Autonomous Science Will Change Drug Discovery | Jimmy Sastra (Part 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, Jimmy covered Monomer's early days, early consulting projects, a thesis around autonomous cell culture, and building an integrated stack across robotics, software, and biology. He also described deployments from startups to big pharma and how a "land, pilot, expand" model helps teams scale. If you missed it, check out part three. In part four, Jimmy digs into capital strategy and company design, why fundraising is optional, how services inform scalable software, and why Monomer opened its own lab. He also reflects on decision-making under uncertainty, risk management, and the mindset behind their AI-powered cell culture hackathon, then offers shoutouts, advice to his 21-year-old self, and a bold prediction about autonomous science.

Jon Chee - 00:01:30: And you mentioned earlier in the early days of Monomer, your consulting biz was a profitable endeavor. And I believe you ended up choosing to raise some capital. When did you know it was time to do that?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:01:41: I think once we convinced ourselves, "Okay. There's something here that could use capital." And I've always tried to just build a great company, and fundraising is one of the tools in that set of tools you have at your disposal. Living in San Francisco, it may feel like every company needs to fundraise. I don't think so. It's just a tool, and there are perfectly great companies that have scaled to a great company and sometimes even big companies without venture funding.

Jon Chee - 00:02:11: Yep. Absolutely. And, again, it's... don't be the hammer looking for the nail and make everything look like a nail because I think that approach is refreshing. And sometimes it can be overly prescriptive in the way one problem-solves. And raising capital, like you said, is a way of solving a problem, but is it really the way you want to solve that problem? That's a decision one has to make for themselves, and I think I might have read a post about it or just listing out some companies that made it without going the traditional route and bootstrapping. And there are plenty of companies where it is, like, 99% of the time, you gotta raise capital. But there are therapeutics companies that bootstrapped.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:02:54: Yeah. In biotech. Yeah. Therapy companies.

Jon Chee - 00:02:57: Yeah. Therapy. There are.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:02:59: That is amazing to me. But yeah.

Jon Chee - 00:03:00: Yeah. There are therapy companies that have bootstrapped. It's just very unorthodox. And it might take a lot longer. Like, there are folks who, exactly who you said, created cash flow streams early in other business lines, and then they got into therapeutics. And they're like, "Let's use this cash flow stream to fund this and develop a pipeline." So it's like...

Jimmy Sastra - 00:03:21: And a flywheel. Yeah.

Jon Chee - 00:03:22: And you create that flywheel. And it's just like... and sometimes the services work informs your pipeline development. Or if you're trying to develop your own pipeline and or perhaps you have your own platform, maybe you generate cash flow streams off your platform, licensing opportunities, collaborations, whatever it may be. And then you're like, "We now can actually keep some of this IP for ourselves." Anyways, all that to be said, I subscribe to the idea that there's a bunch of different ways to capitalize a business and run a business, so I love that you're able to think of it from that perspective.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:03:54: Yeah. And I think, especially in today's biotech environment, you've gotta be creative.

Jon Chee - 00:03:58: Yeah. Gotta be creative.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:04:00: The advice out there now is, like, try and extend your runway as much as possible, run lean, but also maybe diversify, get other cash flow streams. But biotech industry aside, the state of biotech aside, it took me a chat with the CEO of Asimov to get a conviction to go back to services as well. So he, Asimov, both deploys their software platform at your lab, but can also do cell engineering services in their lab. And so that gave me the conviction this year, beginning of this year also, to build out our own lab where we can do pilot projects for customers as well as deploy our platform directly at the customer site. Now that we have a lab, by the way, we can do all kinds of fun stuff. I just like to plug a hackathon that we're hosting October 25th-26th. We'll be calling it the AI Scientist Cell Culture Hackathon, where we're opening up our robotic work cell and allowing participants to get hands-on growing cells on our automation, and we're bringing in other AI companies. Briefly, Cypher, and Potato, that are providing their AI tools to, for example, scour the Internet and find best practices and quickly create a protocol and run that protocol on our robotic work cells.

Jon Chee - 00:05:23: Very cool.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:05:24: And then it's gonna be a mystery cell culture that we'll announce the day of the competition.

Jon Chee - 00:05:29: Hell, yeah. That's awesome. And I'm curious, when you had that conversation with the CEO of Asimov, what did he say that got you to take the leap?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:05:37: Yeah. He said it was crucial for the survival of Asimov. The software is the scalable part, but the services informs the software. In your own lab, you can see it much more directly and get the cycles on... and dogfood your own software.

Jon Chee - 00:05:54: I was gonna say, like, look, that's the allure of software. Right? It's like, "Oh, this is infinitely scalable with zero marginal costs. Like, why don't we just do that?" But sometimes, you gotta do the unscalable to make the scalable work.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:06:10: Yeah. Yeah. I know investors love software. It's very scalable. Of course.

Jon Chee - 00:06:16: Of course. Like, "You're telling me I don't have to put more money in? You can just sell this into infinity? Why don't we do that?"

Jimmy Sastra - 00:06:21: And, also, investors love for you really to go all in, at least before "growth at all costs," to really focus in on one thing and really focus. And so then software and services sounds odd to them. But I think as a founder, I still remember investors have made many bets, so they've diversified. Yep. And they're wanting you to go all in on your thing. So there's a slight impedance mismatch there where founders do have to diversify a little bit.

Jon Chee - 00:06:55: Yep. I completely agree. And I think there's a little bit of a misalignment. Right? It comes with the territory. It comes with... it's part of the beast. But, absolutely, I think one of my business mentors, Sandy Page, has always said, like, "The best founders and CEOs are always risk managers."

Jimmy Sastra - 00:07:12: Risk management.

Jon Chee - 00:07:13: Yeah. It's like you're always managing risk, and the best ones do it. And that's not saying don't take risk. That's not the key here. It's just... but it's like thinking about the risk and managing it. And when you talk about diversifying these things, that's a risk management exercise. Right?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:07:28: That's maybe one unexpected thing of becoming CEO. There's a lot of worrying.

Jon Chee - 00:07:33: Oh, for sure. Like, I will do the same. Same. I'm right there with you.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:07:37: I should reframe it to risk management.

Jon Chee - 00:07:40: Yeah. It really is. It stems from my worries too and my anxieties around it. It's like planning for different scenarios. Right? Because the universe... you just never know. Shit happens is basically, I guess, the... is a more coarse way of saying it. Right? And so planning for when shit happens.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:07:59: Yeah. Risk management, really planning for when shit happens. I like it.

Jon Chee - 00:08:05: Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly it. You could call it into a bunch of different things. And that's why I'm always excited hearing about entrepreneurs if you're on this entrepreneurial journey. And it kinda reminds me of when you're in your graduate studies. It's like proving yourself that you can learn new things and teach yourself new things. Again, it comes back to entrepreneurship. Right? You now have your own space and you do services. That's probably a new thing, but you figured it out. Right? You just need a little bit of a push from a colleague of yours. But, like, I think for any entrepreneur out there, maybe I'll bring it home. For me, it's just, like, I never thought I'd be doing podcasts ever.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:08:42: I never thought I would be on one.

Jon Chee - 00:08:45: Right? So, like, see, we're able to do new things. And you don't even have to be a founder or an entrepreneur for this to be an important thing. Just like you can do new things.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:08:55: You can do new things. You can do the things that you don't want to do, like in grad school, those math classes I mentioned that were on fluid dynamics that... I was like, "I'm never gonna do fluid dynamics in my career." I had to pass those classes.

Jon Chee - 00:09:08: New things, hard things, and also different things. And what you just described is like a business... it's almost like another business line that is quite different. The business model is different. The motion is different. It's all different. But, like you said, when you... this orthogonal aspect is how you get... you know, and be where magic happens. And for us, the lucky side effect of the podcast is being able to have conversations. Like, I cross paths with people I never thought I would cross paths with. That is something else. It's like, I'm actually super shy. I don't like going to, frankly, social events outside of my, you know, close friends and family, but I'm not excellent at large social gatherings. But the podcast, I didn't wanna start the podcast. Actually, it was my team that forced me into it, and I'm glad that they did, kind of like the Asimov CEO just like, "Gotta do this." And then there's magic that happens. Like, I get to have conversations like this, and I get to meet people, and it connects the dots. And it informs other aspects of the business. And I'm gonna imagine the more you do the services, it informs the other pillars.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:10:21: Yeah. And now do you like it?

Jon Chee - 00:10:23: I do like it. I learned to like it. I learned to like it. I used to freak out and just like, "Oh my god. My palms are sweating. Oh god. Like, how am I gonna do this?" And now I'm like, "This is super fun." I look forward to it and find a lot of energy from it. So I guess I challenge anyone out there who might think, "Uh, this new thing I can't learn or so different that I'm unable to do it. I don't think I'll like it." Try it. Try it. You might learn to like it because, man, I had all kinds of preconceived notions about doing something new. As I'm sure before you started your services arm getting your own space, you probably had some notion on why you shouldn't do it.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:02: Yeah. "We gotta focus." That's the investors...

Jon Chee - 00:11:06: Just focus.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:07: "...on scalable things."

Jon Chee - 00:11:08: Yeah. "Sell more software."

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:10: You have to rethink from the beginning what does and doesn't make sense. Yeah. And it's hard because not everyone on your team agrees.

Jon Chee - 00:11:17: Yeah.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:19: But yeah. It's kinda like reading those math books. You know, I understand this. I understand this. I don't understand this, or this doesn't sit quite right. Go back. Oh, I don't understand this either. Go go to the beginning. So, like, okay.

Jon Chee - 00:11:35: I think another thing too that you just mentioned that stands out to me too is as an entrepreneur, if you're... obviously, you founded a company, you're making these decisions oftentimes with not enough information, and there will be people who also disagree with you.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:52: That are smarter than you.

Jon Chee - 00:11:53: Yeah. Right.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:11:54: More experienced than you.

Jon Chee - 00:11:55: So, like, it's hard. You have incomplete information. And then exactly what you said, the people that you look up to might disagree with you. But sometimes... I'm not saying you should go be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, but there are sometimes the right decision is despite the disagreement, which is the hard part. That's the super hard part. So I think that's another thing is just something I've noticed is that there's a lot of advice out there. Like, there's so much advice out there.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:12:27: Yeah. And blog posts and then the person that's smarter than you and on your team that's fighting for the company and will send you a blog post and... "Okay. Yeah. I guess that's... you know?"

Jon Chee - 00:12:37: It's hard. It's hard. Right? You have this information overload. So it's like as much as I enjoy that there's a lot of information at your fingertips now, it has made decision-making harder.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:12:49: Yeah. And so that is something I'm actively working on this year, being more decisive with not all the information and despite people telling me it's not the right thing, even if they're smarter.

Jon Chee - 00:13:02: Yeah. And I think that's a learned muscle and an acquired skill. And everyone can learn how to do this, but I think I made plenty of mistakes where I just went with the flow.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:13:11: Right.

Jon Chee - 00:13:11: Just like, "Alright. Well, everyone seems to be in agreeance here," and it just ended up being... we were all wrong. Like, we were all wrong. We can commiserate in that, but I would rather be right. Like, I'd rather it be right. So it's kind of this thing. It's kind of that independent... you gotta work the independent thinking muscle. And I think it's almost overplayed by saying "thinking from first principles," but that's really what it is.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:13:36: Yeah. My mind goes to thinking from first principles or your "recent founder mode." And I also hate bringing that up because it can be very misinterpreted.

Jon Chee - 00:13:45: Yeah. It's loaded.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:13:47: Loaded. Loaded. And I've had my shares of working for managers that I felt micromanaged. I still believe in leading with autonomy, but I think you've gotta learn when to turn it on and when to turn it off. And then turn it on when you have very good conviction.

Jon Chee - 00:14:03: It's situational. Like, it's just highly situational. Again, it's like the tools, the right tool at the right time. You can't just use this one lens. And I think Charlie Munger talks about it. It's like you talked about mental models. Right? It's just like you gotta have a bunch, and you draw on them at different times. And that's why he was such a legend was because he just knew so many domains and the lessons from each domain and just carried with him wherever he went. He was like, "Oh, that reminds me of this biological concept or something from psychology or finance or whatever." Anyways, I think I'm stoked for what Monomer is, like, you know, kind of, from the earliest days of consulting, building the three pillars, and now you have your own space, and you've taken this approach and you've drawn a line in the sand. Now looking forward one year, two years, what's in store for Monomer, and what's in store for you?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:14:54: I'd say, like I mentioned, October 25th, 26th, we're hosting this AI Scientist Cell Culture Hackathon. Super excited about that because it's bringing in all these different folks from different disciplines. We have scientists coming. We have automation engineers coming. We have data scientists, ML engineers coming. So that's very short-term. The next two years, yeah, I mentioned there are three ways of working with us. We can monitor your cell cultures in your lab with our software. We can generate data in our lab, or we can automate cell culture in your lab. And I think long-term, I think, yeah, we gotta stay true to our mission. So I mentioned from my earlier experience, seeing my little brother in an incubator, thinking about living cells as the foundation of life, staying true to our mission of developing tools that explore the unknown universe of living cells. We innovate with the goal of curing human diseases, and we inspire the world by uncovering intricate details of how life works.

Jon Chee - 00:15:59: Hell yeah. I love that. And I think something for company building is just never losing sight of that North Star. Like, why do you get out of bed to begin with? And there's plenty of distractions out there that can pull you away from that. So I love that remembering that is the guiding post for everything that Monomer does, so I love that. Well, Jimmy, you've been super generous with your time. First also, thank you. I appreciate it.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:16:25: Well, thank you for getting me out of my comfort zone and doing a podcast.

Jon Chee - 00:16:30: Of course. I'm having a blast. I hope you are too. And, you know, I've learned a lot, and I see a lot of parallels in kind of your journey as I see on mine. I feel like I am... it's like a kindred spirit. So thank you again.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:16:45: Yeah. I see it too. Both founders in biotech, challenging, massively complex industry. They're describing... they're having these challenges and maybe the way we carry ourselves in the world. I think similarity, at least in mannerisms.

Jon Chee - 00:17:02: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, uh, I mean, look, our family were in Indonesia. So it's like it goes all the way back. Well, thank you again. And, like, in traditional closing fashion, we have two questions. First question is, would you like to give any shout-outs to anyone who supported you throughout your career?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:17:18: I'd say right now, I have to thank my wife. She just gave birth to a baby girl seven weeks ago, and that's, yeah, a nonnegotiable nine months and then birth, and that's all on her. I try to help her with groceries and dishes and... Yep. Chores, and they give you tasks as a support person during birth. Yep. Massages and all this stuff, but, you know, the bulk of the work is on her.

Jon Chee - 00:17:45: Yep.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:17:45: And, yeah, she's always supportive in me doing this crazy startup that has massive challenges and complexity, but she knows that I like suffering.

Jon Chee - 00:17:57: So Yep. Absolutely.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:18:00: Our baby at seven weeks old obviously is still a peanut, so a great little joy. But, yeah, now the next tranche of work begins. But, yeah, it's all worth it. And, yeah, the baby girl is such a joy. I like to call her a little legume. Yeah. Little bean or little pea or little peanut. Family of legumes.

Jon Chee - 00:18:21: Yep. I love that. And the second and last question, if you can give any advice to your 21-year-old self, what would it be?

Jimmy Sastra - 00:18:28: I would say, like, "Don't worry too much." I guess, having lived this international life, I think, has given me... is one of my experiences I'm truly grateful for. The hard parts of that sometimes is, I guess, coming to The US, I was always under this constraint of my visa, which always had a finite date. So, at first, I was in school on an F-1 student visa, some deadline. So I had to stay in school or I'd have to leave the country. And I'd start work, like, OPT and then OPT, STEM extension, and then H-1B and then green card. And all this up to H-1B, I always needed to have a job or stay in school. And so this affects your work and what you choose to do, but also your personal life and your relationships because you always have this deadline, and you never know what's gonna happen. And, yeah, I really feel for the international students today, not to get political... it's not a political podcast, but I've always felt that pressure, but now I can't imagine what it's like to be an international student now.

Jon Chee - 00:19:35: Absolutely.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:19:36: Yeah. Luckily, over time, I got my green card, and things settled down, and there's a weight lifted off my shoulders. But, yeah, don't worry. 21-year-old Jimmy, it'll all work out. And I've, this year, decided to become a US citizen. I've had the option for a while as a green card holder to become a US citizen. Yeah. Maybe one reason to provide some stability for my family now.

Jon Chee - 00:19:57: Amazing. Yeah. I am a worrier. I'm a chronic worrier. Yeah. So I empathize, and I think...

Jimmy Sastra - 00:20:03: Oh, yeah. Warrior, risk management. Make sure you have some plan when shit happens.

Jon Chee - 00:20:08: Exactly. Like, risk management AKA "having a plan when shit happens." That's absolutely it. But, um, excellent advice.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:20:15: Maybe not to end on something that's worrying, something more hopeful. When I was 21, roughly that time is when they had the first DARPA Grand Challenge where they had autonomous cars racing through the desert. And I worked in the robotics lab, and I didn't work on autonomous cars at the time, but a lot of my friends did. And I remember thinking that they said the goal was for autonomous cars in cities, and I thought that wasn't gonna happen, that this was cool engineering, really cool robotics science, but there's, I thought, so many edge cases of how humans walk around in the world, the little signaling they do, all the regulations that need to be figured out. But now, today, you can take an autonomous taxi here in San Francisco. So that's... I would say to my 21-year-old self, "Autonomous cars? Actually, they're gonna happen."

Jon Chee - 00:21:09: Yeah. They could actually happen, and, honestly, the rides are sweet.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:21:14: I agree personally.

Jon Chee - 00:21:15: Yeah. They're pretty sweet. Like, if anyone has a chance to ride a Waymo in San Francisco, it's a magical experience.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:21:22: Surprisingly magical. Right? You say, "Oh, I got an autonomous car." Then you get into one.

Jon Chee - 00:21:27: I think it's a better driver than me. Like, I was like, "I thought I was a good driver," but I don't know all the technicals of how it happens. But it's just... you just see on the screen, it can see everything in such a massive... like, you just see, "Oh, there's people here." Yeah. Like, all around its perimeter. And you're like, "I would have never seen that as a driver." It saw this distant cone, like, two blocks down, kind of hidden. I was like, "How the heck?" And you can just see. Anyways, it is super rad, and I think that is definitely... as looking forward... cool shit is just beyond the horizon even despite how complex it can be.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:22:04: Yeah. And that's why I tell myself today that autonomous science is going to happen. It may seem impossible and impractical now, but I think because Monomer Bio is vertically integrated on cell culture, we are best positioned to solve this closed-loop, lab-in-the-loop, AI-in-the-loop challenge, and looking at autonomous cell culture. And in fact, we've shown already we can do autonomous media optimization on hematopoietic stem cells. So that's one project I'm particularly proud of. And so, yeah, I think autonomous science is going to happen.

Jon Chee - 00:22:43: Hell, yeah. That's a really rad future that I'd like to be in. So I'm stoked for you. I'm stoked for Monomer, and thanks again for taking the time. And, you know, I'm gonna take you up. We'll eat some Indonesian food in the near future. So, Jimmy, thanks again. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Jimmy Sastra - 00:22:59: Yep. Thanks, Jon.

Jon Chee - 00:23:01: See you.

Outro - 00:23:03: Thanks for listening to our four-part series featuring Jimmy Sastra. From his early fascination with robotics and optimization to pioneering lab automation at Strateos to building Monomer Bio's vertically integrated approach, Jimmy's story shows how curiosity, resilience, and cross-disciplinary thinking can redefine what's possible in science and entrepreneurship. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend. Join us for our next series featuring Sergei Yakimov, founding partner of LongeVC, a venture capital fund backing early-stage biotech and longevity-focused founders. A serial entrepreneur, Sergei has cofounded three deep tech ventures and raised more than $50,000,000 in funding. He also partnered with early-stage therapeutics companies on fundraising, IP protection, and clinical trial strategies, particularly in cardiovascular, oncology, and neurodegenerative disease. Beyond Venture, Sergei cofounded LongeVC, a medical tech company unlocking the value of biomedical data to accelerate drug discovery, and the Longevity Science Foundation, a nonprofit advancing research to extend healthy human lifespan. From startups to venture creation to global efforts in longevity, Sergei's path reflects both entrepreneurial grit and a deep commitment to changing how we think about aging and disease, 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.