ideal profile:
- technical in bio, adapts fast (metric would be ai tools usage), and conviction to build
- if suzanne doesn't work out, don't actively pursue ppl yet but simply preserve list of contingencies to reach out to (all likely to be cold) through agentic searches on ppl writing journal papers on organoids/brain organoids
- never vet in parallel. date/vet one person at a time, not 5 ppl and choose one. this will backfire.
- academia within organoid biology and phd level is largely trustworthy. they don't have the balls to be high ego since they are not yet professors, but also technical enough in the field, at least more than me, so generally no bs.
- large age caps are not ideal. would yield low chemistry. im 19. that person should always be under 30. big age gap relationships are always mentor mentee, not cofounders. look at how many times leo dicaprio broke up with his gfs. ppl also naturally build families instead of generational companies around 30. gotta get them fresh.
- ppl who want to step into industry (not academia) edge themselves at postdoc, hunting for opportunities. however in the age of ai, the job market in every sector is diminishing. the natural choice is to jump into anything thats both structurally promising and passion aligned. bigs orgs wont chase you, but small orgs tend to be shaky and unreliable. as a small org it has to promise some level of structural stability for academic ppl who have operated on stability for a long time. give them enough steppingstones for them to take the risk.
- as a small org it should chase, but also present itself as smth actually promising.
- technical cofounders wont push back on vision hard, more so in the foundational scafollds, the technical developments.
- things i am in control of and can provide:
- current moats/IP/data
- advisors to help bridge specific domain knowledge gaps (if necessary)
- clear vision as the vision guy (GTM, TAM, CAGR, competitor landscape, sequences to scale the operations, what to apply to secure preseed seed then series a b c etc.)
- startup credentials (thiel, z, other trustworthy startup fellowships... the flipside of the institutional power)
- as for the other side... if suzanne fails and no warm intros work, filter to eliminate by age (under 30), position (freshly graduated PhDs or around the timeline of graduation), space (source from academic labs through online journals). and as for what they should fulfill: ↓
rubric:
1. ambition mismatch (want to stay in academia or go into industry as a hire, doesn’t gaf about equity but salary)
2. risk tolerance under ambiguity (drop if they name problem and stop there, or name problem then escalate into more and more concerns; keep if they name problems then propose solution)
3. independent initiative: is this person going above and beyond your expectations on work (of all kinds)
4. ego: pushing back on real issues (keep) vs. pushing back forcefully to fulfill ego; might happen often if you have less credentials than them who has more/better degrees (drop)
5. engineer disagreements from time to time during vetting period [regardless of them holding or folding on opinions, they need to be backed by reason. hold due to stubbornness, or fold under emotion/pressure aka being a yes man are all signs to drop]