03:44.836 --> 0:03:48.156 that led to the conception of Flagship in two thousand. 0:03:48.996 --> 0:03:52.476 Starting a company that starts companies almost seems like cheating 0:03:52.556 --> 0:03:54.956 in a weird way, Like when you get the genie 0:03:54.956 --> 0:03:56.996 in the bottle and you get three wishes, it's like 0:03:57.036 --> 0:04:00.316 wishing for more wishes, right, you know, I've never seen 0:04:00.356 --> 0:04:02.916 a story which starts with you know, some Genie offered 0:04:02.956 --> 0:04:07.756 somebody three wishes, and the first wish was another Genie bottle. Yeah, 0:04:07.796 --> 0:04:11.316 it's a little poll have been a smart answer, Yeah, yeah, 0:04:11.316 --> 0:04:13.676 that would have been a smart answer. So it really 0:04:13.796 --> 0:04:15.676 is a kind of a curious thing as to why 0:04:16.116 --> 0:04:19.076 people don't do it. And I can trace it back, 0:04:19.196 --> 0:04:22.036 especially back in the twenty five years ago, to the 0:04:22.076 --> 0:04:26.356 fact that the field of entrepreneurship was a relatively young field. 0:04:26.676 --> 0:04:30.156 Early on, it was this kind of mystical activity, and 0:04:30.236 --> 0:04:34.116 you had certain personalities that kind of were able to 0:04:34.196 --> 0:04:37.596 raise money and govern, you know, create teams. There's a 0:04:37.636 --> 0:04:41.236 whole mythology, right, It's like the like Hero's journey, right 0:04:41.276 --> 0:04:44.276 where there's this one person who has a vision that 0:04:44.316 --> 0:04:47.036 nobody else believes in and only they can build the company. 0:04:47.076 --> 0:04:48.756 I mean, I feel like what you're building is sort 0:04:48.796 --> 0:04:52.836 of the antithesis of that. Well exactly, entrepreneurship as an 0:04:52.876 --> 0:04:57.156 activity today is today used to be and hasn't changed 0:04:57.156 --> 0:05:01.596 so much. Is very much improvisational. There's a lot of 0:05:02.196 --> 0:05:05.956 kind of almost a romantic side to it. There is chaos, 0:05:06.756 --> 0:05:11.316 and there is this struggle to survive. And while all 0:05:11.356 --> 0:05:15.236 of those things are really good, kind of spices in 0:05:15.276 --> 0:05:17.996 a meal. It is the meal in entrepreneurship. There is 0:05:18.036 --> 0:05:21.556 nothing else you don't point to, and we're developing products 0:05:21.556 --> 0:05:24.476 and we're solving on meth needs. Those things almost become 0:05:24.716 --> 0:05:26.916 kind of the boring part of the story that people 0:05:26.996 --> 0:05:29.476 want to fast forward through that part of the episode. 0:05:29.756 --> 0:05:32.476 So it did occur to me, in thinking of parallelyzing this, 0:05:32.916 --> 0:05:38.036 that actually all those parts can benefit from being more efficient, 0:05:38.436 --> 0:05:41.996 more effective, more predictable, and more planful. If there's this 0:05:42.076 --> 0:05:46.076 idea that you can build a system to create companies 0:05:46.676 --> 0:05:51.276 and that the system maybe ultimately can work better at 0:05:51.316 --> 0:05:53.516 least better in some settings, let's say, than the sort 0:05:53.556 --> 0:05:58.116 of visionary entrepreneur. What does that say about you in particular? 0:05:58.476 --> 0:06:00.556 Like can you build such a good system that you 0:06:00.716 --> 0:06:08.876 personally become replaceable? Oh? Yeah, that's my goal. So you 0:06:09.156 --> 0:06:12.156 are set up this company, Flagship Pioneering to solve the 0:06:12.316 --> 0:06:16.396 entrepreneurship problem. But how does it actually work and how 0:06:16.396 --> 0:06:19.636 did it lead to the creation of Maderna? That is 0:06:19.716 --> 0:06:28.476 after the break. Now we're going back to the show. 0:06:28.956 --> 0:06:31.036 So in the first part of the conversation, Nubar and 0:06:31.076 --> 0:06:34.196 I were talking abstractly about this problem he set out 0:06:34.236 --> 0:06:38.156 to solve how do you shift entrepreneurship starting companies from 0:06:38.196 --> 0:06:43.396 this mythological hero's journey into a repeatable, systematic process. In 0:06:43.436 --> 0:06:45.756 the next part of the conversation, Nubar gave me an answer. 0:06:45.876 --> 0:06:48.276 He told me the story of Maderna as a case 0:06:48.356 --> 0:06:51.876 study for how flagship pioneering his company has started to 0:06:51.916 --> 0:06:54.996 solve this problem, has started to create a system for 0:06:55.156 --> 0:06:58.436 creating new companies. The story of Maderna starts in twenty 0:06:58.636 --> 0:07:01.156 ten when Nubar had a meeting with a Harvard scientist 0:07:01.236 --> 0:07:04.156 who was studying m RNA. mRNA, by the way, is 0:07:04.156 --> 0:07:07.076 a molecule that basically tells cells in the body what 0:07:07.276 --> 0:07:11.396 protein to make. I could researchers had been experimenting with 0:07:11.676 --> 0:07:14.196 mRNA for a while by this point, but they kept 0:07:14.236 --> 0:07:17.796 hitting problems when they tried to find clinical applications. And 0:07:17.916 --> 0:07:20.436 in the middle of this meeting with the Harvard scientist, 0:07:20.836 --> 0:07:24.556 Newbar thinks if we could make mRNA in the lab 0:07:24.956 --> 0:07:28.836 and inject it into the body, the results could be incredible. 0:07:29.276 --> 0:07:32.756 We could use mRNA to tele a patient cells what 0:07:32.916 --> 0:07:35.996 to make. So I come back from the meeting and 0:07:36.036 --> 0:07:38.116 I talked to some of the team here and we say, hey, 0:07:38.396 --> 0:07:41.876 let's launch an exploration, and it starts as an act 0:07:42.396 --> 0:07:46.676 of imagination. It is not an active reason. And in fact, 0:07:46.716 --> 0:07:50.196 one of my side i'd say, kind of, I won't 0:07:50.236 --> 0:07:54.276 call it ran. Yeah. A side rant would be the 0:07:54.316 --> 0:07:59.756 degree to which our education systematically discourages the use of 0:07:59.836 --> 0:08:04.276 imagination in creating the world we want to create, versus 0:08:04.316 --> 0:08:09.036 relying overly on analysis and reason as the only way 0:08:09.476 --> 0:08:12.556 to make progress. You want to try and be unreasonable 0:08:12.836 --> 0:08:16.356 to some extent. We need to be unreasonable in order 0:08:16.396 --> 0:08:20.796 to come up with leaps that eventually seem reasonable. So, 0:08:21.236 --> 0:08:24.196 in the case of what will become maderna, you have 0:08:24.236 --> 0:08:29.036 this unreasonable idea, let's use mRNA to get the body 0:08:29.076 --> 0:08:32.716 to make drugs inside the body. You start this first step, 0:08:32.756 --> 0:08:36.596 this thing you call an exploration, which means which means 0:08:36.596 --> 0:08:38.716 what you have this small team studying the state of 0:08:38.756 --> 0:08:41.556 the art, going out and talking to experts about this idea, 0:08:41.636 --> 0:08:44.596 and what kind of reactions are you getting from the experts. 0:08:44.916 --> 0:08:46.876 So the way that you react is to say, the 0:08:47.036 --> 0:08:49.196 RNA will be washed out of the body in ten minutes, 0:08:49.356 --> 0:08:51.996 How are you going to make proteins for weeks? How 0:08:51.996 --> 0:08:53.556 are you going to get into the right cell types 0:08:53.756 --> 0:08:55.516 by the way, there's all sorts of other immune reactions 0:08:55.516 --> 0:08:57.716 you're gonna have to deal with, how are you going 0:08:57.796 --> 0:09:00.156 to make it? Nobody ever designed and made Arnie, And 0:09:00.196 --> 0:09:04.276 so all those selection pressures causes you, causes us very 0:09:04.316 --> 0:09:06.876 specifically to go back and try to come up with 0:09:06.876 --> 0:09:12.156 ways to overcome those let's say, dogumatic objections to based 0:09:12.196 --> 0:09:14.516 on the present state of the art. And so because 0:09:14.636 --> 0:09:16.116 you might say, we why don't you just ignore them 0:09:16.116 --> 0:09:17.916 and just go into lab and do it. And the 0:09:17.956 --> 0:09:20.716 reason it turns out for us anyways, that we find 0:09:20.836 --> 0:09:24.836 that these initial hypotheses become refined and refined and refined 0:09:25.436 --> 0:09:27.716 before we want to go in and spend the money 0:09:27.756 --> 0:09:30.556 building a company. That's a really important thing. We don't 0:09:30.676 --> 0:09:33.956 build just any company. We build companies that have gone 0:09:33.996 --> 0:09:40.276 through a significant upfront set of iterative refinements. That's a 0:09:40.356 --> 0:09:43.116 process of a couple of months. It's a handful of people, 0:09:43.156 --> 0:09:46.396 three four people, and it's a couple of months, and 0:09:46.516 --> 0:09:48.956 we iterate, iterate, iterated internally until we get to a 0:09:49.036 --> 0:09:51.116 point by the fall where we say, you know what, 0:09:51.396 --> 0:09:53.356 we're going to make a go of this, because that 0:09:53.516 --> 0:09:55.316 we think we have a good sense of the range 0:09:55.356 --> 0:09:57.436 of things that have to be right for this to work. 0:09:57.716 --> 0:10:00.436 We can test for them, and we don't start the company. 0:10:00.636 --> 0:10:03.116 We actually start what we call a protocompany. Okay, that's 0:10:03.156 --> 0:10:06.196 the first phase. Okay, what is a proto company? So 0:10:06.236 --> 0:10:10.156 a product company is a prototype of a company, just 0:10:10.236 --> 0:10:12.556 like you make prototypes of every product that you make. 0:10:12.836 --> 0:10:15.436 But remarkably, there is no such thing as a prototype 0:10:15.436 --> 0:10:18.716 of a company. People just make companies. And a product 0:10:18.756 --> 0:10:21.116 type of a company is where, just like in a 0:10:21.156 --> 0:10:23.076 regular product, you get to beat it up and try 0:10:23.076 --> 0:10:25.236 to kill it. And that's exactly what we do. And 0:10:25.276 --> 0:10:28.116 so is it called Maderna Yet you have this idea 0:10:28.116 --> 0:10:30.956 and it's like proto Maderna. No, it's ls eighteen is 0:10:30.956 --> 0:10:34.076 the product company? Say it again. LSA teen is the 0:10:34.236 --> 0:10:38.996 name of the entity that got incorporated to become eventually 0:10:39.076 --> 0:10:42.916 if things went forward, Maderna. Why light, Oh, it's the 0:10:42.956 --> 0:10:46.356 eighteenth such thing we did. Okay, it's the eighteenth proto 0:10:46.436 --> 0:10:49.276 company you had ever made, exactly and today we're at 0:10:49.396 --> 0:10:52.796 number ninety as an example, why do you do that? 0:10:52.916 --> 0:10:56.116 Why do you give it just a number at that stage? Oh, 0:10:56.156 --> 0:10:59.956 you know, when you're trying to create an institution instead 0:10:59.996 --> 0:11:02.596 of behaviors. One of the things that I knew literally 0:11:02.596 --> 0:11:04.836 on day one going into creating this whole thing in 0:11:04.916 --> 0:11:08.916 two thousand was that people hang on to their ideas 0:11:09.396 --> 0:11:12.516 and emotionally almost romantically connected them and they never can 0:11:12.596 --> 0:11:15.196 kill them. And I wanted to create a safe zone 0:11:15.596 --> 0:11:19.836 during which the question was, what is the falsifying experiment 0:11:20.156 --> 0:11:22.916 that will kill the hypothesis so that we don't go forward. Well, 0:11:22.956 --> 0:11:26.036 guess what if you give something a name, worse yet, 0:11:26.076 --> 0:11:29.076 a name you really like, your pet, dog's name, some 0:11:29.476 --> 0:11:32.276 Greek god's name, whatever, Well you try to kill it. 0:11:32.436 --> 0:11:33.916 So you give it a number instead of a name 0:11:33.996 --> 0:11:37.596 to make it easier to kill. Disposable exactly. But anyway, 0:11:37.596 --> 0:11:39.996 I should say put our companies for us are like 0:11:39.996 --> 0:11:43.796 a one to two million dollars six months to twelve 0:11:43.796 --> 0:11:48.036 months plus minus process. It is not a license to 0:11:48.556 --> 0:11:51.956 hunt for the next three years and ten million dollars. 0:11:51.996 --> 0:11:54.956 That's a very important discipline. So a key part of 0:11:54.996 --> 0:11:58.156 doing that is to decide what are the key experiments 0:11:58.396 --> 0:12:00.316 that you want to do first in order to try 0:12:00.356 --> 0:12:02.836 to kill it. We needed to convince ourselves that we 0:12:02.836 --> 0:12:06.476 can actually make things and try them in animals and 0:12:06.596 --> 0:12:09.556 have them make a protein. There's notion that. Now we 0:12:09.636 --> 0:12:11.756 go around saying m RNA is the code of life, 0:12:11.796 --> 0:12:13.276 and we can put it in and we can make 0:12:13.316 --> 0:12:16.476 any protein we want. Yeah, two billion dollars later we 0:12:16.476 --> 0:12:19.996 could do that. But on the early days, nobody had 0:12:20.036 --> 0:12:23.036 shown that you can actually make the correct protein folded 0:12:23.076 --> 0:12:26.436 the correct way in animal models, not to humans yet, 0:12:26.716 --> 0:12:28.556 and so we need to convince ourselves of that. We 0:12:28.596 --> 0:12:31.916 did work on that in small animals mice, and then 0:12:31.956 --> 0:12:34.436 we had to believe is that we could actually somehow 0:12:34.756 --> 0:12:37.836 formulate these things so they can get into cells. A 0:12:37.996 --> 0:12:41.156 year or so nine months, a year of experimental work 0:12:41.316 --> 0:12:44.316 that we engaged with within the context of LSA teen, 0:12:44.556 --> 0:12:48.716 which was renamed a couple of months later Maderna. As 0:12:48.716 --> 0:12:51.036 we started getting ourselves up and running, I just want 0:12:51.076 --> 0:12:53.796 to I just want to pause. So ls eighteen, I 0:12:53.836 --> 0:12:56.156 have the number, right, remember number, that's the point, right, 0:12:56.516 --> 0:13:00.196 LSA teen becomes maderna. But at that time you're not 0:13:00.236 --> 0:13:03.156 even thinking of vaccines yet, is that right? Well, let 0:13:03.156 --> 0:13:05.636 me say this thing. We thought of every possible use 0:13:05.676 --> 0:13:08.276 you could make of every kind of molecule, so vaccines 0:13:08.396 --> 0:13:12.436 was definitely on tables of things we could do. But 0:13:12.476 --> 0:13:15.636 by no means did our preliminary analysis suggest that we 0:13:15.676 --> 0:13:19.156 should do vaccines, let alone only vaccines. And the reason 0:13:19.396 --> 0:13:23.916 was because our dream, our imagination had us making any 0:13:23.956 --> 0:13:27.516 protein in the body, and a relatively small subset of 0:13:27.516 --> 0:13:30.356 the proteins that are made in the body is actually 0:13:30.436 --> 0:13:33.516 for vaccines, and so we were working on cancer and 0:13:33.836 --> 0:13:37.356 we were dreaming of cardiovascular disease. So the vaccine part 0:13:37.516 --> 0:13:40.956 was a transition that started happening three to four years 0:13:41.036 --> 0:13:43.196 into the development of the company, A long time. A 0:13:43.236 --> 0:13:46.676 long time into the company, oh for sure, and probably 0:13:47.316 --> 0:13:50.436 a good billion dollars of capital having gone into it 0:13:50.716 --> 0:13:53.996 before now. Back in twenty fourteen thirteen, when we started 0:13:54.036 --> 0:13:57.396 going down this path, of course, it was a pretty crappy, 0:13:57.436 --> 0:14:00.316 for lack of a better word, marketplace because vaccines were 0:14:00.356 --> 0:14:03.716 the domain of two or three pharma companies that had 0:14:03.716 --> 0:14:07.796 a complete monopoly over the space. The development and regulatory 0:14:07.956 --> 0:14:11.796 approval of them was extremely slow, very very costly, and 0:14:11.876 --> 0:14:13.956 at the end you couldn't charge much for them. So 0:14:14.196 --> 0:14:16.556 the reason the biotech industry, I think it'd be hard 0:14:16.556 --> 0:14:20.396 pressed to find biotech companies that worked on vaccines was that, 0:14:20.756 --> 0:14:24.516 And so investors, capital providers simply didn't want to go 0:14:24.596 --> 0:14:27.756 there because it was generally written off as an area 0:14:27.836 --> 0:14:31.036 for major innovation, but we weren't. We didn't really care 0:14:31.036 --> 0:14:33.396 as much about that because all we wanted was the 0:14:33.436 --> 0:14:37.236 proof of principle in humans that this could even be done. 0:14:37.316 --> 0:14:40.476 You wanted that would work, yeah, in humans, yea. And 0:14:40.516 --> 0:14:44.076 so in twenty fourteen, going into fifteen, we entered our 0:14:44.116 --> 0:14:48.236 first clinical trial with two quite ironic people haven't quite 0:14:48.236 --> 0:14:51.116 realized this yet, ironic in what I would say, two 0:14:51.716 --> 0:14:55.436 strains of influenza that had not previously been in humans, 0:14:55.916 --> 0:14:59.196 for which we wanted to make a prophylactic vaccine in 0:14:59.316 --> 0:15:08.996 case someday they jump from birds or swine into humans. Basically, yeah, exactly. 0:15:09.116 --> 0:15:11.556 So we just took a very safe road, tried it, 0:15:11.596 --> 0:15:14.436 and sure enough we showed in the first instance that 0:15:14.436 --> 0:15:17.916 that first attempt to humans could make neutralizing anybody's to 0:15:18.036 --> 0:15:20.716 both of those trains, and we felt like, Okay, at 0:15:20.796 --> 0:15:22.716 least we know we can make proteins and that they 0:15:22.796 --> 0:15:26.796 do what we say, David, that's five years into it. Great. So, 0:15:26.876 --> 0:15:31.116 because of all of this, because of the decade you'd 0:15:31.116 --> 0:15:34.516 spent figuring out how to build a company that builds companies, 0:15:34.876 --> 0:15:38.836 and then the years after that turning an idea into 0:15:38.996 --> 0:15:42.116 LS eighteen, into Maderna into a company that makes vaccines. 0:15:42.156 --> 0:15:47.116 Because of that whole twenty year arc, you're ready, essentially 0:15:47.196 --> 0:15:52.556 when this new virus emerges at the end of twenty 0:15:52.876 --> 0:15:58.436 nineteen to very quickly make a COVID vaccine exactly that 0:15:58.676 --> 0:16:02.196 we worked for many, many years to put this platform 0:16:02.276 --> 0:16:07.876 into existence. In a minute, the Lightning Round, including new bars, 0:16:07.916 --> 0:16:11.716 tips for solving hard problems, and one weird trick for 0:16:11.836 --> 0:16:22.876 knowing when to shut down a company or a proto company. Okay, 0:16:22.956 --> 0:16:25.076 let's get back to the show. We're going to close 0:16:25.076 --> 0:16:27.756 with the Lightning Round. What's one piece of advice you'd 0:16:27.756 --> 0:16:31.596 give to someone who's working on a hard problem. Work 0:16:31.836 --> 0:16:34.836 both from the present forward, that is, from what you 0:16:34.916 --> 0:16:38.636 know to solve something, and also work future backwards, which is, 0:16:38.636 --> 0:16:41.316 imagine the problem already solved and see if you can 0:16:41.396 --> 0:16:44.636 back trace how you got there. Good. Okay, Two more, 0:16:45.796 --> 0:16:49.036 do you have any rules of thumb for knowing when 0:16:49.076 --> 0:16:54.476 to shut down a project? Not uniform rules, but I 0:16:54.516 --> 0:16:58.276 think that you have to keep the resistance up resistance 0:16:58.356 --> 0:17:02.396 meaning pressure in order for the team to conclude that 0:17:02.956 --> 0:17:08.276 they're going through more and more complicated rationalizations using longer 0:17:08.276 --> 0:17:10.876 and longer sentence is to justify whether its state life 0:17:11.236 --> 0:17:13.596 sentence length is a good is a good heuristic? I 0:17:13.676 --> 0:17:15.596 like that. And by the way, that's one of the 0:17:15.596 --> 0:17:18.756 biggest misunderstood things in the startup world is that more 0:17:18.796 --> 0:17:22.836 money leads to better companies. Lower money can just as 0:17:22.876 --> 0:17:26.676 easily lead to worst companies because it causes persistence of 0:17:26.756 --> 0:17:30.516 companies that don't feel that pressure. And so I think 0:17:30.596 --> 0:17:32.916 one of the key things is the pressure that comes 0:17:32.916 --> 0:17:36.156 from raising capital, the pressure that comes from being challenging. 0:17:36.196 --> 0:17:39.036 I think these are all really really important to produce 0:17:39.156 --> 0:17:42.236 the end result of deciding not to go forward. I 0:17:42.276 --> 0:17:44.156 got to add one question, because you talked about money 0:17:44.156 --> 0:17:47.636 being a problem. You just raised billions of dollars, which, 0:17:47.716 --> 0:17:50.596 on the one hand, congratulations. On the other hand, is 0:17:50.636 --> 0:17:52.636 that going to make it harder to do what you do? 0:17:52.716 --> 0:17:55.716 I mean, there's scale, there's As you've said, having more 0:17:55.756 --> 0:17:57.516 money can make it harder to keep the pressure on. 0:17:57.636 --> 0:18:00.196 Is that hard having all that money? Because it took 0:18:00.276 --> 0:18:02.636 us a long long time to get too larger pools 0:18:02.636 --> 0:18:05.596 of capital. The process and the discipline and the culture 0:18:05.716 --> 0:18:08.756 proceeds the capital and all of those are ways to 0:18:09.236 --> 0:18:13.116 find the capital availability and keep the pressure on. Okay, 0:18:13.196 --> 0:18:16.956 last one, if everything goes well, what problem will you 0:18:17.036 --> 0:18:21.516 be working on in say ten years? Honestly unfathomable. I 0:18:21.516 --> 0:18:24.156 could tell you what problem would be working on today 0:18:24.196 --> 0:18:26.396 ten years ago. Let me answer it in this way. 0:18:26.636 --> 0:18:29.236 We don't start with either problem or solution. We try 0:18:29.276 --> 0:18:32.116 to invent both, make them up, and then we try 0:18:32.116 --> 0:18:35.196 to match them in that regard. What problems will be 0:18:35.276 --> 0:18:38.636 visible even at the horizon and what solutions will be 0:18:38.956 --> 0:18:42.356 imaginable will dictate what we work on. So really the 0:18:42.436 --> 0:18:44.276 answer to the what problem are you going to be 0:18:44.276 --> 0:18:46.476 working on in ten years question is like you don't 0:18:46.516 --> 0:18:48.836 even know the problem yet, And that's sort of the point, Like, 0:18:48.876 --> 0:18:52.676 on some level your job is to add and discover problems, 0:18:52.676 --> 0:18:59.676 both problems and imaginable solutions. Number of Fan is founder 0:18:59.716 --> 0:19:03.156 and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and co founder of Maderna. 0:19:04.796 --> 0:19:08.196 Today's show was produced by Edith Russelo, edited by Robert Smith, 0:19:08.516 --> 0:19:12.796 and engine neared by Amanda ka Wong. I'm Jacob Goldstein. 0:19:12.916 --> 0:19:15.276 We'll be back next week with another episode of What's 0:19:15.276 --> 0:19:20.356 Your Problem