Video Games & a Whim Led Me to Microsoft | Javier Tordable (1/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to the biotech startups podcast by Xceda. 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, John Chee. Our guest today is Javier Tour de Blay, founder and CEO of PAULING.AI, a company building the first fully autonomous drug discovery platform, enabling scientists to go from a research idea to validated drug molecules in days, not years, by orchestrating integrated computational pipelines through a conversational AI agent that requires no computational chemistry expertise.

Before founding Pauling.AI, Javier built a sixteen year career at Google, joining in 2008 and rising to staff engineer across webmaster tools, Google Ads, supply chain infrastructure, and the office of the CTO, where he spends seven years as the technical director partnering with Nintendo, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and the world's largest cloud customers. Before Google, he arrived at Microsoft as a loan intern from Spain in 2005, the only person they hired from his country that year. At pauling.ai, Javier is attacking the core inefficiency of drug discovery by automating the entire in silico workflow by using language models and agentic systems, collapsing months long computational chemistry campaigns into days. Named after Linus Pauling, the only person in history to win two unshared Nobel Prizes, the company reflects a conviction that first principles engineering can be turned on one of science's most consequential problems. Javier's journey from self taught kid in Spain through sixteen years at Google to solo founding an AI drug discovery company after his father's death from cancer makes this a conversation you won't want to miss.

Over the next four episodes, Javier traces his path from growing up in Spain, earning dual degrees in computational science and mathematics through nearly two decades at Microsoft and Google, building infrastructure at massive scale. He then shares the personal pivot that drove him into life sciences, the founding of pauling.ai, and his unfiltered view on why the biggest problems in drug discovery are not science problems; they're economic ones. Today, we'll hear about Javier's upbringing in Spain, how a love of video games sparked a self taught journey into programming, and how a father father who taught high school mathematics planted a deep love of the discipline. We'll also hear how Javier spotted a university poster two days before the deadline, applied on a whim for the Microsoft internship in Redmond, became the only person hired from Spain that year, and have made a decision that permanently redirected his career. Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Javier Tortoblay.

Jon Chee - 00:03:44: Javier, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Javier Tordable - 00:03:47: Thank you, Joe. Thank you for inviting me.

Jon Chee - 00:03:49: Of course. Right before we hit record, you were talking about how you were just in Mexico City, and, man, I'm so so jealous. Like, the I it's the one place that I haven't been. And, honestly, like, every story I've heard is actually a blast and is amazing. And I know we had this on the calendar for months now, and I think when we were setting this up, you were in the midst of your travels and, you know, I think it's been a pretty busy year here. But as we take this moment to just kind of reflect back on just, like like, slow down for a moment and just kind of unpack how you got here, take us all the way back. Like, what was young Javier like, and what was, like, growing up as an adolescent?

Javier Tordable - 00:04:28: Yeah. Goodness. That's a long time ago. I guess, we've been back, I don't know, twenty five years, something like that. Yeah. So I would say I was always very interested in science, in engineering, in building things. I remember I probably started playing video games when I was 13, 14 years old. And then right after, started thinking, well, how could I create my own video game? And I didn't know much about that. I didn't know anything about programming. I wasn't really in an environment that was, I think, conducive to learning all those things, but that always sparked my curiosity. I do remember trying to learn visual basic back then and trying to make a graphic adventure using visual basic, and it was a pain, of course. It's a miserable experience to try to do that, but it kind of led me towards a path where, you know, eventually ended up studying computer science and mathematics and so on. But the interest in writing software and building things, I think, stuck from that point. I mean, like so many other people. Right? I think so many of us started playing video games as young adults or as teenagers. And that leads you to a path where you think, well, you know, how does this work? Right? And that leads to a technology working intact that I think worked very well over the past few decades for so many of us.

Jon Chee - 00:05:40: Absolutely. Were your parents supportive of your gaming habit?

Javier Tordable - 00:05:43: I think so. Just for the most part. Well, I was always a very good student, and I was delivering my grades, so I never really got a lot of flack from my parents about that.

Jon Chee - 00:05:52: Yeah. I also was, like, an avid gamer growing up. I played a lot of StarCraft, a lot of Counter Strike, and my parents were just like, you gotta stop. Like, this is, like, you gotta stop. And then I was, like, tell I was, like, getting dinner with them recently. I'm, like, all of that is very like, it's helping me a lot right now. Like and they're just, like, I don't know how this connection, like, came to be because it's, like they were just, like, John, you need to get off the computer. Like, I just remember just, like, them just, like, taking the router away. They're just like, we gotta stop this. So, like, I guess it sounds like you had a household that was, like, generally supportive of your interest in computer science. When you're in school, was there, like, formal computer science tracks, courses, or is it something that you had to learn on your own? Like, find books and, like

Javier Tordable - 00:06:39: That was entirely on on my own. I I think in The US, there were probably in some schools where they had some material about that. In Spain, it was definitely very, very uncommon, especially at the high school level. So a lot of it was basically just reading books, learning on my own. The Internet was starting to be a thing. Right? I remember it's probably '96, you know, when got a modem and stuff that exited websites and all that kind of stuff. It's a whole different world than it is today.

Jon Chee - 00:07:06: Absolutely. This is actually a question. Did someone introduce you to all of this? Like, was it, like, a sibling that was like, hey. Check this out, or was it, like, did you see it, like, in a magazine? I'm always, like, curious, like, who introduced, like, the gaming and, like, kind of, like, technology. Like, do you a lot of times people are like, hey. Like, I was so lucky to have a computer. Like, what was that moment or, like, kind of, like, inflection point for you?

Javier Tordable - 00:07:27: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if there was an inflection point. I do remember getting a computer, and that was probably the first time that I played Gears. I remember playing some of the old LucasArts graphic adventures, so that was fun. But that was also, I think, one of the golden ages of video games where a lot of the classics that many of us will remember for at least started coming out. So the Nintendo 64, for example, had just came out, and a lot of us were playing GoldenEye and Zelda and so on and so forth. So that was definitely a lot of fun. Within the PC world, like, you started to see three d shooters. Right? Like, that was the birth of it. I think Wolfenstein came in, like, '92, and then Doom was '94, something like that. And then you had this explosion of, like, everybody wanted to do, you know, essentially the same thing. Right? So you have the Dooms and Quakes and so on and so forth. And, like, many other folks in Google Link, Duke Nukem, you know, that kind of stuff. All of those came out in the late nineties. And I think the industry was still young enough that people could take risks. You could build a game without a multi $100,000,000 budget. So there were a lot of original concepts, a lot of, you know, new ways of creating games. I think people were still kind of trying to figure out all that stuff. And, you know, at the same time, the technology was advancing so fast, and you had fairly sophisticated games and new experiences. Of course, like, nowhere near the photorealism that you can have in a game today. Right? But it's still at the time, I think it felt pretty amazing. Right? Like so you started to see open world games, for example, like, you know, sound that adapts to your environment, like, actual writing games, long stories, development arcs, and so forth. It wasn't just like Super Mario, you know, jumping up and down. Right? But you had, like, I think the emergence of video game as an art form. So I remember a lot of those a lot of games very fondly.

Jon Chee - 00:09:13: Absolutely. It's interesting just, like, piecing together, like, the different games that I played and, like, the different skill sets that I acquired from each game and especially, like, playing, like, StarCraft. It's kinda weird now. Like, it's reminiscent for me is, like, resource management, like, especially with, like, all this, like, token stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like resource management is like I just always remember just, like, insufficient Vespin gas because, like, you're right. And that gamified element just takes me all the way back when I'm, like, having my team. I'm, like, trying to resource this thing out. I'm like, okay. You know? Like, just, like, don't let the agent just go absolutely, like, ham on this. I think there was a meme on Twitter where the guy's, like, like, has a cigar and a blowtorch. It's like, this is me using, like, the like, frontier, like, four point cloud, 4.8 to, like, write an email and just, like, blasting it. I'm like but it scratches a similar ish where you're kind of, like, trying to optimize, like, across and make sure you're, like, adequately resourcing. So I guess all that to be said, that came from StarCraft for me.

Javier Tordable - 00:10:14: No. I mean, like, a 100%. I thought, you know, StarCraft, I mean, of course, like, was a massive, you know, success. Right? And, like, I mean, there's even today, I think there are still competitions and people play professionally. Right? Yeah. I was thinking there was this really cool project. I think somebody made an interface that looks a little bit like one of the old school pixel art role play games like, you know, Stardew Valley, something like that for agent management. So you basically have your different agents that have, like, little, you know, two d pixels moving around in this world that you have, like, kind of little farm where you're doing your project or whatever that the agents come and talk to each other and they talk with you, and then you kind of supervise, you know, whether they are kind of, like, digging vegetables or whatever. I mean, instead of the wallet, you manage a farm. Right? In the real world, you have an agent designing a marketing campaign and another one setting up your Google Ads and another one keeping track of your analytics, etcetera. Right? But you have this whole thing from the interface for a pixel art role playing game.

Jon Chee - 00:11:09: That's awesome because, like, I think that's something that, as of right now, they're kind of, like, invisible, and you kind don't know if they're, like, idling or what they're doing exactly. And there's gotta be I think, eventually, there's gonna have to be some sort of legibility on, like, what they're doing and, like, when and, like, audit trail of this thing.

Javier Tordable - 00:11:25: Yeah. How much money that is spending. Right? I think that's what we think today.

Jon Chee - 00:11:29: Exactly. You just see, like, Ubers. Like, we just blew the budget in, like, a couple months. Like, you just can't tell what's going on, but I would love to see it as, like, yeah, like, Stardew Valley or just, like, Harvest Moon or, like, something of that nature, which would be really rad. And, like, it's an interesting time because, like, although another game I played was, like, SimCity, that too. Like, that element of just, like, company building. And I think it's obviously in our industry and, like, we'll talk as we kind of get into, like, life sciences. Like, it's coming for life sciences too. But got distracted. You talked about games. You kind of, like, got me going on that. So, like, in high school, you know, you're studying computer science. It sounds like it's something that you pursued in your free time. When you were starting to think about university, where was your head at? Like, how did you choose the school that you went to and what to study?

Javier Tordable - 00:12:15: In Spain, you typically go to whatever school is closest. Right? So as opposed to, like, trying to pick necessarily most of the universities are public. Right? It's a little bit different than it would be in The US. You don't just apply for a school. Right? Like, you know, there's a national exam. You have to score highly on the national exam. And then based on that, you have the ability to choose one degree or one specialization or another. And that time was when the dark and blue was happening, actually. So let's also say late nineties. So I think from the beginning, I was very interested in mathematics. So I thought I was a teacher, mathematics at a high school, so I was what I really enjoyed, what I was passionate about. But, of course, there's really no order back then. There was no good way to apply that. Right? Like, it wasn't like, you know, now you could study theoretical physics and then go live and work for the show. Right?

Jon Chee - 00:13:03: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Javier Tordable - 00:13:04: Do, you know, quantum finance. But back then, and especially in Spain, that was not really an option. So I decided to study computer science. I got good grades. I was able to study, essentially, the university that I wanted to study and get into that degree. And my first year, I was basically just studying computer science. I think did really well. I was, I would say, well prepared because I had maybe a little bit better background in math than a lot of other folks. I remember spending the summer before college just studying mathematics and just for fun, and I loved it. That was, I think, a kind of foundational moment for me. But I spent the first year studying computer science, and then in my second year, I enrolled in a degree in mathematics as well. In Spain, again, it's a little bit different. It's not like a major in The US where you would have, you know, different classes that you have to take, and two people have to enroll on a on an entire program all at once. And then there's the 10%, 20 part of the load of that degree that you can use from other sources. But, typically, you have to do at least, you know, 80% or 90% of the classes within that program. But, of course, having that background in mathematics and computer science, a lot of it, you know, the logic, the calculus, you know, the analysis, you know, all that kind of stuff was common. So even if I had to do all the exams, a lot of the understanding of it, a lot of the material was the same. So I I did both, and, I mean, we'll, you know, maybe get a little bit of that. But, basically, starting on my second year, I was basically doing the two degrees at the same time. So that's why I ended up, you know, finishing, you know, computer science and mathematics as separate degrees, right, as opposed to, like, two majors. So why not?

Jon Chee - 00:14:34: Yeah. Were there any mentors or professors that took you under their wing or perhaps, like, inspired you while you're in university?

Javier Tordable - 00:14:43: Many. I think mathematics more than computer science, I think, is full of unique characters. You know, it kind of tends to attract a certain type of personality. I think computer science, especially these days, right, is more of an applied engineering discipline. So people tend to be more more practical, whereas mathematics is always, you know, theoretical. And people do it more for the beauty of it rather than the usefulness. So there's definitely a lot of, yeah, unique personalities. You know, I mean, I remember, you know, a lot of those folks, and I had very good relationship with many of them. From years after finishing, I would go back and say hi to them, you know, throw by, have some coffee at a beer or whatnot. And that was interesting memories. I mean, I think about it fondly enough, but definitely going through it back then was not easy.

Jon Chee - 00:15:27: No. I can't imagine. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend Noam at Immuni in Israel, and he was he studied math. And I come from a wet lab background, so just like a lot of, like, biochemistry, stuff like that. And we were talking about his experience and his, like, graduate research for math. He's like, no, man. Like, I just sit there with a piece of paper and a pencil, and he's like, it's pure pain. You're just like, you're there thinking really hard, like and just like sometimes, it's just like you go nowhere. And I was like, oh, like, I'm over here just like moving things around and, like, just like, no. No. No. I feel like I'm just like sitting there and just like trying to think really hard. And a lot of the time, you just get nothing out of it. But, also, one of my best friends studied computer science and math as well at Berkeley. And exactly, like, the intrinsic, like, beauty of it is something that is, like, consistent with him too. And, like, he did a lot of, like, topology math, and he was just, like, showing me kind of, like, the simulations and stuff he was doing. It's like, oh, that looks really rad. Like, it is like it looks awesome. Like, this is awesome. So, anyways, I am familiar with the math community. Interesting group for sure. And so when you're in school, were you like, okay. Maybe I could spend my time in academia and, like, study math? Or were you like, I'm gonna go to industry. Like, I'm gonna make my way to industry, and I know this already.

Javier Tordable - 00:16:49: I think that that came to mind at some point, but probably my second, third year of my undergrad, I was convinced that academia was just not for me. I think the pace was just very slow. I didn't really see a future behind that, and I just wanted to do something that was more more applied with more real world impact. So that was a pretty early start to thinking about that. And, you know, when I was working on my, like, final project for my undergrad degree, I was working on something very applied. I was actually interested in computer security at that time, so I was just working on something greater to that.

Jon Chee - 00:17:20: Were it like cryptography? No. More like

Javier Tordable - 00:17:23: intrusion detection kind of, you know, computer network security, firewalls, that kind of stuff.

Jon Chee - 00:17:28: I thought it would be, like, super math, like computer science, like cryptography math.

Javier Tordable - 00:17:31: A lot of that is super interesting. I mean, especially today, right, like, with cost quantum crypto. But, no, I think at the time, it was just, like, things that I saw as interesting having real world applications. And I think the, maybe, really significant pivot point in my career was getting an internship at Microsoft, and that was 2005. So probably something earlier in the year, I guess, or, like, late two thousand four, I don't remember. But back then, Microsoft used to bring in to Redmond a few interns for Europe. And it was a very small class, but Microsoft, of course, hires thousands of interns every year. Right? But the folks that they would bring in from outside of The US was much smaller. And I remember being the one person that they hire from Spain. There were maybe another, you know, 20 or 30 folks from Europe, but I was the only person that worked for Spain. And, I mean, in hindsight, it's very obvious how that drastically changed my career. Right? But back then, I thought, okay. This is cool. You know? I'll I'll go let us spend three months working, you know, here, and then, you know, at least I'll get an experience.

Jon Chee - 00:18:30: The summer vacation? Like

Javier Tordable - 00:18:32: It was yeah. It was not a summer vacation, but it was really a pivotal moment, I think, for me. Right? If you imagine, you know, coming from a different country, not having a connection, not having a degree from a US university. Right? It's very hard to go and say, well, look, how would you even break into tech? Right? I think that was the pivotal moment for me.

Jon Chee - 00:18:49: How did you find that opportunity? Was there, like, a career fair at your school or, like, a recruiter? Or

Javier Tordable - 00:18:56: Random poster at the university. Yeah. It's it's really strange. And I remember seeing it, like, a couple of days before. So it was pure chance. I was just walking by to a class. I remember seeing this poster, and I thought, okay. Sure. I'll apply. And back then, I mean, I as my hair, used to be a good student. I have very good grades. Right? So, like, I had some papers of, like, know what I have already completed. Right? But I used to be, I think, a good interviewee. I haven't done interviews in decades. So I don't even I don't even know if I could do it anymore. But back then, I used to be very good at the algorithmic problem solving. Right? So I think I was pretty good interviewer, and I did well. You know? And they ended up, you know, offering me that that interview. And then when I applied later for a full time position, right, you know, I ended up getting that as well. So that worked out very well.

Jon Chee - 00:19:40: I love that. And the reason why I asked is because, like, of how, like, those, like, kind of moments because like you said, it's, like, obviously, in hindsight, very pivotal. And sometimes, it's just like yeah. It's just like you see something and you just act on it, and there's, like, no rhyme or reason necessarily. I said, like, yeah, that looks cool. I'm just gonna apply to this. Like, sure. When I encourage everyone to just, like, take that kind of, like, spirit with them, just, like, go do things. Like, just even if it's just, like, a random like, if he's, like, in my department at Berkeley, they would always have, like, these opportunities just, like, slap it, like, on the corkboard. And, like, I met a lot of my closest friends by doing something like, basically joining a club on campus because there's, like, this happened to be, like, a little poster for it, which then it cascaded into, like, all of the career stuff now just because similarly, I was just, like, yeah, I'll go to the meeting. Yeah. Sure. Like, whatever. Like, you know, and I ended up meeting really cool people. So, like, for those who are, like, also, like, introverted, like, I'm that was not a normal motion for me because I'm just, like, left my own devices, I'll just, like, stay with myself. I encourage everyone to if you're like me in that way, like, come out of your shell and, like, it might be that meeting might be uncomfortable, but you never know what might come from it, honestly.

Javier Tordable - 00:20:55: That's an interesting thing, right, that happens in the Bay Area, for example, right, or, you know, maybe a few other places that it's kind of hard to understand unless you have gone through it and and and see the danger. Right? Like, there's a difference between places where things don't really happen to places where there is enough density of talent, of capital, right, of events, right, where things start to happen. And it is not a linear relationship. Right? Again, in mathematics, you know, like, the old in all the sciences in general, right, sometimes you have linear relationships, and then, you know, you have some object, you apply a force, it moves in a specific way, you apply twice the force, it moves, you know, twice, you know, with a specified effect. Right? And a lot of those things are very intuitively easy for humans to understand. But there are other much more chaotic relationships where you may have some process that, you know, if some specific parameter is, you know, 0.135, it doesn't happen. And if it's 0.136, then all sorts of miraculously amazing things happen. And I think this is one area where, you know, in the social sciences, right, when you have a place like the Bay Area, right, or New York or maybe a few other places in the world where there's enough concentration of talent or people doing interesting things, know, smart people doing interesting things where a lot of magic kind of happens. Right? So you go and get coffee with friends, and then you happen to be sitting next to somebody else that is building rockets. Right? Or, you know, you go out, you know, the next day, and there's a VC investor, right, that is looking for something. Right? Or you go watch a movie. Right? And at the end of the movie, you overhear a conversation about, you know, somebody raising money to create an AI driven discovery platform. Right? So in a lot of places in the world in most places in the world, those interactions don't really happen because there's just not enough density of people working on interesting, challenging problems. But in the Bay Area, they do, and it's very hard to replicate that. You know? A lot of people have tried to do that, you know, just putting more money or hiring more people or whatever. But it's hard to create an ecosystem where those interactions happen naturally.

Jon Chee - 00:22:49: Absolutely. And I think this is, like, in retrospect for me. Having grown up here, I kinda, like, took it for granted, but I was, like, so lucky that my parents did grad school at Berkeley, and they chose to settle down in Berkeley. I just thought this is, like, everyone's experience, and clearly not. Like, it's clearly not the everyday experience. And we're a remote first company, so we have folks who are all over the country. But there is something about being in this kind of, like, dense like, whatever industry you're in. Right? Like, there's, like, that density. Obviously, right now, there's a lot of, like, tech density in the Bay Area, but, like, every industry tends to have this. Like, if you wanna be in finance, you probably wanna be in New York. And you just insert whatever industry it may be. You know, if you wanna be in fashion, there's, like, different places to be. And for a moment, I was like, ah, it doesnmatter. The location doesn't matter. It's the Internet.

Javier Tordable - 00:23:39: Well, it matters less now for sure. Right? But I think it still has some relevance. Yeah.

Jon Chee - 00:23:43: Yeah. Exactly. And, like, you know, it's not a good exaggeration. Like, you go to your restaurant. You buy your $25 salad, like, that you do in San Francisco, and you will hear literally just, like, the craziest conversations, like like, just, like, as you're walking by, and that kinda, like, serendipity is very real. It is definitely an advantage that I didn't appreciate. You know, like, I'll oftentimes be able to strike deals, like, relatively quickly. You're just like, let me grab coffee with you, and a deal gets done. Like, versus, like, you have to tee up calendars, like, oh, you can do it over Zoom, and, like, you know, it's a whole thing. Things can get done, like, really quickly, which creates this, like, velocity and it's, like, feeds on itself, which is interesting. So okay. You got the internship at Microsoft. Talk a little bit about that internship. Was it, like, a culture shock? Like, oh, shit. Like, this is crazy. Like, this is, like, something that, like, one, it really resonates with me. And, like, I love this or was a kind of a culture shock where you're like, oh my god. I wanna go back home.

Outro - 00:24:43: That's all for this episode of the biotech startups podcast featuring Javier Tour de Blay. Join us next time for part two where Javier walks through his move from Microsoft to Google in 2008, becoming a tech lead six months in, and then pivoting through Google Ads and supply chain infrastructure where he studied MIT's MicroMasters program at night while building Google's cloud data center backbone by day. If you enjoy the show, subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. The Biotech Startups podcast is produced by subscribe. Exida 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.