Month: September 2022

BARCELONA IS ABOUT TO BECOME THE NEW BOSTON. The flammable mix of superb universities, world-class publications, technology parks, great early money and trainings, and an optimistic young entrepreneurial crowd make it just like Boston in 1989. It has the same smell, same feel, same heady excitement. One big success here of a deal over 500 M USD and the Tipping Point will have been triggered. Deals are hugely undervalued and they have not been soiled by being picked over or over-shopped. This is one of my few predictions will come true. View in LinkedIn

SOME HOWLERS ARE WORTH A LAUGH! While at Élan I worked with a very smart consultant called Pam Wesley. She asked me if I would invest in her fiancé's startup. I looked at the biz plan, but felt it was simply a jumble sale with nothing to protect it, and declined. Not long after, Pierre Omidya, her fiancé, became the eBay billionaire after getting the plan that I trashed funded. Oops! View in LinkedIn

SOME HOWLERS ARE WORTH A LAUGH! While at Élan I worked with a very smart consultant called Pam Wesley. She asked me if I would invest in her fiancé's startup. I looked at the biz plan, but felt it was simply a jumble sale with nothing to protect it, and declined. Not long after, Pierre Omidya, her fiancé, became the eBay billionaire after getting the plan that I trashed funded. Oops! View in LinkedIn

FREE ONLINE COURSES WILL CHANGE THE JOB MARKETPLACE: knowledge has become fully accessible. The only thing between you and wisdom is will and motivation. And be sure that there is some super-smart person from the other side of the world who is taking full advantage of free knowledge. We are entering the knowledge sweepstakes: employers will be looking for the best prepared talent anywhere in the world to work on a virtual basis to solve specific problems. The smartest and most motivated will win. The office will become irrelevant for many tasks. This is the core of Open Sourcing. View in LinkedIn

LONG ACTING PROTEIN DRUGS are following the same path that controlled release drugs followed in small molecule therapeutics. The result is a reduced frequency of dosing. While this was very popular in oral drugs, the impact in injectable protein drugs will be much greater. This is particularly true for unpopular injections such as in the eye. http://lnkd.in/tQRNKq View in LinkedIn

CHINA HAS THE NUMBER TWO VC INDUSTRY AFTER THE US. Read this excellent summary of the Chinese VC environment. In reality, Chinese risk investment has been going on quietly and largely undocumented for centuries, and is far from new. The pockets of enormous wealth in China have always put their money to work by investing. The only thing that is new today is that there is a spotlight shining from the West, curious to see what is going on. http://lnkd.in/3JFcch View in LinkedIn

TAIWAN'S VC INDUSTRY HAS BEEN VIGOROUS FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS. They were one of the earliest to invest in a Knowledge Culture and mastered the semiconductor sector. As this started to migrate to cheaper manufacturing locations, they made a decision to invest in the healthcare sector. This resulted in a number of tech parks, exceptional tax holidays, and even deals where portions of clinical trial costs would be paid. They attracted many companies also due to their high GDP commitment to education, and respect for patent treaties. Many of this generation of industrialists were US educated. View in LinkedIn

BETATROPHIN CONTROLS REPLICATION OF PANCREATIC BETA CELLS IN MICE, and this has been a diabetes drug researcher's dream. Insulin producing beta cells are depleted in diabetes, so this is a stunning finding. While a long way to go, it is an encouraging discovery. http://lnkd.in/n5xsfH View in LinkedIn

PIEZOELECTRIC SMART SKINS FOR ROBOTS have been developed at Georgia Institute of Technology by Professor Lin Wang (BBC News April 26, Science magazine) using zinc oxide nanowire transistor arrays that turn mechanical pressures into small electric currents, in the same range of sensitivity of human fingertips. The goal is to enable robots or human-computer interfaces to have a sense of touch. 4-27 View in LinkedIn

CATALAN'S ECONOMIC MINISTER IS OPTIMISTIC. I met with Minister Dr. Andreu Mas-Colell at his Barcelona office. He was charming and thoughtful. This world famous economist and Harvard Professor has committed a chunk of his life to Catalan economics: over the last 13 years, he had created the Knowledge Revolution in Catalunya. He spoke of the continuing Catalan transition away from old mistrust by public entities of the private sector. He was animated about efforts to attract and retain international talent to the region. But above all, he was optimistic. View in LinkedIn