I am captivated by materials which may
think is
in concern and the reason for that is as
a maker species the resources that we
have available are the materials that we
have at hand they define what we can
create as individuals they create the
space around which our day-to-day lives
are lived what materials we have and
what we can work with the absence of
materials creates the inspiration for us
to find those new things right and in
fact as humanity we’ve often defined
where we are in our advancement in our
growth by the materials we have at hand
so the Stone Age this is the state of
the art right simple materials that any
individual can learn to master in their
lifetimes advancement comes slowly
materials are pretty limited right it
takes thousands of years to make some
progress and that progress is made by
small groups of people as we step
forward humanity becomes more and more
advanced we have an agricultural
revolution we start to work with metals
and metallurgy we have a broader set of
materials that we can work with and
we’re working in larger and larger
groups of people and individuals
starting to specialize in the materials
that they know how to handle what they
can do with them to where we are today
the digital revolution if we take a look
at this in the last hundred years we’ve
seen more advancement in the day to day
lives and the materials that we use than
we’ve seen in the thousands of years
before that and those materials and that
existence that we now live is brought to
us not by small groups of people or even
ten groups of tens of people but
hundreds of people in the largest
organizations and those organizations
take the form of corporations so the
biggest innovations that we’ve seen in
the last hundred years have come from
chemical companies from oil companies
from the original
Silicon in Silicon Valley they brought
us advanced materials synthetic
materials whereas a hundred years ago we
closed ourselves and housed ourselves
and protected ourselves with metal with
wood with cotton right not with Kevlar
not with PVC okay those are all recent
advancements but one of the questions
that we asked is if this is true that
it’s taking more and more people working
together in a more specialized fashion
in larger and larger groups to advance
us what does that mean in the revolution
led by startups make small groups of
people like this what we’ve seen in the
last year and in the last decade is that
small groups of people working together
as teams of three or four or five people
who are coding somewhere in a basement
or generating ideas somewhere on a
whiteboard can change the way that we
live our everyday lives and the
materials that we’re doing that with so
the question becomes if materials were
the first things that we innovated in a
lot of ways can they still be things
that we innovate in a small way the
question has often been answered with
it’s really tough because you need one
of these you need a lab right millions
of dollars to build millions of dollars
to operate and years if not decades to
see through technology advancement and
new materials the D rest and that’s the
province of large large companies who
have that those resources and that
timeline well that’s a heavy lift how
can how can we address that how is a
large startup of a sort a small startup
of four people going to address a
challenge that’s typically been answered
by large companies can we look somewhere
else in this
scientific realm to see if someone’s
done this and the answer is yes
pharmaceuticals and healthcare if you
rewind 30 years most drugs that reach
the market were born at large
pharmaceutical companies they followed
years of research and development at
these same large companies went through
the regulatory process and were
ultimately brought to market in that way
that’s where our traditional big
blockbusters have come from but then
those pipelines ran dry and so large
pharma codes had to start looking for a
new way to innovate and a new set of
fundamentals on which to work and where
did they look biotech so the pharma
biotech model which has evolved over
those 30 years has addressed that main
challenge where the biotechs took the
mode of a small group of people working
independently willing to ask the
question why not rather than why and
unhindered by a traditional bureaucracy
or a conservative corporate culture they
could make advances on the technology
front and they could then be combined
with the power of scale that came from
the large pharma Coase where the skill
wasn’t necessarily in taking something
from birth through its lifecycle but in
being able to partner with another
organization and be able to think in a
different way and eventually to get that
market fully functioning venture capital
is now heavily involved in a place that
has a very very long timeline right
which is not a traditionally easy lift
for venture so back to materials
fundamentally it’s chemistry in many
cases very similar to health care
so is there an opportunity here for
materials to start advancing in the way
other things have and finally join the
disruptive economy and the startup world
so the question is what will it take to
do that and it will take three things
the same thing that we learn from the
biotech and pharma model right it will
take small companies willing to do it an
environment that supports them it will
take large companies operating
differently right now they’re merging
trying to find a new model and the new
model may be to abandon they’re not
invented here mentality and adapt to a
how do we partner mentality right and
then the third piece is venture capital
finding a space in the de-risking moment
between small companies and large
companies right and it could be
transformative if you take a look at
Pharma and biotech there are thousands
of partnerships that are created every
year and large pharmaceutical companies
do tens of licensing deals every year
each one not one not two tens and so the
potential to transform the way that we
live and the materials that we have as a
human beings can be dramatically shaped
by this we may have seen the pinnacle of
new materials coming out of large
companies but we are just getting
started on new materials coming out of
small companies and in partnership with
others thank you
you
think is
in concern and the reason for that is as
a maker species the resources that we
have available are the materials that we
have at hand they define what we can
create as individuals they create the
space around which our day-to-day lives
are lived what materials we have and
what we can work with the absence of
materials creates the inspiration for us
to find those new things right and in
fact as humanity we’ve often defined
where we are in our advancement in our
growth by the materials we have at hand
so the Stone Age this is the state of
the art right simple materials that any
individual can learn to master in their
lifetimes advancement comes slowly
materials are pretty limited right it
takes thousands of years to make some
progress and that progress is made by
small groups of people as we step
forward humanity becomes more and more
advanced we have an agricultural
revolution we start to work with metals
and metallurgy we have a broader set of
materials that we can work with and
we’re working in larger and larger
groups of people and individuals
starting to specialize in the materials
that they know how to handle what they
can do with them to where we are today
the digital revolution if we take a look
at this in the last hundred years we’ve
seen more advancement in the day to day
lives and the materials that we use than
we’ve seen in the thousands of years
before that and those materials and that
existence that we now live is brought to
us not by small groups of people or even
ten groups of tens of people but
hundreds of people in the largest
organizations and those organizations
take the form of corporations so the
biggest innovations that we’ve seen in
the last hundred years have come from
chemical companies from oil companies
from the original
Silicon in Silicon Valley they brought
us advanced materials synthetic
materials whereas a hundred years ago we
closed ourselves and housed ourselves
and protected ourselves with metal with
wood with cotton right not with Kevlar
not with PVC okay those are all recent
advancements but one of the questions
that we asked is if this is true that
it’s taking more and more people working
together in a more specialized fashion
in larger and larger groups to advance
us what does that mean in the revolution
led by startups make small groups of
people like this what we’ve seen in the
last year and in the last decade is that
small groups of people working together
as teams of three or four or five people
who are coding somewhere in a basement
or generating ideas somewhere on a
whiteboard can change the way that we
live our everyday lives and the
materials that we’re doing that with so
the question becomes if materials were
the first things that we innovated in a
lot of ways can they still be things
that we innovate in a small way the
question has often been answered with
it’s really tough because you need one
of these you need a lab right millions
of dollars to build millions of dollars
to operate and years if not decades to
see through technology advancement and
new materials the D rest and that’s the
province of large large companies who
have that those resources and that
timeline well that’s a heavy lift how
can how can we address that how is a
large startup of a sort a small startup
of four people going to address a
challenge that’s typically been answered
by large companies can we look somewhere
else in this
scientific realm to see if someone’s
done this and the answer is yes
pharmaceuticals and healthcare if you
rewind 30 years most drugs that reach
the market were born at large
pharmaceutical companies they followed
years of research and development at
these same large companies went through
the regulatory process and were
ultimately brought to market in that way
that’s where our traditional big
blockbusters have come from but then
those pipelines ran dry and so large
pharma codes had to start looking for a
new way to innovate and a new set of
fundamentals on which to work and where
did they look biotech so the pharma
biotech model which has evolved over
those 30 years has addressed that main
challenge where the biotechs took the
mode of a small group of people working
independently willing to ask the
question why not rather than why and
unhindered by a traditional bureaucracy
or a conservative corporate culture they
could make advances on the technology
front and they could then be combined
with the power of scale that came from
the large pharma Coase where the skill
wasn’t necessarily in taking something
from birth through its lifecycle but in
being able to partner with another
organization and be able to think in a
different way and eventually to get that
market fully functioning venture capital
is now heavily involved in a place that
has a very very long timeline right
which is not a traditionally easy lift
for venture so back to materials
fundamentally it’s chemistry in many
cases very similar to health care
so is there an opportunity here for
materials to start advancing in the way
other things have and finally join the
disruptive economy and the startup world
so the question is what will it take to
do that and it will take three things
the same thing that we learn from the
biotech and pharma model right it will
take small companies willing to do it an
environment that supports them it will
take large companies operating
differently right now they’re merging
trying to find a new model and the new
model may be to abandon they’re not
invented here mentality and adapt to a
how do we partner mentality right and
then the third piece is venture capital
finding a space in the de-risking moment
between small companies and large
companies right and it could be
transformative if you take a look at
Pharma and biotech there are thousands
of partnerships that are created every
year and large pharmaceutical companies
do tens of licensing deals every year
each one not one not two tens and so the
potential to transform the way that we
live and the materials that we have as a
human beings can be dramatically shaped
by this we may have seen the pinnacle of
new materials coming out of large
companies but we are just getting
started on new materials coming out of
small companies and in partnership with
others thank you
you
Please follow and like us: