Will Blair

Towards scientific abundance

[Louis Andre @louisnandre]

Today, we're announcing @episteme, a new type of R&D company that recruits exceptional scientists to pursue high-impact ideas.

Science isn’t bottlenecked by the availability of talent, but by places where they can do their best work.

Scientific progress has driven human flourishing: extending lifespans, lifting billions from poverty, and expanding our understanding of the universe.

But history is littered with transformational ideas that were overlooked in their time. That problem is still acute today: too much promising talent remains uncultivated, and remarkable ideas die in the lab or are filtered out by misaligned incentives.

Today, scientists face suboptimal paths for translating their research into impact: academia is famously risk-averse and incentivizes publications and winning grants vs. translational research. Industry is too often focused on short‑term incentives. And startups lack the substantial capital, expertise, and complex infrastructure needed to deliver long-term scientific progress.

On top of that, recent funding cuts in the US mean the overall supply of ideas is decreasing. Put together, the global scientific production system is operating at a fraction of its capacity.

How Episteme operates is different: we identify great scientists who can meaningfully benefit humanity, but who aren’t supported efficiently within traditional institutions today. Researcher by researcher, we work with them to determine the bespoke resources, operational support, and environmental conditions to execute on their research. We bring them together in-house, and provide those resources to ensure that their breakthroughs are deployed for real-world impact.

We’ve already assembled an amazing team of operators, ranging from the Gates Foundation, DeepMind, ARPAs, DoE – just to name a few – and researchers who are pursuing important problems across physics, biology, computing, and energy. Our team has spoken to hundreds of researchers across disciplines and geographies to understand the limitations they’re facing and what can be done better, and designed Episteme for them.

We’re backed by individuals like @sama, Masayoshi Son, and other long-term partners who share our mission of enabling ambitious science for tangible human impact.

About me: I started working as a researcher 9 years ago, on problems ranging from AI-driven drug discovery to developing brain-machine interfaces. It was that experience that led me to realize that so many scientists with great potential to change the world don’t have access to opportunities equal to their capacities.

@sama and I believe that much better science should happen for humanity, and that a new engine is needed to support that. We decided to cofound Episteme together, and I am incredibly grateful for Sam’s unwavering support as a thought partner and founding investor.

Our conviction is that by supporting the right people with the right incentives, we're set to generate breakthrough discoveries to benefit humanity. We cannot rely on the course of history to shape scientific progress; we need to proactively shape the system by supporting the most talented people with the right resources and incentives.

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@kenbwork @mnemeth101 Incredibly cool, congrats!

[Kenny Workman @kenbwork]

Agents are finally starting to work in biology.

We’ve partnered with Anthropic and major biotech vendors - Vizgen, AtlasXOmics, Takara, 10x Genomics - to build a tool that allows scientists to steer their own analysis with natural language. Raw spatial data to publication quality figures.

Our team believes this will soon be the standard way biologists interact with data.

Spatial biology agents look a bit different from coding products:

- tailored to the molecular details of each kit type
- run in sandboxes on very large machines
- orchestrate data infra, eg. bioinformatics workflows, with tool calls
- build graphical analysis notebooks to communicate results

Detailed breakdown of engineering decisions, product philosophy and concrete flows follows:

[Valthos @ValthosTech]

Valthos builds next-generation biodefense.

Of all AI applications, biotechnology has the highest upside and most catastrophic downside. Heroes at the frontlines of biodefense are working every day to protect the world against the worst case. But the pace of biotech is against them: more powerful methods to design biological systems, with near-universal access, open up an increasing surface area of threats.

In this new world, the only way forward is to be faster. So we set out to build the tech stack for biodefense. Our team of computational biologists and software engineers applies frontier AI to identify biological threats and update medical countermeasures in real-time.

We are backed by $30M from @OpenAI, @Lux_Capital, @foundersfund and others including @Definition_Cap. We are actively hiring engineers to join in the mission - if that sounds like you, get in touch.

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@ValthosTech 🚀

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@KianSadeghi5 @nucleusgenomics So incredible, wow

[Kian Sadeghi @KianSadeghi5]

AI can now predict your future — before you’re born.

@nucleusgenomics just launched Origin, disease models trained on 1.5M genomes combining 7M genetic markers.

Origin predicts human longevity from embryo DNA more accurately than any model ever built.

And it’s open-weighted.

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@floguo @paradigmai Congrats!

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@annarmonaco Huge congrats!!

[Anna Monaco @annarmonaco]

Paradigm is the AI-native spreadsheet to eliminate menial work. Thousands of users have saved 10,000+ hours with Paradigm, and you can be next.

Get your first month free today, then plans start at just $20/month.

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@qasim31wani @ycombinator Awesome work Qasim!

[Qasim Wani @qasim31wani]

We built a system that detects highly complex objects NO vision model can find—introducing tool use for vision. 🧵

Say you wanted to detect for the @ycombinator logo in this image. (▶️ see step-by-step thinking)

Using our solution, it's able to detect the logo perfectly, *zero-shot* with just a single prompt!

Try it out: https://t.co/rKT3NBhM6y
Code: https://t.co/V5G9csfVhT

1/10

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@rauldoesnothing @fdotinc Hackathon days :)

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@hoomanrenezhad Huge

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

Landing back in sf tmrw. Would love to grab coffee, DM me!

[Aaru @aaruHQ]

Launching our collaboration with @Accenture. Together, we plan to harness the power of human simulation to provide our clients with a clearer lens into the future.

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@KianSadeghi5 @foundersfund @sevensevensix @neo @balajis @GiantStepVC Congrats!

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

Massive!

[Kian Sadeghi @KianSadeghi5]

I’m beyond excited to announce our $14 million Series A with participation from @foundersfund, @sevensevensix, @neo, @balajis, @GiantStepVC, One Eight Capital and many others.

We’re going to make preventable diseases a thing of the past. 🧵

https://t.co/TbDDZ4QhfM

[Kian Sadeghi @KianSadeghi5]

I’ve launched a podcast.

It’s called High Alchemy.

I’m inviting the finest founders to discuss the highest art form: entrepreneurship.

It is health focused, and will be the best place in the world to learn about the intersection of Silicon Valley and healthcare.

First episode below. Don't forget to subscribe on youtube! (link in comment)

[Will Blair @willjblair1]

@KianSadeghi5 The only thing NY is missing 🤷‍♂️