WEBVTT - Stéphane Bancel: “The upside was changing humanity forever.” 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:06.120 You're listening to Math and Magic, a production at iHeartRadio. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.840 If you are in a situation where you have you know, 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.560 once in a century pandemic and the economy is locked down. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.479 Peoples are dying by the thousands, even though the tens 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.639 of thousands around the world kids cannot go to school anymore. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.160 He becomes a human decision to decide to throw by 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.239 the window your business strategy and to do what you 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.400 think is the right thing for the world, even though 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.760 if you're wrong, you might actually kill the company. 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.560 I am Bob Pittman. Welcome to this episode of Math 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.600 and Magic. Our guest today has literally changed the world, 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.839 proving that the impossible can be done, and he's a 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.560 model of the CEO as someone in service to society. 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.000 Is Stefan Thenselve, CEO of Majoernal. He grew up in 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.920 France and always knew what he wanted to be a CEO, 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.200 loved science and business, still does and is equally skilled 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.200 in both. Greatly influenced by the Jesuits and bring that 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.120 sense of service to business and his mission. Although it 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.399 was almost a decade after its founding, Maderna popped on 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.679 the scene as a savior during the pandemic, doing what 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.280 the experts thought to be impossible, getting a vaccine developed 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.520 and available within a year. And by the way, infectious 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.959 disease vaccines weren't even on his original company plans. He 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.520 loves to ski, boat and eat. Well. He's French after all, 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.920 and he is a fascinating and nice guy. Stefan welcome. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.000 Well, thank you so much for having me. I thank 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.080 you for this very kind description. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.920 Oh we have more to come, but before we jump 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:38.000 into that, I want to do you in sixty seconds. Ready, 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.840 good cats are dogs dogs early riser or night out, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.800 very earlier Riser Paris or Boston, Paris for fund bust. 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.680 Some of our work skiing or sailing. That's a tough one. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.440 Skiing and winter sitting in the summer coffee or tea tea. 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.280 Strange guy and never drinks coffee, sleep or exercise, boof 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.320 cook or eat out, eat outs, call or text, text 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:04.880 podcast or video podcast. 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.480 Oh that's the right answer. Okay, it's about to get harder. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:13.079 All time favorite musical artist Teto Swift, first job picking asparagus. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.880 Smartest person you know, Stephen Hoogan, the President of Madonna. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:23.359 Childhood hero Steve Jobs. Favorite movie the gombre, the most 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.240 important piece of advice you've ever had. 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.280 Listen to everybody, and finally, do you have a secret 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:31.040 talent connecting the dots? 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.799 Okay, let's get started. Probably one of the most disruptive 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.960 events in the world in the last hundred years was 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.560 the pandemic, and in a strange way, it was the 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.960 coming out party for Maderna, and from it comes one 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.280 of the business world's most impressive case studies. You were 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.000 employee number two in the first CEO of Maderna in 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.440 twenty eleven. It was a startup built around the promise 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.880 of Messenger RNA mRNA that it would change medicine. I've 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.960 seen you quoted as saying it had only a ten 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.040 percent chance of working, but if it did, the world 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.960 would change, and by during it would be something new 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.400 in biotech. You'd be a platform, much like the operating 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.160 system and the traditional tech world, a platform with RNA 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.760 as your operating system and broad applications writing on it. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.000 You took a pay cut, left a major CEO job 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.720 just for the promise of Messenger RNA. You were making 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.359 progress building a new company and suddenly COVID nineteen appears. 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.080 Can you take us through what you did and how 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:33.560 it changed all your plans. 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.320 Sure, I spent all my career working in fictious disease, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:42.400 and so I always have an eye to new virus emerging, 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.520 new bacteria emerging. And so between Christmas and New Year 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.200 twenty nineteen, as I was reading the World Street Journal, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:56.400 I heard about new cases of pneumonia like symptoms to 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.000 people in China, and so I'll reached out to be 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.120 an IH, asking he this new thing in China, what 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.920 is it. After a few days, we realized it was 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.600 a virus. It was not through and it was not 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.960 a coronavirus like SARS or MERS. There was a new 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.800 one and so when they got the sequence online around 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.920 mid January, we decided to go and make a vaccine 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.480 to test it in a clinic. And initially we thought 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.400 this was just an outbreak, but we still wanted to 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.520 go to the clinic because I wanted to know how 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.480 fast could we go if when they got forbid there 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.279 was going to be a pandemic. And I thought we 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.680 could get into a clinic in sixty days from the 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:42.800 day the sequence is available of a virus genome. Today 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.360 we could inject the first human which was a huge 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:51.400 change versus what happened during SARS. It took the NIH 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.680 twenty months to get from sequence to first human doors, 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:58.880 and so that's why I wanted to do it. And then, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.800 of course though January of twenty twenty, as the cases accumulated, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:05.680 and I woke up one day at four o'clock in 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.440 the morning in sweats saying, GESEZ is going to be 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.840 a pandemic like nineteen eighteen. And so when he was 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.720 a few weeks convincing my board, covincing my team that 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.200 we had to pivot the company and really put our 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.240 best started toward trying to work on this vaccine for 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.360 what I thought was going to be a pandemic. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.240 So I understand though that one of the problems is 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.400 no one would finance the vaccine. That the only way 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.919 it got done was the US government stepped then and 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:38.000 actually financed this. 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.000 You're correct, Moderana. I had never saw the product, We 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.840 had never commercialized the product, and so we had two 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:51.280 financial challenges as we pivoted to running after this virus. 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.839 One was how do you set up quickly very large 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.640 It ended up being thirty thousand people tested in the 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.719 face free clinical trial and this was, as you said, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:09.160 funded by the US government, which backed up five companies, 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.320 which I think was one of the most brilliant strategy 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.080 I've seen in terms of getting things done for the 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.599 country and the world. But the other piece that the 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.760 government did not back up, that we still had to 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.960 do at incredible risk was to scale manufacturing. Because, as 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:32.280 you can understand, if we only finance the clinical study 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.800 and the vaccine works and we have no vaccine to 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.240 provide people, that would be a human tragedy. And so 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.160 we had to scale up manufacturing, not for ten million dozes, 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.440 but for a billion doze, And so we couldn't find 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.560 any foundation to help us. And so what we ended 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:55.039 up doing in May of twenty twenty is raised equity 0:06:55.600 --> 0:07:00.640 on NASDAK as soon as we published positive phase and data, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.120 and we raised one point three billion dollar and one 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.159 hundred percent of that capital was dedicated to scale up manufacturing. 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.400 I mean, it sounds pretty tough. How hard was it 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.600 to pivot from not only were you going to do 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.920 this product, but you had really been set up and 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.480 built to be a platform and suddenly you're going into 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:18.640 the product business. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.320 Yes, if you go back and even you read the 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.520 public filing. When we went public in December twenty eighteen, 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.760 the S one we described a company that, as you said, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.840 is a platform company to manage a money technology risk 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.280 and to manage barrows your risk, which is disease risk 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.880 which exists in the industry. We actually build a portfolio 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.960 of drugs. We had I think sixteen drug by the 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.239 time we went to public, and that portfolio of drugs 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.800 was to allow us to manage the unknown about where 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:53.840 was the money going to work or was it not 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.080 going to work? What this is was going to work for? 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:58.920 What is it was not going to work for? At 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:04.640 the time, no product ever approved using amount technology. And so, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.000 as you can imagine, in January twenty twenty, when we 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:13.560 decide to pause or to slow down this portfolio approach 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.920 of those sixteen drugs, to literally bet the company on 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:23.520 one drug, that was a very complicated and heavy business decision. 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.920 We believed we had the technology that could work for vaccines. 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.760 We had done nine vaccine in human trials before the 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.400 pandemic hit. We had done quite a lot of work 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:38.240 on CHRONA viruses, cears, and mers. So we believed our 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.520 vaccine was going to work. And if you are in 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.360 a situation where you have in a once in a 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:47.120 century pandemic and the economy is locked down. Peoples are 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.520 dying by the thousands, if not the tens of thousands 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.720 around the world. Kids cannot go to school anymore. It 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.880 becomes a human decision to decide to throw by the 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.439 window your business strategy and to do what you think 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.000 is the right thing for the world, even though if 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.560 you're wrong, you might actually kill the company. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.120 So speaking of killing the company and just then reading 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:13.040 about that time, there were a lot of seasoned veterans 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.040 who were saying you were irresponsible to even claim you 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.520 could deliver a vaccine inside a year, which must have 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.200 put another level of pressure on you to realize that 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.640 you were pivoting the company. Yeah, there was hardly universal 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.560 views from outside that this was the right move. 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:32.480 That's correct. 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.400 I mean, if you had told me even in the 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:39.040 spring of twenty twenty that large companies like Sanofi was 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:42.559 going to have massive technical setback, that the products from 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.880 Astraseneka and Johnson and Johnson, while they were going to 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.960 get approved, they would end up having some safety concerns that. 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.800 Will led them to not being really used. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.800 And this was going to be Moderna and Pfizer left 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.400 to really help fight this horrible pandem. I will hearely 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:03.960 not have believed you. And as you said, a lot 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.040 of people from those large companies, we're saying on TV 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.360 that I was irresponsible to even give a hope that 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:12.959 we could have vaccined by the end of the year. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:14.240 That was actually a very hard time. 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.000 So let's talk about personal dimension for you as CEO 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.200 of the company, as a human being, the way that 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.040 the world was suddenly on your shoulders. How did you 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:24.839 cope with that stress? What did it do to you? 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.400 So it's interesting my wife would tell you this is 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:33.360 actually the type of moment when it's really hard but 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.719 also very clear of what has to be done, that 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.000 I'm at my best and I don't know why. I'm 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.320 able to abstract the outside noise and just to focus 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.440 on the work to be done. It was not the 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.400 time to think about do we go right or do 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:50.200 we go left. There's an enemy, it's the virus. Every day, 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.840 every hour matters because people are dying, and so it 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:56.840 just allowed me to be laser focused on the job 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.600 a task. The biggest challenge I think was more a 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.160 mental and physical challenge because we were working seven days 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.199 a week, which I'd never done before. I worked hard before, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.199 but we were working full day Saturday's, full day Sundays 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.280 for a year, and so I remember starting to be 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.960 pretty exhausted, you know, by end of February, early in March, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.880 and having a discussion with Steven, who is my partner 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.880 at the president of the company, and I'm like, hey, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.960 how do we sustain this? Because he's a doctor, I'm not. 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:27.880 And it's like, you know, make sure you go to 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.800 bed at a reasonable time, do spot every day, eat healthy. 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.560 He knows I like wine, don't drink any wine. So 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.400 it was really about this discipline. And I remember because 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.760 at the time, you know, we were working from home, 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.240 you know, in the spring of twenty and twenty and 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.200 I remember dropping, you know, so tired in my bed 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:46.560 at night, getting up early in the morning, going for 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.240 a run too fresh up my mind and get some 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.200 oxygen and then go back into it. And this was 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.800 this thing where sometimes the teams were even joking, you know, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.880 get on a zoom call at seven am and somebody 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.400 would make the but became the more like shock what 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:01.240 they is it today? 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:01.920 Because we had no. 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:07.000 Idea, but it was an amazing time because the teams 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:13.120 internally went so beyond what is expected of them because 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.040 for everybody was very personal and everybody had family members dying. 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.400 Everybody was worry about their parents or all the family members, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.040 the kids not going to school. So it was a 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:29.360 really incredible teamwork across not only the company, but companies 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.480 are being us and the government. That really makes me 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.240 really proud about what was achieved by this very large team. 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.880 Well, you know what is so impressive to me. You 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.040 know we talked on this show about leadership and management, 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.360 is that you were able to get your company to 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.800 rally around the course, you were able to sync that 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:54.240 up with the government that regulates you, in this case, 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.720 funding you as well. Did you do something special in 0:12:57.760 --> 0:12:59.839 your leadership? Did you just think this is how I'm 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.520 going to get everybody rally around it. Was there some 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.319 special sauce you used there? 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.680 So a few think I think being very clear on 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.720 the goals because if you think about it and you 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.880 oversimplify it. I became a project manager for this very 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.040 big project which was getting a vaccin out, So being 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.160 very clear on what are the objectives, what a goal, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.720 what other priorities? Communicating with people in real time. So 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.000 we spend a lot of time making sure that our 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.640 counterparties in the governments knew what we were doing, that 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.480 they were aligning what we were doing, communicating a lot 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.800 to industrial partners, suppliers making raw materials and so on, 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.760 because for everybody it was a kind of crazy experimental 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.760 experience in a sense. I mean, just imagine the face 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.520 of my supplier or CEO when I call them and 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.000 I say, hey, I need ten thousand times more product 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.360 than last year. Had an interesting conversay exactly, And so 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.280 I think it was a lot of communication and also 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:03.560 adapting the plan of pivoting on data, pivoting on challenges, 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.119 asking for help, being very transparent, and making sure everybody 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:13.720 in the ecosystem around all vaccine was always aware what 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.800 was going well, what was not going well, what did 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:17.679 we need help. I was never shy to ask for 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.040 help because the only objective was to get a safe, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.080 effective vaccine out of the door. 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:24.680 There was no overgold. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.840 So I want to come back to moderna and some 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.800 of the lessons you've learned there, But first I want 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.360 to go back in time with you. You were born in 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.280 Marseille in France in the early seventies. You were a 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.160 child of the seventies and eighties. Can you paint a 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.440 picture of how you grew up and paint a picture 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:43.359 of those times. 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.240 So I was very lucky in many ways. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.160 I was born in Sappo, France, which for all of 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.440 you that have not been, is a beautiful part of 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.440 the world with a lot of history in a Marseille 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.320 was a Greek part as it's a very very old city. 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.000 It's a very multicultural cities. 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.440 You have people from all over the Mediterranean, people from 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.440 North Africa, from a Middle East, which is super cool 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.040 to grow up with friends from everywhere. I was, you know, 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.600 in a middle class family, but because you know in France, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.280 school is split by the state through taxes, I had 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.640 access to good school. The quality of life was nice 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.200 because you'll go sailing. You always find a friend who 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.440 had access to a boat somewhere, even if it's a 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:26.040 small boat. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.080 You'll be able to go skiing. Even with school. A 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:30.040 great quality of life. 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:31.800 I was raised by the Jesuit, as you said in 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.760 your intro, which I only realized much later in life, 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.360 was a blessing because this sense of serving was just 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.280 put into my head and my heart since I was 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.920 a kid, and I didn't even feel it because he 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:46.560 was normal. You know, when you're a kid, you don't 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.760 think about things too much. You go with a movement, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.000 you know, when you are in the school I was 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.040 at and on a Wednesday afternoon when you don't have class, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.560 instead of going to do spot over things, you know, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.720 let's tell you go you know, build a shelter of 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.920 your less or let's go help somebody. You just say 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.440 yes because everybody else is doing it with you. Hi, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.480 the supernice childhood. It was non eventful, but I think 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:15.680 that quietness in my life helped build strength and foundations 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.000 for half the times. 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.600 In addition to the jazzu, which it looks like. Another 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.960 great influence on you was an otel you had who 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.960 was a successful business person in tech companies in the US. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:27.480 Was that influence? 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.440 Yes, So I've been super lucky. My mom's brother moved 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.880 to the US, was in the tech world b to be. 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:37.320 But it was interesting because I would meet him like 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.600 once a year in the summer, and I had somebody 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.200 to talk about business and technology and yet a lot 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:45.440 of influence on my life. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:46.720 I'll be asking him questions. 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.040 You're like a kid asking a mental questions, and you 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.120 will be like, should I learn German or Spanish in school? 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.480 Because he was composor in France to the third language, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.920 And you will answer me in this very brilliant style, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.760 this is a wrong in your generation. You should learn 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:06.720 to speak Chinese or Japanese. Then that's altitude long Japanese. 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.159 And that allowed me to end up working in Japan 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:10.879 and as a twenty four year old, which was of 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.840 course an amazing experience. But I think having access to 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.399 somebody that was from a business world to allow me 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.679 to pick direction and to see her around the corner 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.680 and to do the right things when I had time 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.040 when I was younger, I think it was a big gift. 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.080 More on math and magic right after this quick break. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.679 Welcome back to math and magic. Let's hear more from 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.760 my conversation with Sefon gun Sell. You were great at 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.600 math and science. You had an early interesting computers. Clearly 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.840 you were on a track to do something in technology. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.359 But talk a little bit about your education and why 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.480 you value a liberal arts education. 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.920 As you asked me my secret power, of my secret gifts, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:17:59.879 I think you might be connecting. 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.120 I think that things are connected. 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.640 History plays a great role, as you know, for us 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.639 to understand today's world. But so where the world might 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.960 be going. Psychology plays a huge role in leading teams. 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.439 You know, of course science and biology. I like to 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.399 learn from different fields and had to basically build a 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.840 metal model or how the world works, and those different 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:28.920 experiences and those different educations I think make the metal 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:33.240 model that somebody can have more precise about the world. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.040 You've later got a master's and engineering in Paris and 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.439 another in Minnesota. What brought you to America for your 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:41.480 second masters? 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.760 So I always wanted to find a way to learn 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.119 in America, and I was lucky because the school I 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.840 was at in Paris gave you the opportunity to do 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.400 your last year outside France. But it was a very 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.600 simple system, which is you can apply anywhere you want 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.800 as long as it's one of the top three program 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.320 in the discipline what you apply. And so Minnesota has 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.679 an amazing chemical engineering program in grad school, which was 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.600 great for me to discover America through being in Minneapolis. 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:13.560 Had to be a lot of fun. In January that 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.400 was called and here's what's interesting about your story? Thought, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:23.239 We've got this whole history of engineering, math, science and 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.240 then your first tech company job was in sales and marketing. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:27.200 Why. 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.639 I think it's the contrariance in me. I wanted to 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.400 keep learning. As I think you mentioned the new introw Bob, 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.680 I always wanted to be CEO. I don't have a 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.720 big ego, so I would have been happy car Wis 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.280 being a se of a ten people company. I just 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.840 wanted to be in the general management role of connecting 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.159 the dots and so being tan as an engineer, I 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.400 thought it made sense for me to don't know about business, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.640 and because sales you are close to the customers. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:56.760 I thought you was good. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:58.680 I did to do and that's what I did and 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.520 have a counterexamp. Part of me being a contrariant is 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.719 after I left the business school instead of going to 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.760 a small company, because I graduated in spring of two thousand, 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.000 when of course we had that Pickle dot Com. Instead 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.399 of going to tech, I ended up going into a 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.520 large farmer company called Ili Lily, and I asked them 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.639 to go work in manufacturing over places, which even the 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.720 Lily recruiting team thought was a weird idea for our business. 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.200 Could grad you went through that, you got your MBA 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.480 harder NBA. By the way, did worked with Ili Lily 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.400 and somehow you wound up as a very young CEO 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.320 a Beyo Mario, which was a major company at the time. 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.600 Tell me a little bit about how this young, brand 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.320 new CEO figured out how to do it. 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:48.760 It was interesting because when I got the role, as 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:50.800 you said, I I was young. I think I was 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.320 just thirty three, and so I was a bit panicked, 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:57.240 and so I obsessed about getting the best team I 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.880 could around me. So I literally the job and spend 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.879 the first two months on an airplane going around the 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.000 world to meet all as many people as I could, 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.520 asking everybody the same question if you're a CEO, the 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.040 three things you will change, and so I got very 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.040 constant feedback. I think it's another big lest soon for me, 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.879 which is ask people. Most humans beings will tell you 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.119 what they think. And I got very constant feedback. But 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.720 the strength of a company, the issues. I got a 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:27.439 good sense of who I wanted to keep on the 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.720 executive team, who I should not keep on exective team, 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.960 And so I always obsessed about getting the right team 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.959 around me because I had no chance to be successful 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.800 in that neural As a first time you're on CEO, 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.639 if I have already a great team around me, and 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.399 so that's what I focused. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.239 On, you know, and sort of reading about you and 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.639 studying you a little bit. In addition to listening hard, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.480