Guest: Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks
Almost everyone in the second generation of biotechnology entrepreneurs, says Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly, works in that field because of one thing: Jurassic Park. The Michael Crichton novel-turned-Steven Spielberg movie captured both the wonder and beauty of bioengineering, and the challenges of bending DNA to your own ends. “You didn’t invent biology,” Jason says. “You need to have humility in the face of it ... because life will find a way. It will do things you don’t expect. It’s not a computer.”
In this episode, Jason and Joubin discuss the Wall Street rollercoaster, designer cells, the history of biotech, Herbert Boyer and Genentech, ChatGPT, extinct flowers, Sam Altman and YCombinator, first principles thinking, compounding risk, Patrick Collison, super-voting shares, capital intensive businesses, Pets.com, and why biology is like “freakishly powerful alien technology.”
In this episode, we cover:
- Being private vs. being public (00:58)
- How bioengineering works (04:27)
- Jurassic Park (08:51)
- Biotech breakthroughs (12:15)
- Why this field is not well-known yet (16:57)
- “The ChatGPT moment for biotech” (22:05)
- Meaningful stuff takes forever (26:23)
- Ginkgo’s first five years (29:02)
- Why the company went public (36:20)
- Short sellers, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk (42:08)
- Applying AI to DNA engineering (47:57)
- The long-term future (55:57)
- Who Ginkgo is hiring (58:39)
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