[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of the few and far between podcast. I'm your host, Chris O'Brien. In his book Range, journalist David Epstein speaks to the triumph of generalists in a specialized world where learning how to learn has become vital to success. As a committed generalist myself, I love this. Todays guest embodies that philosophy, leveraging the creativity, deep knowledge, and entrepreneurial spirit necessary for innovation in the drug development industry. Isaac Stoner, a self described generalist, is the CEO and co founder of Octagon Therapeutics, a preclinical stage biotech company focused on immunology and inflammation, specifically what causes otherwise normal healthy immune cell populations to begin to attack normal healthy tissue. On todays episode, Isaac and I zoom in on the key checkpoints in autoimmune disease onset and flare, as well as the role of the CEO and founder and how running lean can be an effective funding strategy. It was great to have Isaac on the pod, and I hope you're able to take some of his advice to heart, especially if you're thinking about moving forward with your own biotech startup. Okay, let's start the podcast.
Okay, Isaac Stoner, welcome to few and far between. I've been really looking forward to this conversation.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Glad to be here.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: So let's start off a little bit with your story. Share about how you sort of ended up first in biomedical engineering and then how that led you to entrepreneurship.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Sure. So, you know, growing up, I was always that nerdy kid who was drawn to science and math. I'd say I considered biology not to be a true science. I was much more drawn towards physics and engineering and universal truths, whereas biology. I always thought there's too much memorizing and that's not for me. Ended up in undergrad on an engineering track and became kind of fascinated by the biology side, particularly because of it messiness, right? And I think a lot of my thinking had to do with can we engineer a little bit of order into this chaos, right? Can we actually start to understand? Can we turn biology into universal truths? Or is it just a series of ugly kludges? I still not sure on that point. It might be a series of ugly kluges, but that's how I ended up in biomedical engineering. I graduated from Brown University, Rah Rah Bernoulli without any job prospects and was trying to find my way in the world and ended up running into a guy who was starting a company. Wasn't his first company, he was kind of a serial entrepreneur. Kevin Allmer, starting a company called Genome Corp. And this was in 2007 when the human genome was all the rage. The whole idea was we could get to a $1000 genome within the next several years, and then everyone would have their genome sequenced, and then we would understand everything about biology.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Precision medicine was right around the corner getting to that.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: You know, as soon as we have everyone's genome, then we will understand all biology. It'll turn into an engineering discipline instead of a messy problem. So that is where I ended up. Is joined as employee number one at a brand new startup in 2007.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Okay, let's talk about that for a second, though.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: So there you are with a freshly minted fancy degree, and you decide to go become employee number one. Did your friends and parents think you were crazy or was, were people saying, oh, no, this biotech startup thing is going to be great?
[00:03:26] Speaker B: So I think my friends, many of them thought I was crazy. Some of them were in this same sort of had the same sort of entrepreneurial itch. My parents did not think I was crazy. My dad was an entrepreneur. My mom was actually a molecular biologist. And so, ah, interesting. They knew, you know, they got a startup game buying lottery tickets. Go learn something. Figure out how to build a company, figure out how to build a product. So they didn't think it was crazy, but I think more of my friends who came out of brown and ended up in consulting or finance or that sort of thing maybe thought I was.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: We can move off of your start in just a second. But were there things about Brown, as opposed to maybe having done, let's say, a straight engineering degree or something like that, that you think contributed to the way you approach your professional life these days?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: I think so. So one of the things that's probably not lesser known about Brown is they don't have a core curriculum. Yeah, you can take whatever you want as long as you get, you know, you pick your degree and get your degree credits done. You can take water polo or basket weaving for all the rest of your courses. And I've always been a generalist, really drawn to different disciplines, different fields. You know, I took all sorts of literature courses. I took rastafarianism. I took, you know, old time string band, playing fiddle music at Brown. And the ability to dabble or the ability to explore broadly was something that drew me there. And I think I've continued in my professional career. I continue to be a generalist. Unfortunately, I wish I wasn't.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that for a second. I read recently somebody saying that he believes that we are entering the age of the generalist or re entering the age of the generalist. And I think his thinking was that as AI tools get better, someone who's got an ability to research, think, and analyze may need less specialized skill, or at least there's a synthesis role that's really important. Do you buy that, or do you pine for that very pointy person who's really, really off the charts on one thing, but not so good at much else?
[00:05:20] Speaker B: So I hope it's true, because I am a specialist.
I read the book because David Epstein wrote range. Excellent book about kind of how we are moving into this genitalist world. We are in a specialist world, so we'll see if that change actually occurs. And I do remember, so my second startup where I joined again as employee number ten or something like that. I remember the founder when I kind of been self describing myself as a journalist, saying, oh, I love journalists, I just don't hire them. Right? And that line has stuck with me. He did hire me, but I must have pretended to be a specialist to a certain degree there. So I don't know if it's. I hope we're moving into the age of the generalist, where knowing how to learn. Learning how to learn is more important than specialized knowledge. I don't think we're there yet.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel this, and I think especially for younger people, having a specific skill to point to, as opposed to being. I'm generally useful in a quick study, I think is an easier sell in a lot of cases. All right, let's move on to octagon. So, can you tell us a little bit about the science behind octagon? What were the initial insights? And. Well, first of all, tell us what octagon does.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Octagon therapeutics is a preclinical stage biotech company focused on immunology and inflammation. Specifically, what causes otherwise normal healthy immune cell populations to go bad, to begin to cause damage, to begin to attack normal healthy tissue. This is one of the many places where the human genome has failed us, right. If we look at the immune cells that contribute to autoimmune disease at the genetic level, they're virtually indistinguishable from normal healthy immune cells. Our key insight has been immune cells have these specialized checkpoint receptors on their surfaces that really distinguish between self and non self. One of the ways they do that is by looking at glycans, glycosylation patterns. So these are little sugar moieties, little carbohydrate moieties that decorate all of your cells in protein so human glycans look very different from bacterial glycans, look very different from viral glycans. Even cancer glycans look very different. What we have shown at octagon is those key checkpoints that say this is a self cell and this is a non self cell become disrupted in specific ways during autoimmune disease onset and flare. We have a couple of examples of this exciting biology. Now, we have found that by directing a monoclonal antibody to the right region of these receptors, we can restore their normal functioning. We can restore that normal self non self discrimination and thus reset the immune system in some of these really devastating autoimmune conditions.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: That's incredibly exciting. So where are you in the process now?
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Right. So our lead program, which is focused on autoreactive B cells, B cells produce antibodies. Right? Now, we have shown in animal models that we have a lead drug that looks very promising. We've also taken that same b cell targeting agent and put it against human clinical samples. So blood samples directly from patients with a range of different autoimmune conditions, and shown, again, we can restore that normal functioning of these b cells at normal regulatory layer based on these checkpoint receptors. So, you know, now we have our monoclonal. This is where things get really exciting and really expensive. So we're forging ahead now with getting ready to take on the INd enabling work and then going into patients, going into the clinic to show this is really a valuable drug for these patients with chronic autoimmune disease.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: When do you anticipate a phase one? Is it too early to say?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: It's always. If you ask any preclinical stage biotech company, they'll tell you 18 months. That's the standard answer. And so we'll tell you, just over 18 months, we're going to be dosing our first patient.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Very, very cool. When you think about the potential of the kind of core science here, if you imagine that everything kind of breaks octagon's way, what is the potential of the technology you guys are building? How broad do you think it could be?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Right? So what we can say is, for our b cell program, we know that b cells, again, these are cells that produce autoantibodies. We know these are drivers in maybe a dozen different high value autoimmune diseases, things like lupus, multiple sclerosis, pemphigus, pemphagoid, myasthenia. We've shown this same pathway that we're targeting, the same way that we're modulating this b cell activation. This disease biology is present across all of these different auto antibodies associated diseases. So this, for us, could be a pipeline in a pill. The key differentiator for us as well is by restoring that normal regulatory layer, we are not compromising the immune system, we're not inhibiting normal protective immunity the way that your immune cells respond to a pathogen. So it should be an ideal maintenance therapy for these patients across maybe a dozen or 15 different high value autoimmune conditions. It's a huge, huge market opportunity and really a different way of thinking about treating these diseases.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah, and I guess instead of suppression, the return of function, normal function is. How novel is that? I mean, it feels like a completely different way of thinking about the problem.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: You know, if we look at a lot of the drugs that are used today in autoimmune disease, these are repurposed out of transplant medicine, or they're repurposed out of oncology, and they just ablate, deplete, inhibit new, normal, healthy immune compartments. So the way we are thinking about the problem differently is, no, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Right. Do is restore homeostasis in cell populations, reset how they're responding to an antigen in order to restore that normal maintenance of chronic immune health.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: That's incredibly exciting. Did you have that insight when you founded the company, or is that something you evolved into?
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Typically, I try and not talk about our humble beginnings, but no, you know.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Let me interrupt you. It's wonderful to share kind of what the origin stories really are, because I think, sadly, many of the stories that get told are you. And then I went from success to success, and look at me now. And any of us who've spent time around the startup world, particularly the biotech startup world, know that that's not usually what it looks like. There are plenty of pitfalls and challenges.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: So, no, I completely agree.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Your candor's. Appreciate it.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: You know, I'll lay it all out there, but I'll say related to that, I picked up an MBA along the way. And the case methodology, which is taught in all these MBA programs, is focused on those winners, right? Things where people bought lottery tickets and the lottery tickets panned out and, you know, look at the hero's journey and how smart we were. The interesting cases, which are not taught enough, were always around failure. We got this wrong and we had to do this. And so, you know, I think it's a weakness of the whole case methodology, but it's not neither here nor there. So we started octagon when I met these two gentlemen out of Harvard who had some novel insights into multidrug resistant bacteria, specifically, some key metabolic weaknesses in multidrug resistant bacteria. They had a compound, so a small molecule that looked really interesting, novel mechanism of action, where they believed we had a first in class antibiotic for some of these horrible infections. Now, for those of you who know the antimicrobial space, really, really hard. Price points are low. If you have something novel and good, it's not going to be used. So we ended up completely abandoning that program and focusing on a skunk works project that had started in the back rooms of our labs that was completely unrelated to the direction in which we had founded the company. And so that has led us to where we were today. Just one guy working at midnight on something that he thought that was interesting.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: That's fantastic.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: There were some related insights. Yeah. So the core academic founding of the company really has nothing to do with where we are today.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So tell us about the pivot, because there are other success stories like this, where one of the most famous ones is Slack, that started out as a video game company, and they made this internal messaging system for communication, and they realized that nobody was interested in the video game. But, boy, this messaging thing that we built for ourselves is pretty cool. It requires a certain amount of, I don't know, flexibility, I guess, in a leader to be able to recognize the path we're on isn't working. What was that like for you?
[00:13:14] Speaker B: In short, incredibly painful.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: That's usually what my learning looks like. Isaac?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah. So, no, very hard. Right. So you have a lot of momentum in this direction, and now you need to completely do an about facing head in this direction, see which of the team members are willing to come with you, see what skill sets you need to add. Are your investors willing to believe, and double down in this new direction? So that was hard. That was very hard. Pivot. I will say we were able to make the case very clearly, both internally and externally, that, yes, this started out interesting. Yes. We're working on something that had value. The big opportunity is here. Right. And so that resonated both with our team as well as with the investor base we built to that point. And it worked out.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: It was.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: It was. I don't want to say a gamble. It became very obvious that we needed to make this change, but taking the momentum headed in one direction and completely redirecting it in a new direction is hard.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we've all seen plenty of examples of companies that have, even when they're at a point where it doesn't seem like there's much promise in the core thesis. They ride that horse all the way to the ground.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like one of these supertankers, right? They're coming into the harbor, and they're, like, to change the direction of a supertanker. It takes, like, 30 miles for them to, like, turn this direction to that direction, and that's sort of what it feels like, even for a small company. You have all this. This kind of institutional knowledge built up in one direction and then completely set it aside and look someplace else.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Will you zoom in for a second on the actual decision process? There's a point where you realize the core thesis is not working. We have this maybe interesting alternative. How do you start talking to your investors, your board, your key collaborators about the pivot?
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So we drew a line in the sand. We pretty much had decided, yes, what we're working on in the antimicrobial space is valuable, but nobody's going to fund this. It is kind of uninvestable. We were in a final round for a large grant, like a $15 million carb x award, this nonprofit that funds the exact sort of research we were doing. And so we made the final five, and I think three were going to get the award. We decided, okay, we get this money. If we win this award, we'll keep this effort going. If not, we're going here.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Right. This skunk works project that started in the back room. And so we ended up being in the two of the five that didn't get the award. And so the decision was made quite clearly. But we'd kind of figured that out even prior to, you know, the go no go on that grant submission or Grant. Grant decision, I guess.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Lucky. Lucky you, that you didn't win that grant.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: In some ways, I, you know, I would be better looking and have more hair if it had gone our way. But, no, it was definitely the right move to get off that.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: Yeah. It still was going to be, I assume, pretty tricky. Like, you could have done the grant research, maybe it proves out. That's great. But then what, you know, is it fundable, investable at that point?
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And what I'd say as well is, you know, I see this a lot with companies that are almost strictly grant funded. Right. If you can't fund it with venture dollars, but you can fund it with grant awards. Those grant awards exist for a reason. They're there to pick up the things that are not investable because the market opportunities for some reason, not compelling. So you see a lot of these zombie companies that are in the land of the living dead where they can't raise risk capital, but they can keep it going on Sbirs forever. That's a bad sign. That means you're not headed in the right direction. It becomes an addiction leading you in the wrong direction.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Right. I guess the thesis there, the idea is a good one, which is that sometimes there are market failures, there are things that should be funded that. That aren't going to generate a sufficient return but could have value for humanity. But in practice, not so many of those, I guess more. More zombie companies than anything else.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Exactly right. I think the place where it works is, can you find some of these grand opportunities that are in line with, with the value creation path that are actually going to support something that is not just valuable to society, but also something you can build a business on?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Hi, this is Chris O'Brien, host of few and far between. We'll be right back with this episode in a moment. I personally want to thank you for listening to our podcast. Now in our fourth season, it continues to be an amazing opportunity to speak with some of the top thought leaders in the clinical trials industry. If you're enjoying this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps people discover the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe to few and far between so that you never miss an episode. One last request. Know someone with a great story. You'd like to hear me interview? Reach out to us at few and far between. Iorossi.com thank you. And now back to the podcast.
Isaac, tell us a little bit about what your job is like day to day and what is hard about the role. I was saying to somebody recently, being a CEO versus other important roles in organizations is just a really different job because there are fewer milestones or fewer obvious paths that you must go down, and lots of things one could waste one's time on. I know that's something that I, that I think a lot about is, am I using my time efficiently or not? What is it like in your chair at this stage in the game?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: First would be, if you're a founder and you are putting yourself in the CEO role and you don't have a board that's really good, who's putting you in that CEO role? You're probably making a mistake. And I so I tell all sorts of founders this. When we started the company, I was not in the CEO role. I intentionally put myself in the COO role. Reason being I was hoping that we could attract a veteran, experienced, multi time winner, CEO to put in that role. As the years ticked by, we didn't find that person, and so eventually I, you know, gave myself a promotion. The role of a CEO, as I see it, is twofold. One is driving kind of relentless focus and prioritization, and two is making sure that your team has what they need, really kind of a support role. So those are the two things that I try and spend most of my day on, is, you know, checking in with the team. Do we have what we need? Do we need more financing, more talent, more CROs, more XYz, more lab space? Two, what are we working on? Are we working on the right things? If we have ten things we're working on, can we cross off six of those things? And that goes for my time as well as for the organization's time. One thing I'm trying to get better at in this role is, can I leverage my time more efficiently? Right. Can I cross off some of those things that I'm spending time on that are not value add or that are not aligned on that critical path? So I'm getting a little better than that. I still do find myself wasting way too much time on administrative junk that's not value added.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a challenge for. I think for everyone. I've never met anybody who says I've mastered time allocation, and every day is a new paragon of efficiency. And if they did, I think I'd be a little skeptical about that.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: What's the hardest part of it these days?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: You know, we're living in a liquidity limited time in biotech world. This means I'm always thinking about the next round. Even after we've just closed some new financing, I'm thinking about the next one. It also means that we're having to run very efficiently, run very lean, keep our head counts small, you know, account for every dollar, and make sure every dollar we spend is, again, along that critical path. Right. The only thing we really spend money on is advancing the lead program. We have a platform in the background. We have a second program in the background that's almost completely unfunded or underfunded at this point. We're focused on getting our lead drug to that key value.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And I think, of course, this is a tricky time. I think what we'll find. My crystal ball says in five years, we're going to look back at companies that were funded, you know, over the last 18 months, and in the next 18 months and there are going to be a lot of real stars that emerge there because the pendulum has clearly shifted a little too far in the conservative direction. So if you're an investor out there, hope you're listening.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: I could go on a real tangent about the VC model and how it's not actually funding innovation anymore.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Oh, sure. So, I mean, if you look at the dollars being employed right now, it's actually at a pretty healthy level. It's about where it was pre pandemic, but the number of companies being funded is a small fraction of where it used to be. Right. There are a lot of really innovative things that are just not attracting any financing whatsoever. Instead, we see consolidation. We see investors holding hands and jumping into the same handful of opportunities and over capitalizing those handful of opportunities in the hopes that they can. Even if the returns on those individual things are lower, they have a higher likelihood of success, which runs very counter to how venture has run it used to be. Let's build a big portfolio of innovative things. We'll have 100 x company and that'll make up for all the rest. I think it's leaving a lot of really interesting science, really interesting innovation on the sidelines. Just never making it past day zero. Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: It also can't ultimately be good for returns because if you're piling in and over capitalizing businesses or only entering in later rounds, you won't get the 100 x or you're unlikely to get the 100 x a return. I think.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. Many of these platform companies have been attracting huge amounts of capital as well. You're going to live or die based on your lead asset, even if you're one of those high flying platform companies. Now, if you've raised all this money, what does a win look like? Right. Is the IPo going to give us?
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Right. If the lead asset fails and you still have sitting on a lot of cash, what's the answer? It's generally not return capital to investors as far as I've seen.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: No. In fact, you see examples of it, especially with like the flagship companies where, you know, one thing doesn't pan out and so they jam it together with another portfolio company and create a new company with a new name to avoid writing off the ones that don't work out. And so I think that's a tricky habit.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: So related a minute ago you talked about trying to spend money really efficiently, and you've talked in the past about an asset centric model for biotech. Can you tell us what that means and kind of how you put that into practice?
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like I already mentioned, we have our lead drug, which is b cell targeting. We have a second program, which is a cd eight t cell program. Again, the same class of autoimmune checkpoints. We're not funding that right now, or we're putting a de minimis amount of funding towards that. We also have a discovery platform where we could make additional novel biological discoveries around this type of disease biology. We're not funding that, except with non dilutive or minimally dilutive money. So if we think about any dollar we're spending that's not on the lead asset, that's got to be coming from things like grants, things like partners. We have a partnership in place with Nova Nordisk right now, which has been fantastic. Internally, we're focused on our one lead asset and trying to fund that to the next milestone. So it's candidate nomination, ind submission and then clinical proof of concept. These are the three big milestones we're focused on getting to. And so there are investors who like to fund each chunk of that work. So when I say asset centric, we're not building a big gold plated drug discovery platform that can result in 50 new medicines. We're funding one. Right. And that's enough, and that's expensive enough, it's capital intensive enough just to fund that one and get it through to that clinical proof of concept milestone. I think we're seeing more and more companies doing this sort of thing now.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I was just going to say, when you talk to your peers, are you hearing an investors, are you hearing more enthusiasm about a single asset play versus it was platform, platform, platform for a while there.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: It's really interesting. I think even though a lot of companies are now doing this asset centric development, you still need the platform in your back pocket. You still need the platform to tell the story. Even if platform companies are no longer really raising on the platform, they're raising on elite asset, and we're doing the same. Right. We have a discovery platform in our back pocket. We've done this multi year deal with Nova Nordisk. What we're investing in, what we're taking on hard fought risk capital and putting it into, is that leap.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: So maybe it's more a question of emphasis than it is fundamental change.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Is that right? I think the storytelling is actually similar to where it was in terms of telling a platform story. It's where you're actually focused on investing your risk capital. I think that has changed.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: You've talked in the past about one of the challenges that CEO's face is pressure to deploy more dollars faster, especially if they close a big round. Will you talk about that and kind of what your concerns are there? And then we can talk a little bit what the current environment's like.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So luckily we've never had that problem.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: We've always run so lean that instead of being pressured to spend faster and build more and fire up more programs, it's been, you know, how do we get more done on less? What we did see, especially during the high flying days of 2021, late 2020, early 2021, was companies raising these huge early rounds and taken on these huge leases and these huge teams and these ten discovery stage programs, most of which were complete junk. And they were doing that not because it made sense, but to justify having raised these big rounds. Those are the companies that are now going through layoffs. Those are the companies that are jettisoning discovery teams. They're shutting down discovery stage programs or trying to offload them to other companies. If you look back and think, was it really responsible to spin up all those parallel pipeline efforts? I don't think so. I think that was a huge waste driven by overcapitalizing these companies.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Is your sense that after you close a monster round, I guess you get a lot of pressure from investors to go, go, go. As you said, this has not been your model, but is your sense that that pressure has come down? I guess maybe people aren't closing as many of those really large rounds, although.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: There are some, yeah, I think that the monster rounds have gotten more monster.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Fewer of them, but bigger, maybe.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but there are fewer of them. Yeah. I think we are still seeing the kind of median Series A is still in the 45, $50 million range. The focus, though, is, again, you know, gonna have to carry that farther. The investors know they're gonna have to carry that farther. You can no longer dump preclinical crap on public markets. You can no longer, you can't even really do a transaction on phase one data. You got to get to that clinical proof of concept. And so I think the focus is, if we're going to do a 45 or $50 million series A, we're not going to take on all this discovery work. We're going to be very focused on, again, this asset centric model. Take your lead drug and put it in a patient, show it does something valuable. That's where the value inflection and goes step wise.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: $50 million sounds like a lot of money until you actually look at the cost of advancing a drug.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Oh, it goes fast.
Very fast.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: That makes sense. Tell us, you've got kind of a black belt in networking. You know, you've started a really interesting biotech sort of networking group in Cambridge. Tell us about how that happened and how it works and all that stuff.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, like, most of the things that go right in my life, pretty accidental.
I don't know if I have a black belt in networking. I do. I think I told you on our intro call, I don't even especially like people. Yeah, that's not true. I do like people. And this came about when I was in grad school, actually is just started getting together with some people that were in the kennel square area who I'd worked with previously just to catch up. Right. And so not all of them knew each other. We'd get together around a table at a bar, drink some beers, talk about science. It would go from what are we all working on to what's in the headlines? What are the new paradigms we're seeing? Some other people asked to join the group. All of a sudden, there's now about 800 and people on this biotech list. Completely accidental. And it's turned into now, instead of just sending, you know, let's sit at this bar and talk about what's happening now, I try and send out to the 800 person group things that I think are interesting, some of my opinions on recent trends. People send me job postings, they send me events, they send me interesting stuff. And I just try and make sure it gets out to this group. But it's gathered its own momentum. It's become its own center of gravity. Now I'm just a bit of a facilitator. There's nothing in it for me except a couple free beers every, every month or so. But it's really been something people like.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: And I think what makes this different from other networking groups is there's no RSVP, there's no name tag, there's no nothing. Just show up, be genuine, make some useful connections. Don't try and sell something. We're all selling something at any given time, but, you know, make some friends, make some connections, be interesting, interact with other interesting people, and that's it. That's all that's expected of you. What I found is this is very, very popular with the kind of mid career folks. So folks who are either within larger companies and going director to VP or startup folks who are trying to get something off the ground or are looking for their next financing round. We have investors who show up. We've had VC's sponsor it. In fact, usually people just reach out, and I've had maybe 20 different groups pick up the tab, just saying, hey, if you'll put our name on the thing, we'll come down and pay. And that's been great. But again, completely accidental. I never go out and solicit sponsorships for this thing. So it's become really fun. It's been great.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: It's one of these unexpected and sort of unplanned aspects of, I think, really successful growth communities and the community around Kendall Square in Cambridge. Truly extraordinary. I remember working in that area and my first job out of college, and, boy, Kendall Square was not what it is now. I can't think of a denser population of top tier science and startup companies and capital. I don't think there's anything like it anywhere else in the world. And I don't think it was a plan. It just kind of happened. Right?
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think. I think that is right. I think there were some good decisions made by public policymakers. I think there are some good decisions made by larger companies. Obviously, we had mit and Harvard here. MIT is now being referred to as the Mitzvah Institute of Biology because everything is focused on biotechnology. Yeah. Whether it's in the engineering labs, the energy labs are, everything is now touching biology in MIT. But I think it was unplanned. I think, again, it was accidental. I think Kennel Square is so much fun. You go into any. So much fun. Any bar, restaurant in the area, and people are talking about their animal models, they're talking about their lead molecule, talking about pharmacology. You know, it's really, really unique in the world.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: So let's shift from that to some advice for you can frame this however you like. You know, the 23 year old version of you coming out of college, somebody who's in grad school now, somebody who's considering a startup, however you'd like to attack it. Isaac, what's some advice that you would share for people who are interested in the kind of stuff we've been talking about?
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Oh, man. So I run into all sorts of PhDs, postdocs, or they really want to get that company going, first company. And so can you introduce me to venture capitalists? You know, how do I get my first financing round done? I think it's not a particularly. I mean, it's great. I love seeing people who want to go out there and take some innovation and try into a company. But it's really hard building a company. And if you're looking at any other job role, right, you want to go in there and learn how it's done. You want to learn from someone who's good at it. He's done it before. Take venture capital, for example. You wouldn't get someone coming out of a PhD or postdoc saying, okay, I want to go start a vc. That happens very, very rarely. Instead, you go, you start an associate, you learn how venture capital works, you move up to a principal, maybe you make it all the way to a partner. All that happens pretty rarely. And you actually learn the business of investing. You learn pattern recognition, you learn how to be value add, you learn how to serve on a board. I think entrepreneurs should be looking at it the same way. If you want to go start a company, you should go work for an experienced founder who's building the company and be as close to that decision making pattern recognition as possible in order to figure out how it's done, instead of jumping out of the nice academic nest with a piece of IP and seeing if you can figure it out. So I think we should be moving towards an apprenticeship model where you spend a company or a couple of companies learning the business before you strike out to do it on your own.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really, really good advice.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: That's the way I did it. It was not deliberate. That was the way I did it, again, accidentally. And I'd say do that right. Figure out how good company builders build companies before you strike out to try and do it on your own.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Right. Looking at your background, one might think that your answer was, get a PhD, get an MBA, go start a company. That's part of your story. But that's not what the advice is.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: I could go on another tarot about the MBA in general and how the degree has gotten less valuable even since I got mine. There is effectively no value ascribed to that degree in the Kendall Square biotech system at this point. So certainly don't do that like I did.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: There are folks who will argue, and I have an MBA too, but there are folks who will argue it's negatively correlated.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: I saw a really funny article, funny depressing article the other day about it was research looking at companies that had been engineering led for a long time and then switched to their first professional manager MBA CEO. And the track record is awful. I mean, it's, you know, actually the stock price generally does pretty well for a little while and earnings go up. But there are all kinds of problems with innovation and quality, whether it's Boeing or intel. The list is long. So yeah, think carefully about what you want, why you want the MBA. Folks, if you're listening, I'd seen an.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Interesting survey where they looked at a lot of companies, maybe a couple hundred, and the only thing they could find really changing when you had an MBA, kind of professional manager taking over leadership was executive compensation goes up, which. Great, I like to hear that, but not really a measure of company performance.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Seemed like the sole measure of success. Say, oh yeah, and I'm not, I don't want to sound like I'm anti MBA, but I think, oh no, I've got one too. Yeah, yeah. But I think there are, yeah, some of my best friends are MBAs, including myself, but there are plenty of other ways to acquire those necessary skills. And I really like and agree with what you said about the power of apprenticeship. So when you first, was that on your mind when you joined the first company? Or was it more accidental? Like, I just, hey, this seems kind of cool.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: Every success I've ever had has been accidental. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly not, not delayed. But I think, you know, there is some very, very valuable learning that you can have from working for someone who really knows what they're doing instead of trying to figure it out on your own. And especially PhD. Smart people, bright people, are always going to go out there and try and figure it out on their own. It's an unhealthy instinct.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great way to frame that. Okay, so that's terrific advice. I think other things you'd like to share, you are that person that's showing up, or maybe that isn't even showing up yet to the networking group in Kendall Square, how does that person learn about startup culture other than actually just joining a startup? Are there other things they should be doing, thinking about reading, joining, et cetera.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: To learn about startup culture?
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Well, or are there other things they can do that would help them if they're going to found a company some years down the line?
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think especially in the biotech business, this is a highly specialized business and there are a lot of different aspects that need to be brought to bear. I think you should be a complete sponge when it comes to learning how it's done. I think there's some great resources available online and there's blogs and some newsletters that I constantly am following about what does deal look like? What's the kind of new innovation that's coming up and online? What are investors investing in. But really being curious, I think, is the key. If you're going to show up to my networking things, I think you should also really try and be genuine instead of the posturing. Whenever we have people showing up and they're again trying to present themselves X, Y or Z, they're not going to get the most out of that. Be yourself, be genuine, be curious. Make meaningful connections, and really try and absorb all the knowledge that you can from those around you. Those who, instead of learning lessons by doing things the wrong way and then figuring it out, you should be able to.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: There's another alternative.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: You should be able to. Short circuitous. You should learn from people who've already made mistakes. Come talk to me. I'll tell you all the things we've gotten wrong here. And then maybe you can avoid those things in the future.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Learn to make different mistakes is my.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: Yeah, different set. Different set of mistakes.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: My thesis, my objective. Yeah, right.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Okay, that's great. So, Isaac, as we wind down here, first of all, I believe you are open to folks joining the Kendall Square networking group, yes?
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Just shoot me an email or find me on LinkedIn or whatever. We'll throw you on the list. It is. Come one, come all. You don't need to send me your resume. Show up, meet people, be yourself, be genuine, and hopefully you get something out of it.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Terrific. Other places that people, if they want to learn more, obviously they can go to the Octagon website or information about the company. Other places where to find you online or places they should go or should they just track you down in the bar?
[00:37:41] Speaker B: You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on the Octagon Therapeutics website.
You can find me on isaacstoner.com. you know, there's some of my old blog posts there and stuff. Some have to deal with entrepreneurship. I'm well known to have a big mouth. So you should be able to find traces of me all over the Internet.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Terrific.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: I'm not hard to track down, that's for sure.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: That's great. I encourage listeners to join the group, even if you're not in the Cambridge area, because as Isaac said, he does share stuff that he thinks is interesting and stop by for a beer if you're a local. I think forging real relationships with people who are doing similar things is a superpower or a cheat code hack that enables people to get a lot done. So I really love that. Isaac, thank you so much for joining us today on few and far between. This was a lot of fun.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Really fun. Chris, thanks so much for having me.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the latest episode of few and far between. Our podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and other major streaming services. Please take a moment and leave us a user review and rating today. It really helps people discover the podcast and we read all the comments. Those comments help us to make few and far between better and better. Also, be sure to subscribe to few and far between so that you don't miss a single episode. Got an idea for a future episode? Email us at few and farbetweeniorossi.com or contact us on our
[email protected], dot I'm your host, Chris O'Brien. See you next time.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Time.
