The Rule of Three: Career, Family & One Other Thing | Mati Gill (1/4)

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.

Our guest today is Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs, a first-of-its-kind AI venture studio built on the Israeli innovation ecosystem and backed by global pharma and technology leaders with a mission to build and grow groundbreaking AI companies in biopharma, bringing together brilliant minds, pharma expertise, and cutting-edge technology to shape the future of drug discovery and development.

Before leading AION Labs, Mati built a career spanning public service, legal management, and operational leadership, serving as a minister's bureau chief in the Israeli government, then spending over a decade at Teva Pharmaceuticals, rising from legal intern to global legal COO to the architect of Teva's external innovation program, where he made an early bet on AI and machine learning in Israeli R&D before most of the industry knew why.

At AION Labs, Mati leads a model of company creation that combines pre-seed funding, pharma partner validation, and a precommitted proof of concept framework that removes the risk killing most early-stage AI biotech companies before they get traction. With partners including Teva, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, and Amazon Web Services, Mati's journey from American-born kid who moved reluctantly to Jerusalem at 12 to IDF officer to lawyer turned government official to pharma executive turned venture studio founder shows what it looks like when someone spends a career building exactly the skills their mission will one day require, making this a conversation you won't want to miss.

Over the next four episodes, Mati shares how moving from Columbus to Jerusalem at 12 years old became a deeply chosen life. He traces his path from six years in the IDF through law school and the minister's bureau run in parallel into over a decade at Teva, then the convergence of personal ambition, Israel's bioconvergence policy, and pharma partner alignment that coalesced into AION Labs and a single conviction that Israel is uniquely positioned to lead the future of AI-driven drug discovery.

Today, we'll hear about Mati's upbringing, born in Ohio and transplanted to Jerusalem at the start of his bar mitzvah year, and how a trial move became a permanent chosen life. We'll also hear about how a legendary constitutional law professor handed him a D on his first assignment and transformed him from a coasting student into a serious one, and how six years in the IDF, three beyond mandatory service, instilled the core values he still runs every major decision by today. Lastly, we'll hear about the rule of three that structured every major commitment in his life—career, family, and one other thing at a time—and why a single persuasive argument from a former commander convinced him to say yes to a minister's campaign, setting the rest of his career in motion. Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Mati Gill.

Jon Chee - 00:04:09: Mati, so good to see you. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Mati Gill - 00:04:09: Thank you, Jon. I know this has been a long time coming. I think it's almost been a year. So really looking forward to having this conversation with you.

Jon Chee - 00:04:09: And before we hit record, I was just thinking how much has changed, especially in the world of AI, life science, investing. We're now living in this, let's say, I've heard a description of it—we're now post-BC, Before Claude. We are now in a post-Claude world. But, anyways, we always like to start from the very beginning so we can learn about what got you to where you are, any kind of formative moments growing up, and really just what shaped your business philosophy and how you got into science. So take us all the way back. What was your upbringing like?

Mati Gill - 00:04:52: Yeah. So I was born in the United States of America, actually before moving to Israel, and in what I like to call the real America. So in Ohio, born in Columbus, Ohio, to two Cleveland born and raised parents, and a very tragic and unfortunate Cleveland sports fan, but very, an addict and passionate about that to this day.

And after spending a summer in Israel in '91, the following year, as I was about to enter middle school, our parents kind of dropped a bomb on us and said, "Hey, we're moving to Israel next year, spend the year in Israel." And I liked my life back in Columbus. So we came somewhat reluctantly, but the minute I moved to Israel and pretty much after we moved to Jerusalem, I felt a very deep sense of belonging and was very happy with the move and have lived in Israel, pretty much have chosen to live in Israel ever since.

And when you're an Israeli-American, it's always a recurring choice. So you kind of view that and revisit that decision because you always have options and just really love living here and can't imagine living anywhere else at this point.

Jon Chee - 00:06:06: Very cool. And so how old were you when you made the move?

Mati Gill - 00:06:08: So I was 12, right as I was entering into my bar mitzvah year.

Jon Chee - 00:06:12: Yeah, yeah.

Mati Gill - 00:06:12: Then middle school, so very formative years.

Jon Chee - 00:06:15: I was gonna say, that's like the prime—if I was entering my teenage years and my parents were like, "We're moving," I'm like, "Oh my god. I'm just starting to get into friend groups." Like—

Mati Gill - 00:06:27: Yeah. Yeah. It was a very daunting idea, and I'm also the oldest in the family. So it's probably also the last opportunity, I think, that was really behind the timing of the decision by the parents is that if they weren't gonna do it, then it wasn't gonna happen because then you just go through middle school, high school where I was, and it was a trial year, right?

So there's a lot of Israelis—you know, you're in the Bay Area—a lot of Israelis that come to the Bay Area. I always like to joke that the first Israeli home I ever went to in the Bay Area to do a visit as part of an AIPAC speaking tour, I asked this Israeli couple, I said, "How long have you been here?" They said, "Well, we came here for two years." That was back in the '80s, right? So a lot of Israelis that had moved over to the Bay Area come for two, three years and just get stuck. Same in New York.

We kind of did the opposite. My parents took a decision to come to Israel for a year, and then we just stayed here for a lot of good reasons. And even after the year, we had a big family discussion about whether or not we're going to stay. And I remember my dad saying very openly that there was an option to go back or stay. And for me, it wasn't really an option. I said, "You know, if the family decides to move back, I'll come visit as frequent as I'd like, but I'm staying in Israel."

Jon Chee - 00:07:41: Cool. Cool. And so when you were growing up, I guess from an education, academics perspective, was it a thing where your parents were like, "Hey, whatever you want, you got it"? Or was it something where it's just like, "Oh, here are some tracks that I would like you to follow"? What was that like?

Mati Gill - 00:07:58: Well, I would say both, right?

Jon Chee - 00:07:59: Both. You know, all of them.

Mati Gill - 00:08:01: So my parents had the motto—and we kind of joke about this up until this day—is that they're always proud of us, right? And I was blessed with great parents that provide a very supportive environment, also good examples of how to advance a career while still prioritizing family and achieve amazing things. And each of them did.

That being said, they would always say, "We're gonna be proud of you no matter what." And now as a father of three, we say the same thing to my kids, and we try to instill the same type of behavior and pride in our children, no matter what they choose.

Now, that being said, we're Jewish. And so there's an old Jackie Mason joke that you're either a lawyer, or you're a doctor, or you're not Jewish, right? So I ended up basically meaning go into science and be a doctor or be some level of a scientist, or no. That's why there's a huge amount of Nobel Prize winners here; it's part of our upbringing in our peoplehood. But also, you know, there's a lot of good lawyers. And on a personal level, I decided to go into law ultimately and not into science—but working in science now—but decided to go into law. And it was a great background on the academic side for anything I chose to do.

When I came to my parents with the idea to study an elite program in Israel of philosophy, political science, and economics, they said, "Oh, and unemployment, right?" That was like the fourth part of that. And so, yeah, I did end up going into law, getting that profession, and really loved the law from the first course that I took, which was constitutional law. I really loved learning the law, taking the bar, even passing the bar. I never really practiced law hardcore and never was really interested to do that, even though I was part of the legal management for Teva Pharmaceuticals.

But I believe it's a great educational background for any profession you want to go into, and the way you think about things, the way you analyze things, provides a lot of value for any profession that I've chosen to go into. Whether it was in public service for a while, legal management, operational management, now being a CEO of a venture studio, it's helped me out a lot throughout the way. But I do have a little bit of regret that I never pursued any advanced scientific career beyond high school.

Jon Chee - 00:10:24: It's funny because I completely agree. When I was at Berkeley, I was kind of like a weirdo in that I was doing molecular toxicology, which is very much bench work, but I was also doing a lot of philosophy. I was about to go to law school, like—

Mati Gill - 00:10:41: It just sounds like you are a very curious person.

Jon Chee - 00:10:43: Yeah, it's super fascinating. Philosophy is great and it really gives a framework of thinking. My parents had the same kind of joke: "What are you gonna do with that? Why are you studying Kantian metaphysics? What is this about?" And when I look back on it, people think it's very soft, but it's super rigorous—I mean, incredibly rigorous. You're just doing a lot of logic, and it's not just head in the clouds. Well, it can get very abstracted, but ultimately, what I was studying, I was like, "Oh, this has real applicability in entrepreneurship," and I still carry it with me today.

And something that I was thinking about too is that kind of breadth of knowledge allows you to just take lessons from any discipline. There's a lot of people in science who don't come from an MD/PhD background, and all of us have something to contribute. I absolutely agree that especially philosophy and the study of law is incredibly accretive.

But something that stood out to me that you kind of described about your household—and I struggle with this, and maybe you can give some advice to me—is how do you balance being a family-oriented professional while succeeding as a professional? Because sometimes I feel like, for me, they're always at odds. It's like, I could be working this many more hours, but something's gotta give. How do you do both? How did your parents teach you how to do both?

Mati Gill - 00:12:13: So, actually, my parents always did that very well, and so I had a great example. But I've developed my own philosophy for that and got some advice from friends that got married and started having kids before me. And the one thing that I try to live my life according to is a rule that I have time to do three things, right? It's advance my career—not necessarily in this order—advance my career, prioritize my family, and one other thing that I can dedicate my time to. And that one thing can change, but it can be one other thing that I can dedicate my time to.

So it could be volunteerism. It could be deciding to run marathons, which I've done a couple of, or it could be, as I'm doing now, becoming politically active this year to be able to support candidates that I feel should be the next leadership in the upcoming elections that we have here in Israel. And so dedicating some of my time, again volunteer-based, to be able to do that. And you could do three things. The third thing cannot have multiple angles.

Jon Chee - 00:13:14: Offshoots? Yeah.

Mati Gill - 00:13:16: Yeah. You can't be volunteering your time in a dedicated manner. You can't be running marathons because it's a time suck. You could still work out every day, but running marathons is at least ten hours a week of your time, if not more. You can't do that while also dedicating multiple hours and evenings of your life to being politically active, while also still wanting to spend time with the kids and advancing my career—which I'm not willing to sacrifice those first two things of family and career. And that's the way to do it: having core values and staying true to what your core values and priorities are, again on a very daily and granular basis.

Jon Chee - 00:13:53: Exactly. I was gonna say I haven't heard it so specifically put because for me, I just struggle. My wife and I don't have kids, but my friends all do, and I'm just like, "How do you guys do it?" One of them has a fourth on the way. I was like, "Wow." And he's also working at a startup.

Mati Gill - 00:14:10: It becomes easier as he has a fourth because then the first starts to raise the fourth with him. And then, our oldest now is 17. She's driving, so I can ask her to take one of the younger kids to their basketball game and stuff like that.

Jon Chee - 00:14:24: It all just works together. I love that. Yeah, and I'm always learning, and I'm always wondering how that balance is struck because I think as founders, it's really hard to strike that balance. It's like every day, there's always more to do.

Mati Gill - 00:14:37: But here's the thing: I don't believe in balance, right? So you talk about balance; I don't believe it's a question of balance. I want to be the best father there is out there and the best husband there is out there. I also want to be the best CEO there is out there, and I want to make sure that the goals that I am striving for in that third thing—which this year, the theme is being politically active—I want to make sure that we do everything we can to win those upcoming elections, and I'm not willing to compromise on any of those.

So it's really not about balance; it's about focus and prioritization in that sense. And it's not about a work-family balance because I'm not willing to compromise. Like I always joke, you know, I have three kids and I happen to actually like them, right? I even—

Jon Chee - 00:15:18: Love it.

Mati Gill - 00:15:19: —and like spending time with them. By the way, it's not always true in every case. So it's a great question of focus and prioritization.

Jon Chee - 00:15:25: Love that. And so now you're like, "Mom, Dad, I'm going to be studying the legal profession, political economy." Was this in the high school timeframe when you started feeling that focus on that specific field, or was this as you got into college? When was that for you?

Mati Gill - 00:15:41: Yeah. So for me, it was really more about college, but when I was 24. Just from a career perspective in Israel, we do things a little differently. In high school, I already started to take courses which were more towards the humanities, where I expanded on French, and I expanded on religious studies and history studies, etcetera, etcetera.

And then I went in to serve my country, and we have a mandatory service period of three years. I decided to sign up for an additional three years. I did six years in total, got out as an officer, grew a lot, learned a lot, did a lot throughout that period, and chose to expand on that again due to core values that I still instill in every career decision up until this day. And they've stayed tremendously consistent for the last twenty-five years since I first took a decision to expand my time in the army.

But then once I decided to get out and I realized, "Okay, it's time to grow up and actually get out of the army and move on with life," I was 24 and took a legal background. And it was basically law and government, law and political science.

Jon Chee - 00:16:56: Were there any professors or courses in law school that sparked that fire for you?

Mati Gill - 00:17:02: So before law school was L.A. Law, right? You know, basically, like a lot of our people, reading. So, you know, I would read biographies of RFK Jr., Robert Kennedy, and really liked the way you could apply legal backgrounds into public service, which were always the areas that for me were the most fascinating.

And then once entering into law school, it was constitutional law again, which I had the opportunity to actually study with the most renowned constitutional legal scholar in Israel, the late Professor Amnon Rubinstein, who actually sponsored—he was a member of Knesset, a member of the parliament in Israel, and a minister in Israel—and actually drafted and led the legislative processes of two of our constitutional amendments and bills in Israel that actually constitutionalized legal rights for equality, freedom, as well as the right to employment. And he was my teacher. That was my first—

Jon Chee - 00:18:02: Oh my god.

Mati Gill - 00:18:04: So I was sitting there. By the way, the first grade I got from him—and I was very active, very interested in the course from the first minute and thought I was doing well—he gave us an assignment and I got back a D, a 60, from him. And he walked up to me, called me up afterwards because I was very active in class. He called me up and said, "I gave you that because you could do much better, and you're not going to be able to coast in this class."

So I ended up that year with an A grade ultimately in his class because I really applied myself, and I really loved it and loved the fact that he challenged me. Unfortunately, he passed away a little over a year ago, but he really was someone that was a mentor of mine all throughout high school, all throughout middle school, and then thereafter stayed in touch with him. He's really one of the great figures here that I was fortunate to be able to study with.

Jon Chee - 00:18:51: I love that. I've had moments like that too, where PIs and professors—you have that moment where, at least for me, I'll speak for myself, I was like, "I got this," and then you just get whacked. You're just like—but it comes from a good place. My ego was hurt momentarily, but I was like, you just see where the bar could be, and they just push that boundary.

Mati Gill - 00:19:13: Yeah, that happened to me in high school also, right? As a native English speaker in an Israeli high school, I just coasted through English classes all throughout middle school. And then all of a sudden, in tenth grade in high school, in walks a teacher named David Berman, a British native teacher who walks in basically almost like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, kind of singing poetry as he walks into the room. And he really instilled in me, at least, a love of Shakespeare and reading Shakespeare from that early stage.

When he gave us, again, an assignment to do creative writing, it was a word-count assignment where it had to be at least 500 words. And I remember writing it while watching a basketball game in the middle of the night in Israel because of time differences in the playoffs. So I really wasn't putting in a lot of effort there, and, you know, adding like "this cool, cool fan" in order to get two words there, and writing that out, handing it in, and getting back, again, a D.

Jon Chee - 00:20:18: He told you—

Mati Gill - 00:20:18: —that you're not going to be able to coast this year.

Jon Chee - 00:20:21: Yeah.

Mati Gill - 00:20:21: "You're going to really have to study and apply yourself." Yeah, the same lesson I had to learn.

Jon Chee - 00:20:26: And that's a gift. It was a gift. Sometimes you never get it—sometimes you just don't get that. In the moment, I was like, "Fuck, this is brutal." But when I look back on it, I'm like—and my co-founder is actually one of those formative people in my life who, when I was younger, I was like a heathen, and he really whipped me into shape. It's the most generous thing someone can do for you, to just be like, "This is not good enough. I expect more." Especially if you can find someone who does that for you early on, it's such a gift.

Mati Gill - 00:21:04: Yeah. Even in my political career, right? When I was chief of staff—or bureau chief, as we called it—for a minister here, I was very young. I remember getting called out by a mentor of mine at the time who had been in similar roles but was twice my age. He caught me kind of yelling at someone, and he called me aside and gave me a call. He said, "Who the fuck do you think you are? You're 25, 26. Calm down, get your ego in check." You know, he gave me some real hard feedback. He said, "You're doing great, you're great in your role, but you have to never get confused." He gave me some tough feedback, and I was really thankful for that because it helped me to keep my own proportions—

Jon Chee - 00:21:48: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mati Gill - 00:21:49: —rather than getting confused about what I was doing. It was a gift, again. Getting tough feedback, when it comes from a place of someone that wants to help you but is willing to tell you the brutal truth to help you learn and help you grow, is a gift, and not everyone is capable of doing that. Thankfully, when I have team members, colleagues, and board members, I always ask them, "Tell me the brutal truth, as long as it's from a standpoint where we're all on the same mission and we all want to grow together."

Jon Chee - 00:22:20: Absolutely. I think back on some of the best coaches I had growing up. I played lacrosse growing up, and the best coaches are the ones that kick you in the butt—absolutely kicking you in the butt. I think there are so many instances where that translated into my professional career, where that was so formative. Finding these lessons and experiences that are outside of the professional realm but that you can always bring back is so important. So, you now got whipped into shape in law school; you're a formidable lawyer. From there, where was your head at? What were the roles that you were looking into? You said you didn't end up practicing, so you obviously found your way elsewhere.

Outro - 00:23:01: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast featuring Mati Gill. Join us next time for part two where Mati recounts juggling law school and a minister's bureau simultaneously, surviving a terrorist attack and running the New York marathon on the other side of it, and how a friend's connection led to a Teva internship that began in a converted closet office and grew into a 12-year career built by methodically learning the organization from the org chart up.

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 Excedr.

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