Alon Galor

Genomic Medicine @UniofOxford. Previously Computational Biologist @harvardmed, Research Associate @HarvardHBS, Applied Math & Biology @BrownUniversity

[Oded Galor @GalorOded]

A sweeping account of the origins of wealth & inequality

“Unparalleled in its scope and ambition” — Washington Post
“An optimist’s guide to the future” — The Guardian
“A sweeping overview…reminiscent of Sapiens” — FT
“A great historical fresco” — Le Monde

Int’l Bestseller

Best Philosophy and Ideas Books 2022 — The Times
Yaesu Book Award 2023 (Grand Prize) — Japan
Author of the Year 2022 — CITIC Publishers, China

“Masterful” — Lewis Dartnell
“Completely brilliant and utterly original” — Jon Snow
“Astounding in scope and insight” — Nouriel Roubini
“A page-turner, a suspense-filled thriller, mind-bending puzzles and profound insights!” — Glenn Loury

[Tess van Stekelenburg @velvetatom]

Spent three years looking for a team in Biodefense to invest in. But never found one. So we built it ourselves.

Valthos builds next-generation biodefense.

As AI and biotech rapidly advance, we're approaching near-universal access to tools with the potential to cure humanity or make biological weapons.

We have a short period of time to ensure that our capabilities to protect advance faster than the threats we face.

At Valthos, we apply frontier methods to identify threats and compress the time from a biological sequence to validated medical countermeasures.

Excited to share more with you all soon. Grateful to start Valthos with $30M in backing from @OpenAI @Lux_Capital @foundersfund, and many others incl. @Definition_Cap @topology_vc

We are actively hiring - if you know engineers interested in solving this mission, reach out [email protected].

[Seth Bannon @sethbannon]

Now is the time for a bold and audacious UK!

The UK invents the future. It's time for scientists to lead and build it here too. 100x more UK scientists are capable of starting civilisation-defining companies.

5050 UK helps them start. Applications are open!

The path from scientist to founder is hard and murky. Where do you start? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you?

5050 is a free programme to help great scientists and engineers become great founders and start deep tech startups. Whether you’re curious about entrepreneurship, validating an idea, or ready to build — 5050 is for you.

5050 has helped launch 55 companies, many of which wouldn’t exist otherwise.

• @markwbudde joined as a postdoc at Caltech. 5050 helped him decide he didn't want to start a therapeutics company but instead instead offer to others the workflows he built to speed up his own research. Three years later @plasmidsaurus is profitable and growing fast, delivering overnight plasmid sequencing across all 50 states and most European countries.
• Niccolo joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded @SailClippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping. “Without 5050, the chances of starting the company were maybe 10%.”
• Chi and @tayshin0827 joined as postdocs at MIT, unsure if they were ready to start. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming.

At @fiftyyears, we’ve backed 100+ deep tech startups and helped them raise over $4.6B. We’ve built deep tech companies ourselves and published the Spinout Playbook.

We've distilled everything we know about deep tech entrepreneurship into 5050. In partnership with @ARIA_research, we’re excited to bring 5050 to the UK.

5050 helps you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Is entrepreneurship for me? Am I ready to be a founder?

We’ll coach you through the early days of building in deep tech. Through the programme, you’ll:
• Zero in on civilisation-scale problems to tackle.
• Learn what it takes to grow into a great founder.
• Learn the critical components of building a deep tech startup, from recruiting to fundraising to negotiating IP rights.

You’ll also join a community of entrepreneurial scientists and deep tech founders eager to share their experiences and support your journey.

Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam.

Link to apply / recommend is below!

[Oded Galor @GalorOded]

What underlies differences in cultural diversity across societies?

The out-of-Africa migration.

Societies whose ancestors migrated farther from Africa show lower diversity in music, folklore, and social norms, values & attitudes.

https://t.co/FFK9SEvFOq  #econtwitter

(1/4)

[Seth Bannon @sethbannon]

The world needs 10x more scientist-founders.

5050 helps scientists and engineers become great founders and start indispensable companies.

Applications open!

Startups are the best way to make a real impact with research, but where do you get started? How do you know if entrepreneurship is for you?

Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you.

You’ll learn what it takes to become a great founder, how to choose the right problem, technology, and market, and how to build a deep tech startup.

“It’s a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.”
– @ChEMcShane, 5050 alum.

• @ChEMcShane and Evan spun out of Stanford and co-founded Electroflow to tackle the lithium shortage. They’ve scaled their tech by 200x in 6 months.

• @markwbudde joined 5050 as a postdoc at Caltech. Two years later, @plasmidsaurus enables scientists across all 50 states and most European countries to go much faster.

• Niccolo joined as a Tesla engineer. Three months later, he co-founded Clippership and is building autonomous sailboats to decarbonize maritime shipping.

• Chi and @tayshin0827 joined as postdocs at MIT. Within weeks, they spun out and are now working to enable in vivo cell reprogramming.

At @fiftyyears, we’ve built deep tech companies ourselves. We’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups from the earliest stages and helped them raise over 4.6 billion dollars.

We distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into 5050: a free program to help world-class scientists and engineers start indispensable companies.

Phase I: Explore
We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? Am I ready to be a founder?

You’ll learn if entrepreneurship is right for you, identify the idea to build, and pivot quickly if necessary. We’ll guide you through the early days of building in deep tech.

At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build.

Phase II: Build
You’ll join a cohort of fast-moving founders who will challenge you to ramp up. We’ll coach you to level up into a great founder and guide you through the early days of building in deep tech. Build will help you de-risk your technology, hit key milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed fast.

Helping great scientists and engineers become great entrepreneurs is our jam.

Apply / nominate! ➜ https://t.co/29qi1exqDg

[Tony Kulesa @kulesatony]

Frequency is back for Summer 2024. Apply by July 2!

If you are interested in starting biotech companies, this is a 1 week, part time, crash course experience in all aspects of early stage company building.

Alumni have started leading companies + joined top VC firms worldwide.

[Gigi Levy Weiss @GigiLevy]

ישראל עוברת תקופה מהמאתגרות שעברנו. אין יום שעובר בו לא מתגלה אתגר חדש - חיצוני או פנימי. וכמובן שעדיין לא סיימנו את המשימות הלאומיות האדירות שלנו - להחזיר את החטופים, לשקם את הפצועים, להשיב את כל התושבים לעוטף עזה ולצפון, לטפל בכל נפגעי הטראומה ומשימות רבות נוספות.

עולם הסטרטאפים הישראלי נפגע גם הוא - בשנה האחרונה צנח מספר החברות החדשות שקמו בישראל דרמטית וכמות השקעות ההמשך קטנה מהותית - וכל זאת בזמן שבעולם זוהי דווקא תקופה מעולה לחברות סטרטאפ בשל מהפכת ה-AI. זהו סיכון משמעותי לעתיד התעשיה.

למרות האתגרים האדירים בתחומים האחרים בהם אנחנו חייבים לטפל - אין ספק שחוסנה של תעשיית ההיי טק הישראלית הוא חיוני לחוסנה של המדינה. לא רק בגלל כוחו של המדע - כמו שראינו ביירוטים המוצלחים - אלא גם כסקטור המשלם כ-40% מהמס בארץ ומהווה 50% מהייצוא הישראלי. אסור לנו לתת לתעשיית היי טק להישאר מאחור אל מול העולם!

לכן, דווקא עכשיו, בחרנו (קרן NFX) לפתוח במסלול השקעות אולטרה-מהיר הנקרא FAST, המיועד לתמיכה בהקמת סטרטאפים ישראלים חדשים, עם פוקוס על תחומי ה-AI והביולוגיה הסינתטית (אבל כולל גם תחומים אחרים - באתר יש הסבר מדוייק איזה תחומים כלולים ואלו לא). יש גם מסלול נוסף לחברות קיימות עם הכנסות. המסלול פתוח עד לתאריך ה-2 למאי בלבד.

ההבטחה היא לתשובה תוך 9 ימים וכסף בבנק עד שלושה שבועות מההגשה. התנאים מאד ברורים - והכל, כולל מסמכי ההשקעה (ב-SAFE) זמין באתר. אנחנו ללא ממתינים - First come first served.

בואו נעזור לתעשיה לחזור ולפרוח ונסגור את הפער שנפתח! 🇮🇱

מוזמנים להעביר הלאה כדי שכל יזם פוטנציאלי ישמע!

https://t.co/7SExbGfAeE

[Seth Bannon @sethbannon]

The SaaS startup playbook doesn’t work in deep tech. “Move fast and break things” doesn’t apply when building nuclear reactors or bioengineering cell therapies.

That’s why we built 5050, “a cheat code for starting a deep tech startup.” (quote from an alumni)

Applications open!

https://t.co/ucsabh5CyT

5050 is a program to help scientists and engineers start indispensable companies. We’ve distilled everything we know about deep tech startups into a two phase program.

Phase I: Explore
We’ll help you answer: How do I turn my breakthrough science into a business? What do I need to make a startup idea work? How do I recruit a world-class team Am I ready to be a founder?

We'll help you diagnose and mitigate risks and pivot quickly if necessary.

At the end of Explore, those ready to build a startup will be invited to the next phase, Build

Phase II: Build
You’ll join a select cohort of the most high-speed founders solving massive world problems. Build will help you de-risk their technology, hit milestones, raise a first round, and reach takeoff speed faster than you think is possible. You’ll learn everything you need to know about starting a deep tech company and what it takes to become a world class entrepreneur.

At @fiftyyears, we’ve backed over 100 deep tech startups, helped them raise over 5.5 billion dollars, and supported our founders in achieving many firsts:

➜ the first carbon-negative molecule factory
➜ the first cultivated meat approved in the U.S.
➜ the first microgeo satellite for internet connectivity
➜ the first in-orbit space pharma drug factory
➜ the first de novo synthesis of a 1000+ base DNA molecule
➜ and many more

Whether you’re validating an idea or ready to build — 5050 is for you.

Apply! ➜ https://t.co/ucsabh5CyT

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

Magill has resigned.

[Sam Altman @sama]

for a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed.

i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong.

i still don't understand it, really. or know what to do about it.

but it is so fucked.

[Albert Bourla @AlbertBourla]

I was ashamed to hear the recent testimony of 3 top university presidents. In my personal opinion, it was one of the most despicable moments in the history of U.S. academia. The 3 Presidents were offered numerous opportunities to condemn racist, antisemitic, hate rhetoric and refused doing so hiding behind calls for “context.” The memories of my father’s parents, Abraham and Rachel Bourla, his brother David and his little sister Graciela, who all died in Auschwitz, came to mind. I was wondering if their deaths would have provided enough “context” to these presidents to condemn the Nazis' antisemitic propaganda.

And because dehumanization of the victims makes it easier to “set your own context” and justify anything, here is a picture of Graciela Bourla, who was exterminated in the concentration camp at the age of 17. Unfortunately, no pictures of my grandparents and uncle survived. I still wonder what they looked like.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Let me help them out here: “Calling for the genocide [death] of anyone obviously constitutes harassment.”

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

The world will be able to judge the relative quality of the governance at @Harvard, @Penn, and @MIT by the comparative speed by which their boards fire their respective presidents.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

The presidents of @Harvard, @MIT, and @Penn were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?

The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.

Representative @EliseStefanik was so shocked with the answers that she asked each of them the same question over and over again, and they gave the same answers over and over again.

In short, they said:

It ‘depends on the context’ and ‘whether the speech turns into conduct,’ that is, actually killing Jews.

This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide, which to remind us all is:

“the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group”

The presidents’ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership.

Don’t take my word for it.

You must watch the following three minutes. By the end, you will be where I am.

They must all resign in disgrace.

If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour.

Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world?

Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.

To think that these are the leaders of Ivy League institutions that are charged with the responsibility to educate our best and brightest.

On the bright side, our congressional leaders deserve accolades for showing tremendous leadership and moral clarity in their statements, by the questions they asked, and the respectfulness with which they conducted the hearing.

It was a masterclass of how our government and democracy should operate.

If you have time, please watch the entire hearing. Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses, exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.

[Seth Neel @SethInternet]

Thanks @hbsalumni for profiling my work. Read more about my, and my awesome colleagues' work in this months alumni bulletin here: https://t.co/77qXCtti1p

[CRISPR Therapeutics @CRISPRTX]

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approves the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited treatment for #SickleCellDisease & #BetaThalassemia in Great Britain. This is a historic milestone arising out of our collaboration with Vertex. Learn more: https://t.co/XiHsNfOZGA

[Sek Kathiresan MD @skathire]

“Until now, we thought of gene editing as a treatment we should reserve for very rare diseases where there is no other treatment,” said Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, Eli Lilly’s chief scientific and medical officer. “But if we can make gene editing safe and widely available, why not go after a more common disease?”

New Gene Editing Treatment Cuts Dangerous Cholesterol in Small Study https://t.co/K2F7KUQIP5

[John Evans @john_evans3]

Congratulations to Verve on the open US IND for VERVE-101 — great news for the program and for the field:

[NFX @NFX]

The Terror Attack on Israel

By @GigiLevy, General Partner @NFX and Head of NFX Israel

"As many of you know, several members of NFX’s team and some of our portfolio companies are located in Israel. We live here. This is our home..."

Full statement: https://t.co/DrOXuNrZJ0

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

News: more than 200 venture capital firms have signed a public statement in support of Israel and its tech ecosystem.

I spoke to Harry Valner, the U.S.-based startup investor who led the effort since Monday night.

https://t.co/VOYhIBteha