The Hidden Advantages of Starting Up in a Downturn | Eswar Iyer (4/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup from pre-seed to IPO with your host, Jon Chee.

In our last episode, Eswar Iyer shared how his time at 10x Genomics shaped his thinking as a product leader, helping him turn ambitious ideas into real-world tools and laying the groundwork for a future in company building. If you missed it, check out part three.

In part four, Eswar reflects on founding Aikium, how he and his co-founder launched during a downturn, navigated early uncertainty, and built a platform around data-rich, model-driven therapeutic design. He shares what sets Aikium's approach apart, how he thinks about momentum, team culture, and focus, and why being intentional—especially when resources are tight—is key to building something that lasts.

Jon Chee - 00:01:19: That's a really good example. I love that.

Eswar Iyer - 00:01:21: So you don't know who's speaking with what, and proteins are actually speaking with each other. They're interacting with each other. So you're not capturing the protein-protein interactions, the dynamic regions of the proteins. And these are computationally too intense to model as well.

My co-founder was working on the world's largest supercomputer, Anton, at D. E. Shaw Research, doing some of the largest simulations. They are too expensive. You take a 100 amino acid sequence—they can have 10100 confirmations. So to try to do this computationally is extremely hard. There's a huge sparsity of data in making predictions. The flexible regions are very hard to modulate. And sometimes, the most important targets in the body like GPCRs, ion channels, and transcription factors are mostly these flexible regions. So the significant part that's accessible is flexible regions—the disordered region. And that is the opportunity that we wanted to go after.

So, let's make programmable binders that have these therapeutic properties. The state of the art today is antibodies, but they're not good at binding. We are designing antibodies and our own molecules called Seekers that go after this, but preferably will have some of these properties that we want. So the algorithm should be able to bake in some of these properties. In addition to binding and some of the developability, it'd be great to bake in some immunogenicity and so on. That way, from the get-go, you get a molecule that reduces your risk at a later stage of development.

And that is the whole promise of AI, right? Can you shorten my development time, and can you reduce the risk a little bit? It'll be nice to spend less money on it as well, of course. That's also nice. But more importantly, can you reduce the risk? Because you can save money for a later stage. You can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and then find out there's some problem that you could have solved. Right? So that's where I think AI can learn and reduce some of these things.

So we're trying to generate a lot of the protein-protein interaction data, starting with that. We almost have 500 million datasets or data points that are expanding exponentially. We're trying to add other datasets to them.

Jon Chee - 00:03:18: Very cool. Very cool. And can you talk a little bit about the earliest days of developing this? You know, kind of that journey thus far in the current state of your platform.

Eswar Iyer - 00:03:29: Yeah, the earliest days were very hard. When we started our company and we started fundraising, the market was crashing. So it was very hard, but we could see the opportunity so clearly. Again, having built a lot of value at different places, you could see this is really what's going to be a big deal. So we basically raised—we were fortunate to raise the first $50,000, then the next $100,000. And we started being very efficient. My co-founder, Shankar, figured out how to do work on these things without even having a lab. He was able to find the right people through his network to get some of these experiments done.

And then we started doing things. Then we were able to compete and get a position at Bakar Labs, which was very hard. And the interesting story is we had to pitch to this whole panel of about 15 people. On a Zoom call, you have about 15 people with serious faces, and you have about twelve minutes or so to pitch to get in. And at that time, I was taking care of my son, who was born a few months ago. And before these pitches—we were doing a lot of pitches, all of us—and before the pitch, my wife was out during that time; otherwise, she was helping a lot. And he was sleeping, and I said, "Make sure he was okay." But right when I started pitching, he started crying. So I had to pick him up during the pitch, and I started patting him and pitching without losing momentum.

And I was told later that that was one of the reasons they got impressed—that I could pitch without losing track. That's like a founder thing.

Jon Chee - 00:04:56: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It sounds like it.

Eswar Iyer - 00:04:58: By the time I was done with the pitch, my son was asleep too, and everything was good. So in some ways, it was a good event. So we then got some space at Bakar Labs, which is an amazing place. Very resourceful. You can rent out what you want, and they have very supportive staff. So it felt like we could get access to all the places.

It was extremely hard. You know, we had to be resourceful but exciting at the same time. You're always at the verge of something exciting or the verge of death, right? Always months away from something exciting or great, or complete death. If you embrace the fact that you're going to die anyway and then reduce that fear, then you're focusing on how you can minimize that risk. Imagine you're taking money from your parents' retirement fund. So treat that preciously, spend it carefully, but how do you make an impact? So it's a tight balance, but one that we have been learning to do. But things have gotten much better since then. So the initial days were very hard, and in some ways, it disciplined us quite a bit.

Jon Chee - 00:05:55: Absolutely. And how has your platform developed since then? You talked about how when you can minimize the anxiety of potential death, you can focus on the upside. As you developed it from the earliest days to now, how have things evolved? What does the platform look like in its current state?

Eswar Iyer - 00:06:13: Usually, when a startup starts, they sometimes license the technology from an academic lab. We didn't have that luxury, and plus, we were thinking of something fundamental. Again, here's when naivety helps, but here we were not naive. In some ways, we had the professional experience. We knew this would be hard. We had a sense of what the resource and time it would take, but we knew it was a hard problem. But we really wanted to do that over anything else. Because the upside is going to be so huge. So it was really hard.

You're trying to, on a shoestring budget, build a platform, design, build, test it, and you're building the computational aspect of things, generating some data, and you're asking, "Is it even working? Is it even working?" It's almost like trying to kick-start a scooter, and it's not starting. And after a long time, it suddenly starts humming, and you're like, "Oh, holy crap. Okay. It's humming now." So it was like that, except it took a while for us to get to that stage because we were very critical. We were like, "Is it even working? Is this piece working? I don't believe it. Let's do some more controls," and so on.

So that was how it was. It always felt like it was working, then we would have some more doubts. Have we done this? Let's check the error here, and then let's run some more controls. And you're always trying to fundraise, hitting milestones. So it was a very efficient process, but we were also very critical on the science side. We get along really well as people, but we take absolute liberty to be critical on the science and other things. That's the only way you can build a business, right? Nothing personal, but show me this works. And then you go and do these things. Each of us does our part.

So it was hard. You know, each of us had to make different sacrifices. And I think over time, we started seeing results where you could say, "Okay. It's working. It's working. It's working." Then it started going more exponential. And then we built the wet lab side of things. A big part is working with really talented people. We are so fortunate to recruit some really talented people to the lab. That really helped a lot. Like, our first employee, Andre, and the other team members that have joined subsequently have been so good that that really helps a lot too. That makes things so much better. Now you have more people thinking, more decisions.

So it's been hard, but it's been exhilarating and rewarding. But it's always on the verge of building something exciting. Now it's catching a lot of momentum. A few things have changed, right? When we were starting, we were the ones to say data is more important than these parameters. If you just build an algorithm with better parameters, it's not going to scale well. You need better data. It'll exponentially scale it. Just by scaling laws of algorithms, if you look at it, data will exponentially scale your whole AI algorithm. There's actually—OpenAI did research on this. Whereas parameters will improve the algorithm somewhat, data is going to be much better. But it is hard to convince people or make them see the vision.

Now, thanks to this momentum of protein folding getting here, the Nobel Prize, and a lot of the pharmas suddenly realizing, "Oh, okay. AI is here to stay. It's not a fad anymore. We believe it. Okay. Show me how it's going to do." We also got some really good shout-outs from the Stifel Report, which is a leading report in the space, and that called us out as the hottest startup in the space. And we got some more awards, so that built a lot of momentum for us. So that helped, now seeing that what we are speaking is getting validated in the market traction that we're getting and the people that we're speaking with.

Jon Chee - 00:09:32: Absolutely. Absolutely. And at this stage, are you contemplating doing partnerships with other biotechs or pharmas? Are you at the stage where you're conceptualizing a go-to-market, or is it still, "We are refining this thing before we do a go-to-market?"

Eswar Iyer - 00:09:48: I think we have to do both at the same time. The platform is never fully built, but you have to call it a version one at some point. So we have a version, I would say, more like version four right now, and it has all the pieces: the design, build, test, and so on. The key difference that we have with others is we can make a trillion proteins experimentally and test them, and we feed that to the AI. So the AI is learning from actual experimental data. What cannot be computed—it's almost like quantum computing, where you do so many things in parallel. Here's where the principle of George Church, the principle of massively parallel experimentation, comes in. You can do a trillion things simultaneously and look for winners. What would be insurmountable computationally, you can do experimentally in a very short time. That goes in, and then you learn those patterns. AI is very good at pattern recognition; you teach the pattern. But you teach it such diversity that it learns.

So, to the question about the business side of things, ideally, we have to carve our identity separately. We want to work on things that others cannot do or find hard to do. Work on hard problems. Literally, just say, "Give me your hardest targets. Give me what you feel." Let me give it a shot, right? We have nothing to lose. So that's kind of how we are looking for things because that's when we know where we are going to fail and get better. Right? You work with the best people, you get better. Our goal is to become exceptionally good at this part. Potentially take a few molecules in the future, but become exceptionally good. The only way you can do that is to work with the best people on their hardest problems.

This problem is not going to be written in a textbook chapter or on a YouTube channel. This is going to be something that an insight that somebody is going to share, or you get by working on a hard problem that everybody is failing at. So in that process, we were really fortunate to close a few partnerships. We have three partnerships with top cancer hospitals, both internationally and in the US. And we have a partnership with one of the top three pharmas on a very hard target, and we made some promising progress on that. So all of that gives us more validation for what we're doing. And eventually, we want to naturally build our own assets and so on, but this helps us build momentum, get non-dilutive funding, gain traction, and learn what the problem is. That's the only way you can be the best.

Jon Chee - 00:11:58: Absolutely. And the way you described it throughout your journey, it's just like you learn by doing, and you're still learning by doing right now. And also doing things in parallel, continuing with v4. You'll get to v5 and then continuing to solidify these partnerships. And for the focus of your company, you talk about large pharma, health care systems. Are there other folks that you're seeking to partner with too, or are those the focus areas for you guys?

Eswar Iyer - 00:12:23: I guess there is a push towards having more paying customers. If you have something that's meaningful and valuable, can someone pay for it? I can probably raise a lot of money and then do something in the end, but I would like to see proof sooner. In some ways, that will be more helpful. So focusing on that, anything that can become more clinical, that's going to accelerate the path to clinical. Because our goal, our mission is, Aikium should be able to make molecules that get into the clinic rapidly. That's the only way we can sort of see this being super valuable—the mission connecting, where our best skill meets the greatest need. The greatest need is, can we make better medicines? And it is useful in some way. We can't do the whole thing maybe yet, but can we start doing this? So we want to push more molecules, work with partners who have the infrastructure to take these molecules all the way, partner with them or co-develop with them, and so on.

Also, some interesting hard problems, right? I think we're trying to stay very focused right now on those sectors. Like, cancer hospitals make sense because we are particularly asking for targets where current methods have failed. You could not generate an antibody with current technologies. So all the partnerships have been on that, and the pharma partnership is also around that. So I think we have to stay focused for this period until we know that the platform is actually able to deliver what we want and keep honing it, and then go to the next stage.

Jon Chee - 00:13:45: Absolutely. One step at a time, honestly. Like, don't try to boil the ocean because that's when you get into issues. And the past couple of years, obviously, have been, like you said, the market has been kind of like a roller coaster. When it comes to fundraising and for other founders out there who are on that journey, what's your philosophy on fundraising? Any tips for anyone out there who's on that journey right now? What's your kind of north star when it comes to raising capital?

Eswar Iyer - 00:14:09: I can share my experience. I'm not sure if I'm master enough to give advice to people, but I'm happy to share a perspective that's helpful. I think at this point, the only reason to do a startup is if you're so passionate. You shouldn't do it because you kind of want to try doing a startup. It has to be so compelling that you just can't think of having another job. If you don't pass that test, it's not it. It has to be compelling in some way. You just have to feel like there's nothing else I can do.

And if that is the state that you're in, then I think proceed forward. People have told me this before. I wouldn't have understood it until it happened to me. Perhaps it's like love, but it's so compelling. I don't know if there's any other job I can do right now. This is what I want to do. My co-founder says this: he wishes this is the last job that he has.

And definitely, the market is not the most favorable because biotech public markets are not doing very well. During COVID, there was a boom and then there was a bust, and that dampens things a little bit on the early-stage deals. But I believe that if you're really passionate, there's always someone who will be willing to support you. One of the things I look for is to find the right partners who can see the vision that we're seeing. The money comes with some constraints, right? And you have a vision. You may not exactly know where you're going to land, but you know broadly, this is the direction I want to go in. I'm going to figure a few things out on the way, but this is where I want to go. And there are some people who can see that much more clearly, and some people see it slightly differently. In some ways, you have to have clarity on what you don't want to do and what makes more sense. And aligning with those kinds of people, finding those partners, is important. We are very fortunate to find such people who have been extremely supportive and willing to support and continue supporting us. So that's been really good for us.

Being creative in fundraising is a function of, I think, larger VCs may want to pull these larger mega-rounds that are happening, and that requires a certain kind of team that they want to put together. In some ways, that de-risks their capital. But if you're really believing in your idea and you want to go for it, I think there'll be people who'll still support you. We also understood why angels are called angels. They were super valuable. We found some amazing angels who've been super supportive. So it's a very humbling experience, but one that's also—you know, we've been very fortunate in that process to find the right partners. I can't really say this is advice. Just to say, don't do it unless it's compelling, but there's always someone out there who will see it and want to support that. If you truly believe in the mission and if you have the right reasons to do what you're doing, I think someone will see it.

Jon Chee - 00:16:42: Absolutely. And maybe it was the wrong framing of it. Maybe not advice, but perspective. It's perspective. And I tend to agree. This is hard, and you have to want to do this because it is so hard. It will make you—it's like running through walls every day or chewing on glass, and you have to have that passion for it. Because if you don't, it's going to be a nightmare for you. It's just going to feel absolutely terrible. And so I think that's—it's not to dissuade anyone necessarily. There's a lot of fun to it as well. But it's fun-hard. It's not torture. That's not what I'm trying to get at, but it's just like highs are highs, lows are lows. I think Marc Andreessen said something like, "It's either euphoria or sheer terror."

Eswar Iyer - 00:17:31: I think you put it really well. There's a high responsibility. You also want to make sure that you do well for the people who have taken a bet on you, who've put faith in you. And it's not just people. Your family really believes in you, and everyone who's involved—you are taking them along on the journey. It's not about you. Really, it's not about you. It's about the mission. You're trying to do something positive, and you're just a source and a conduit, and you want to build this resource to do this—a catalyst. And there's so much that goes in from the family side, from the investor side, and you really want to be successful. So you're striving very hard to do things. Your task lists are never complete. You're perhaps not getting enough sleep, but still, it is satisfying. It's like having a child.

Jon Chee - 00:18:19: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard, but it's fun. Like, it's hard but fun.

Eswar Iyer - 00:18:23: I couldn't have gotten it before I had a child. I would think, why would somebody—it seems everyone who's a parent says it's so hard. They're always talking about diapers and things, and why would you do this? Why are you doing this? And then you realize that when you do this, that it's also very rewarding, and it's a responsibility and all these things. But at the same time, it's serious. You really have to—you're not doing this for fun. It's a business. And you have to have a certain discipline. So it's a mix of all of those things. The stakes are very high.

Jon Chee - 00:18:52: Absolutely. And yeah, I think that is some great perspective. I feel the same way. And I think the listeners will appreciate it because it's kind of this thing, it's like, the more you know before you jump in. Because, like you said, sometimes in PhD programs, people go in and they have a bad time. If we can help people not have that experience when they start a company, I think that's a win. And if you're like, "That sounds great. I actually still want to do this," fantastic. You might have a great time. But just like in a PhD program, it can go both ways. So the more you know...

So if you're looking one year, two years out for you and the company, what's in store for you guys?

Eswar Iyer - 00:19:29: In one or two years, I think this is going to be gaining a lot of traction. Just doing more hard targets, building a portfolio, and taking some of our own candidates forward. We have a few candidates that we're working on, and I think that's going to be a very exciting phase for us. You know, working with some partners because you're an engine that can craft molecules. So then can you craft more molecules, make them better, and do it more efficiently, and learn in the process?

And now can you broaden it up? I can't say this is a tool that can be opened up, perhaps not immediately yet, because there's a lot of craftsmanship and understanding that goes in. But you're also building all the agentic workflows because we just can't handle all the data coming in. Just from the sheer volume and the discipline of being very resourceful on the constraints, we had to say, "Okay, I need to make sure this is automated. What I'm doing is automated in some ways." So that helped us build some agentic workflows and so on.

So I think this is going to be scaling more, bringing more revenue, but in the process, hopefully, focusing on a few molecules that we can also drive towards, without taking on that full risk of betting on the biology of a molecule. So that, I think, is going to be the thing. And work with the best partners. I expect to be working with the best, the top 1% of the teams on some hard problems. We may not succeed in all of them, but I want to find a way to work with them where we take some of the risk. And if it works, we want to strive very hard on making that work. Because that really opens up the door to these targets that you cannot have access to. There are therapies that could be happening that you just cannot access.

So if you think about all the therapies that are happening today for cancer, there are about 20 targets that you sort of have binders to. Now you're doing the next generation, maybe conjugating with payloads and doing things and so on, right? So there's target discovery that's happening, but then from making molecules, there's also some limitation. If you can unlock that, there are new targets like neuroinflammation and others. You kind of know this, but if you can create new ways of allosterically modifying them or giving more options, I think that'll just make this more enriching, dynamic, and also perhaps stimulate that whole space. It may not happen overnight. That's kind of the momentum that we want to push. We want to strive to get to a place where we can work with the best and start pulling some molecules and take some of them ourselves.

Jon Chee - 00:21:49: Very cool. No, this is exciting, to be quite honest. I think the efficiency gains... it's like, how can we bring in more efficiency gains so, ultimately, we can put more good out into the universe? And I can get behind that mission. And also, I do like that, you know, sometimes people are like, "Are you a platform company, or do you just have a candidate that you're trying to push?" Why can't we do a little bit of both? So I like that approach too because they synergize and work off of each other. So why not go for it?

But you've been so generous with your time. And I just want to thank you for sharing all of your insights and your experiences. I've learned a lot. I've had a blast. So in traditional Biotech Startups Podcast fashion, we have two closing questions. One, would you like to give any shout-outs to anyone who supported you along the way?

Eswar Iyer - 00:22:38: I mean, this would be a very, very long list because I really feel very grateful for all the people who support me. But definitely at a high level: my family, very closely—my wife and my kids. They are as much a part, in some ways, of supporting me through all the ups and lows. My parents, my in-laws, they basically take the brunt of coming and supporting us when we need it. A huge part.

I really want to thank my co-founders. Of course, I'll thank my co-founders and their families as well. And my co-founders, of course, for just going along the journey without an ego, in some ways, and not worrying about titles or names and just trying to work on the mission. And their families and all the people that are working in the company. And the investors—those would be the biggest shout-outs. Like, everyone who's invested in us, thank you. It means a lot to us, and we're working hard to make sure that we can—that motivates us on a hard day. We are like, "Okay. We're not going to let you down. We're going to do something."

And, of course, the mentors who have been very generous and supportive. There are so many events and so many things that have happened that you may not have deserved by standard terms, but they've happened by grace. So I cannot even name all of those things, but perhaps, hopefully, I was able to touch on this. Hopefully, we are able to create a company and culture where we can pass it on. You know, create an infrastructure and a catalyst where people can work on their passion that turns into an obsession that can turn into something good. That's a purpose-driven manner. That's our motto, "Where passion meets purpose." We want to have people working on purposeful things.

Jon Chee - 00:24:15: Hell, yeah.

Eswar Iyer - 00:24:16: The dream and hope is that it's a catalyst where we can do more, but it's a stable, very successful business, which gives fulfillment to everyone involved—the investors, the employees.

Jon Chee - 00:24:26: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I sometimes feel bad asking that question because I don't want people to feel like they're choosing favorites. That's not the intention. You don't get an opportunity to really just go all the way back. So I love that. I couldn't have said it better. And then last question. If you could give any advice to your 21-year-old self, what would it be?

Eswar Iyer - 00:24:48: Doubt yourself less and move faster would be one thing that I would say. And discipline and focus is another aspect. Be focused, disciplined, doubt yourself less, and learn from the best. Don't be shy. Learn from the best. Sometimes you're doubting yourself before you do things. I mean, I always try to do it, but there's always something that's pulling you back. So just believe in yourself. Do things for the right reasons, and try to do at least a few things without expecting anything. I can't say that in real life, you can do everything, but at least things will find a way to work themselves out. You don't have to keep an account of things.

Jon Chee - 00:25:26: Yeah. Absolutely. No, I could use that advice as well. And I mean, it just reminds me of your wife saying, "Send the resume to George Church." Give the resume. Like, "You got it. You got it, Eswar, you got it." But I love that. I don't think I could have rounded this out in a better place. You've been so generous with your time. Thank you again.

And I love that you're at Bakar Labs. You know, every time I get back to Berkeley—I grew up in Berkeley, so it is in my heart. Even though I'm in San Francisco now, I still am—you can take the boy out of Berkeley, but you can't take Berkeley out of the boy. I will always be the Berkeley boy. So I love that you're over there. And thanks again. This conversation's been so fun, and I think the listeners are going to find so much value from it. And I love how in the middle of the conversation, we got into a little bit of life philosophy too, about the universe. So these conversations, I have an idea where they can go, but I'm always pleasantly surprised by the detours and the nature of this. And thank you again. You've been so generous.

Eswar Iyer - 00:26:27: Thank you, Jon. These were very, very thoughtfully asked questions, and I couldn't have expected a better conversation. It was really a pleasure speaking with you. I would have to ask you, having some similar experiences—now you have this wonderful business that's helping a lot of startups that may not be able to afford equipment and things like that. So creating this business, do you have a high-level take on what you've learned?

Jon Chee - 00:26:50: I mean, I love that you're asking that question because I think the conversations I've had on this podcast and also on the Excedr side, just having worked with companies for a long time now, I think it's actually what you highlighted. It is that will. It is that sheer willpower to chew on that glass. Really, it is. Because I think a lot of the time, companies cease to exist when the team loses that passion, loses that will. And I think that is the differentiating factor through it all to be able to get through hardship. Because sometimes the technology doesn't work or the business model doesn't work, but you can reinvent yourself. I think people forget that. It's going to be painful as hell. You're going to have to have very hard conversations. There will be people that are upset. You're going to feel like you failed everybody. But if you can get through that and find a way, that's where the willpower comes through. It's like if you figure out, "Oh, crap. We have to make a hard pivot." And when I say a hard pivot, we almost have to make a 180-degree pivot, right? That's hard. That's really hard, but who has the will to do that?

I think that's the magic sauce. It's like, how bad do you want it? And that's ultimately it because I think people are resilient. And if you have the willingness to fight through that and get through these rough patches, you ultimately will. And like you said, especially in this age of the Internet, you will be able to find a like-minded person who can be supportive of your mission. But if you are not passionate about it, how can you get them to be passionate about it and join the cause? So I think you said it best. And I tend to agree after I've had these conversations and seen because sometimes companies don't pan out. But a lot of times when we do a postmortem, it's just like, oh, there's a dispute or someone wanted to do something differently. Life comes at you fast and this is not what you want to do anymore. But finding that passion and that north star, I think, is a big differentiating factor.

Eswar Iyer - 00:28:53: Wow. That is so well said. Yeah. I think that was very, very well articulated, and I think that probably should be the key highlight of this talk. That was beautifully said. I think that makes a lot of sense. If you lose that passion, why would somebody else do this? And it comes down to how hungry are you. Now, how bad you want it.

Jon Chee - 00:29:13: Yes. That's exactly it.

Eswar Iyer - 00:29:15: Sometimes, unless they cry, you don't know they're hungry. And sometimes the universe may want to do things. When I say universe, I mean your friends, family, or people, but how badly do you want it? Are you just tempted to do something, or are you really, really hungry, like ravenous? It's so compelling that you cannot not do this.

Jon Chee - 00:29:34: How can you bring someone on if you're not excited about it? Right? You can't lead it and be lukewarm because no one else wants to join in. No one's like, "They don't seem that interested. Why would I want to do this?" So I think that's really important. People talk about, "Oh, you got to love your work." It's a little bit different than that. It's like, are you passionate and excited about it? Right? It doesn't have to be a love thing. Like, I love eating. I love eating food, growing up in Berkeley, but that's not what I want to do for a job. Because I want enjoying food to be a thing I do for pleasure. It's a difference between being excited and passionate about the thing that you're working on, what you can get out of bed and just be ready to do.

It's a little bit different. But whether you're thinking of leaving a big company or coming out of academia, I encourage everyone to just think about that. It's more of an inward-looking thing than it is an external thing. It has to come from within, mostly.

Eswar Iyer - 00:30:41: So well said. That's so well said. Yeah. And that's something that you can sort of learn from all of these things, but that just has to come from inside, bloom from inside.

Jon Chee - 00:30:50: Absolutely. And I think sometimes people make the mistake of trying to find it externally. It is an introspective exercise more than anything. And you can get help by talking to people about it and bouncing ideas, but ultimately, at the end of the day, that comes from within. So I'm now waxing philosophic, but yeah. Thank you for actually, you know, I love that you turned it because I'm not oftentimes on the other side like that. So, thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Eswar Iyer - 00:31:14: No, it's great. I just became curious because we're doing similar things, and I think your perspective seemed very interesting. And it's just very interesting that they sort of converged on—even with very different life experiences and all this, there's a convergence.

Jon Chee - 00:31:27: Of course.

Eswar Iyer - 00:31:28: It's very interesting for me. Thank you.

Jon Chee - 00:31:30: Absolutely. Yeah. And the next time I'm in Berkeley, maybe we can get some Top Dog or we can get a coffee at the Blue Bottle. I'd love to make my way to Berkeley, but thanks again. And I can't wait for everyone to listen to this, so I'm really pumped up for that. I hope to talk to you again soon.

Eswar Iyer - 00:31:43: Perfect. Thank you so much, Jon. Yeah. Thank you.

Outro - 00:31:48: Thanks for listening to part four of our conversation with Eswar Iyer. From launching Aikium to building a focused, mission-driven team, Eswar's story highlights what's possible when scientific vision meets thoughtful execution. If you enjoyed the series, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend.

Thanks for listening. Join us next time for our series featuring Andrei Doronichev, Founder and CEO at Optic, an AI-powered drug discovery platform for rapid molecule screening and testing. Optic is building a complete Agentic AI platform for biopharma, a system that not only generates outputs but also plans, reasons, and even writes its own code to pursue drug development goals. A veteran of the tech industry, Andrei previously served as Director of Product at Stadia and Director of Product for Google AR/VR. He's also a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded multiple ventures across sectors from virtual reality to community building. With a track record of leading groundbreaking products at the intersection of technology and user experience, Andrei now applies his experience to revolutionizing biotech with AI, making this a conversation you won't want to miss.

The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website, www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening.

The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service, or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.