- met siyu, very goated by spending a long time searching for pasca lab member in the midst of being very busy, finding entire pasca lab catalog and checking with chinese community within stanford on wechat to match me with someone the same day. that person is dong chunyang. more on him later. siyu is also working on a startup with her technical friend (both are technical, non-business) on patenting a device that draws blood from patient and diagnose diseases and such (forgot the specifics). for this she wants to apply to yc (but i told her yc is bad for deep tech not sure how she will take it). she is also working under her PI on another startup. but very nice person to keep in touch with. prob an ML grandmaster. i really really want to recruit her. but not yet. she bought milk tea + a golden gate golf hat for me. she wants me to keep her updated. post PoC.
- dong chunyang wants to go back to china (so probably has more connections in china than the us, opposite of siyu who wants to stay here). pasca member who leans toward hardware DIY engineering. built his own microscope, goes very barebone with his workstation. openly wants to collaborate. and like siyu, wants to be updated after PoC.
- talked to jonah, met nick ok (more on him later) and a bunch of people during the meeting with jonah. jonah says lexi vc is the wrong opportunity for me but refer me to other opportunities (including 1517, will talk later) and his own colleague who does organoid stuff. that is pending.
- recruited nick ok. cambodian. ex-thermo fisher, ex stanford medicine and UCSF, works on automation + QC + cGMP. looks legit on paper but need to test chemistry. very commited guy. good comms. will receive info from sun about the device, brain organoids in general, and starting to design the automation layer for hardware.
- game night at founders fund
- met a bunch of openai and stripe interns. they are interested in what im doing. one thing i learned is some methodologies of AI can be patented, but per Siyu it's very hard to do so.
- finally added natasha (head of branding of FF) on text, she says she will invite me if i come to sf again (update! we connected on linkedin as well)
- met someone who knows Maxx and he is still at contrary (a research association + VC???)
- met will o'brien, works on ulysses.inc, which is a deep sea robotics startup. crazy idea and sounds so subnautica-esque. he referred me to zak (partner at 1517). and update: just talked to zak on july 14th and he says to check back in a month. and hes also referring me to his colleague who does biological due diligence for the firm to just chat with me casually.
what im up to, now im back in ny:
- the current PoC is a fucking shit show. so im working on a big pivot for the PoC. my prescience is perhaps being reshaped to 4 dimensional after intaking abilify. i have unlocked first principle thinking and human predictive power just like paul atreides.
- validate nick ok, i want him to stay for as short as the preseed round is officiallly done.
- try to get closer to both siyu and chunyang, especially the former. probably have her as part time advisor or collaborator and also give her equity, but share more if she wants to commit more.
- 1517 is a super strong lead. keep them in touch.
- also saving some links here:
- talk to lada nuzhna soon if possible? on/after the 16th? do some due diligence if she agrees.