Debugging Aging: How a VR Pioneer is Revolutionizing Longevity | Michael Antonov (Part 3/4)

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, Michael Antonov shared what it was like scaling Oculus inside Facebook after the acquisition, the challenges of innovating within a massive organization, and why he eventually decided to explore a new direction beyond VR. If you missed it, be sure to check out part two. In part three, Michael dives into his early fascination with the biology of aging, his decision to study biology while still at Facebook, and how that curiosity sparked his first investments in biotech. He also shares how his passion for longevity research led to the founding of Formic VC, and how that journey eventually evolved into building Deep Origin, a company focused on modeling and simulating biology to accelerate drug discovery. 

Jon - 00:01:22: And so at that point, you know, it was a first to know. And then it eventually became a yes. The and then, you know, you're now kind of kind of in similar fashion with the Autodesk. You guys, you know, I'm going to imagine Facebook was like, all right, you got the founding team. You built this thing, you know it best. Were going to be part of underneath the Facebook hood, or maybe at that time it was like Meta at that time. I can't quite remember, but talk a little bit about, you know, joining forces with Facebook and kind of what was that experience like? 

Michael - 00:01:53: So first of all, it was quite different from Autodesk. For one, the deal to sell and was signed was like written up and drafted and signed within one month, which is unheard of. So I think literally it was like two weeks, a week where lawyers and Brendan and Nate were negotiating and they spent a week in Facebook and during the nights and so on. So- And they basically went through all the terms and everything. So it was basically announced and signed like, within a few weeks of making a decision and a handshake. I remember going to one dinner with Mark and that's it. But the kind of core reason we did it is that we saw that it's a very expensive industry to build. And we could have made an impact independently, but it would be a lot of inventory costs, a lot of manufacturing content. Facebook was able and interested in putting a huge amount of money to actually make it happen. They had resources to do it. And in fact, they did. So this is a drastic difference from the Autodesk where it was Autodesk, like we were sort of just on like life support. Like we were kind of supported in the shapes they were and then suddenly expected to move and deliver something with no extra resources. And you sort of like write in the internal attention machine. And here it was a project which was deliberately invested with. So literally we were able to, like, as a sign up deal, in fact, we were acquired manufacturing like a consulting shop company, which was working for us before. Like 30, 40 people got rolled right into acquisition because they were like making controllers and devices. Yes, and basically, Brendan had this fund to hire anybody he wants, and he ended up stealing four or five really top people from Valve, which got Valve really upset. So as the acquisition was closing, we were like, Michael Abrash was a legend. There's like three or four legends in the game industry who are working in Valve, and Valve is a very good place to work in. You have a lot of freedom and also very well compensated. So this was non-trivial. So basically, they moved because they can solve this, can really move this project forward. So it's really the fact that Facebook did it, moved the whole industry forward. And suddenly, we're building a team. So we went from like 75 pre-acquisition to like 150 right away with acquisition. And then it started growing and growing and growing. And over the next years, like over the next five years, Mark has spent many billions a year on this. Like right now, I think Facebook loses like $2 billion a year on- And Reality Labs. So it's really overspending, quite honestly, but they did ship many products and they picked up the industry. So in that sense, it's very different. 

Jon - 00:05:01: Like night and day. It's like night and day. You're almost like drowning in resources. 

Michael - 00:05:07: Up to your point. But then you have to do something with it. And the internal political dynamics come into place. So I think as a founder, and unless you have a very particular way, you have skills to work with that type of organization, then it's hard to retain your influence. Because there's a lot of smart people around you. Everybody is good at what they do, or most people are anyway. And there is lots of agenda and things moving in parallel will need to be coordinated. And you still have to ship on your things. But if you have some belief, an organization believes something else, it's very hard to actually shift it. So those kind of dynamics come into play. 

Jon - 00:05:46: Interesting. And it seems kind of like a theme with the larger the organization gets, it's kind of like this is the natural state. There's just more stakeholders than you're like, it's almost like you have to like, you're talking about at the Autodesk, you almost have to internal politic your way to get your job is to, ship this product, make the product good. But then you start introducing all this internal politics into it. And it just like impedes you. And Facebook, very, very large organization, doesn't sound like they're completely immune to that either. It's just like the natural state of a large organization. 

Michael - 00:06:21: Yeah, it's humans. Like at some point, you convince other humans around you to do what you want. And if you're, you know, not good at that, there's various ways you can sometimes sit down and do something on yourself. Or with a small team, but it's like, there's always this tension of what does it make it there? 

Jon - 00:06:41: Interesting. And so how long did you stick around at Facebook, you know, post acquisition? What were you working on during that time? Like I was obviously on the Oculus, but like, what were your like core focus? Like now that you got this, like from 75 to 150, you got all this resource. What were your priorities during that period?

Michael - 00:06:58: So I worked a lot on the PC version because then we had the model version. We actually brought John Carmack on board, like even before he went in Oculus, like a year in, which was amazing to like work with that kind of legend. And, but he, and he kind of led the model branch and that was leading more of the PC branch on a technical stack. So we shipped like, the Oculus Rift. And a really exciting moment was shipping controllers because really you wanna have CEO hands in VR without that, it's not the same. And, um, Ultimately, I had the way we were structured, because Facebook wanted us to ship, and we were not actually a product in the market. The whole deal assumed they were going to stay for a very long time, which is five years. And you can leave earlier, but it's expensive to leave. Basically, you lose a big part of what you might get. So that's the way it was structured. So I spent almost five years on Facebook. And that's quite a while. That's actually longer that we're independent by like a factor.  

Jon - 00:08:05: Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. And I think, yeah, I mean. You were at Autodesk for one year?  

Michael - 00:08:13: One year. 

Jon - 00:08:14: Okay, so 5X. 5X.  

Michael - 00:08:18: 5X. And it was better in many ways because we're in person. Facebook has a good campus and the whole thing is growing. So there's a lot of pluses to it. By the end of the day, as a founder, if you don't think you can influence a meaningful enough area, then you want to do something else. And I realized at that point, I had a certain understanding of where the VR and AR is heading. Things like you need to be able to reconstruct the world around you. You want to be able to track objects, track people. There's all these teams which were started inside of Facebook who did these. And you also want to make better hardware and ship SDKs, like all these more obvious things. So it was kind of clear how this technology is going to converge. It's just a lot of work. And we got, with Facebook, really strong teams with people who are better at computer vision than I am, better in many areas. It was like some sense that, you know what, there's people who are much more knowledgeable. And it really won't make a big difference if I stay in this industry or not. And I'm like, okay, what do I actually want to do for myself? And I really like programming languages. And there was one moment where I got interested in biology of aging. And I kind of started thinking about it in a very different direction from then on.  

Jon - 00:09:41: I can empathize with that. I haven't worked at Meta, but I can imagine this being kind of surrounded by just like, holy shit, everyone is brilliant here. The Oculus is in good hands. It's going to be in good hands. And I guess before moving on to your kind of next ventures, when you reflect back on the Meta/Facebook experience, what were some key takeaways? Like, I've never worked at Meta, but I heard it's a, you learn a lot, you work real hard. What were some, like, things that you take with you to this day from that Meta experience?  

Michael - 00:10:15: So Meta, I think it was humbling because you sort of build these startups and the engineer and as a lead you grow. And there's probably a certain amount of ego which I've built out. And then when you go into a big organization and you're basically told, like, you can't really make decisions the way you want to. And you have to talk to people, interact. There's a lot of like this. So you have to work within the system, which is a certain kind of politics or an achievement. So I think it humbled me because I was surrounded by other strong people around me. And it also forced me to work in an environment where I couldn't make decisions as quickly or the way I like it as much. And I had to collaborate and work smoothly with others. So I think that was a good learning experience in a sense. Also, like, how do you rate employees? How do teams work together? What is cross-team dynamics when they belong to different organizations? Because, for example, one deliverable we had had to work with like a firmware team, which has now had also other deliverables. So how do you make that? So it was good about learning how to work with people in some ways. In other ways, it was discouraging because you really feel limited as a founder. Because at some point, you can spend a lot of effort trying to get a few, what they call headcount engineers you can hire to work on a thing. And you know you could just hire them personally, write a check. And then instead, you spend time in many meetings with many people trying to convince them why this is needed. And by the time, if it's approved, by the time you're approved, you kind of live, come to a point you don't give a shit anymore  

Jon - 00:12:00: 

Yeah. And also, the opportunity might be fleeting. You're like...  

Michael - 00:12:05: Yeah, I mean, like it's an opportunity or not. So it's one of those things where like if it's aligned with groupthink, then it moves quickly. Or if Mark from the top comes in with this matters, it's like, but otherwise it has to like bubble up and be very democratic-ish. And it's not very effective.  

Jon - 00:12:27: Yeah, I can see how found like that would be a struggle if you've got that like kind of that founder DNA in you where you're like, God damn it. Like, I feel like I'm cuffed right now. Like, I can't I can't just like go wild. But I also can imagine that that humbling experiences and also cross departmental and like all of these stakeholders is a valuable experience and lesson that you can learn from being there. And so you're like, okay, you're starting you now are starting to get interested in biology and you're now looking at your next opportunity. What was on the horizon for you when you decided to leave Meta?  

Michael - 00:13:05: So there was a moment, I think about a year in, which I was at the event where I was talking about VR and Aubrey de Grey, who is kind of a famous gerontologist and longevity was talking about. Biology of aging, so I ended up talking, listening to his talk, and then, reading about it. And there's of course mention of DNA sequencing, and like, how does aging accumulate and how do we change with age, and then I got interested enough to learn his book. So and then, my mind sort of, going like well we're kind of like these biological machines that are very small, and if we can understand it and model it. And it clearly needs to be computational, and there was a whole genomics revolution which happened before this. Maybe we can understand biology, maybe we could do something about aging, and I'm like it. And my, in my view was like, you learn, you grow in your life, you try to get kind of like get better at things. And then, you maybe you grow as a human being, maybe you learn, like, you evolve. And then, you just start falling apart and die. And that's just, like, I don't think there's a Law of Physics says, that the mass that must happen. So I got very interested in the subject. So it's maybe about a year into Facebook. I was a year and a half. I got very interested in like aging and biology of aging. And I thought maybe I can invest in companies who are doing this. I'm going to study this. So I actually ended up, there's Berkeley Extension nearby here where you can just sign up for classes. So you don't have to like sign up for a degree, but lots of pre-med students go there. So I decided to like sign up and go take biology and like biochemistry and stuff there. So I took like dozens of classes. So like, it was like a moment where like, okay, I'm going to go into longevity. I'm going to do this. I want to be investing, but I want to understand what I'm investing in. So I've decided that I'm going to go study biology. So there was this moment where I was like working full time on Facebook and going to class like two or three times a week. And I took like biochemistry without taking organic chemistry first.  

Jon - 00:15:17: Oh my God.  

Michael - 00:15:17: Which was like the hardest thing ever. And I was there, was studying every night. It was kind of like in a bus to work on Facebook. So I got very, I just sort of was, I wanted to know how do we work. And then also I started going to lots of meetups. And meetups around, and conference around longevity specifically. So there was Undoing Aging in Berlin. So it was like ARED. So I started making friends in longevity space. And also because I exited, I felt like I had capital I could invest, but I had this really strong sense that you could lose a lot of money fast in biotech. That is like, you know, all the capital I made for this, because I'm like just one of the founders, like we had many other investors in team. So it's not like it's, I didn't make, I make a good amount, but not that much. So I could probably like take, almost try to take one drug to market, but then I'll be completely broke. And because 90% of drugs fail, it is basically, I could-  

Jon - 00:16:27: Just wipe you out.  

Michael - 00:16:28: I was just doing one biotech from beginning to start. So it needs to be more impactful and broader in some way. So I wanted to learn and be cautious before I dive in, but I sort of decided that I really care about this.  

Jon - 00:16:43: Cool. And I love that you're just like, I mean, if you're in the Bay Area, for anyone listening out there, like, yeah, you can just sign up for Berkeley Extension. My wife did that too for like databases. And you can just like, and she works full time at Cloudflare. And then she's like, I need to brush up on some of this stuff. And just like, you can just go sign up for it. It's awesome. But I can't recommend taking biochemistry before you take O-Chem. That must've been really, really difficult.  

Michael - 00:17:10: It was the hardest class of my life. And I made this kind of thing that will actually work for a grade. I didn't actually plan to get any degree or anything, but I was like, I would actually do all the homework. I'm going to do the test.  

Jon - 00:17:22: Yeah.  

Michael - 00:17:24: So.  

Jon - 00:17:24: I love that. I love that. And so, okay, you're, you get to a point, I feel like I'm not completely fish out of the water in biology. I know you start investing and you form adventures. When was it like, okay, I'm ready for this. Like we, I can do this.  

Michael - 00:17:39: It was near the time. So I quit Facebook in 2019, and I was starting to think about investing and this is what I want to do around the time. And as I've been in the space for a bit, I've actually made a few friends. One of the friends I made was Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine. And I talked to him a bunch and I knew he was like running around. He was organizing a conference called ARDD, which is a really good event. And he was at other events and really promoting longevity and promoting his company. And I was like, this is really cool. So I was thinking about investing in his company. And ultimately, I ended up investing in the series he was raising in 2019, which was my, so my first investment was that and Schrödinger. And the way Schrödinger happened was because WuXi connected us and they were raising like whatever, whether it's private VC around. So I'm like, okay. And there was this moment where I was sort of like wanting to quit Facebook, but then I didn't for like a quarter. The way I've made it through five years, at first, I said, I'll quit in a year. And then like a year, I'll quit in six months, six months, but I'll quit in another like four months. So I made it almost all the way. I didn't make it all the way through, but I made it most of the way. And I didn't kind of invest quarterly. So I, there was a moment where I decided to quit in February. And then I talked to my manager and I also got interested in AI because I figured Artificial Intelligence will matter a lot for longevity and biotech. And I didn't know that much. So there was this PyTorch team, which is kind of a core is PyTorch and there's TensorFlow. I think PyTorch is very big in machine learning. But I wanted to learn it. So I just decided that I'm going to quit, leave Oculus and transition to PyTorch team for the last like, late year of my tenure there. So I did that. And I don't, wouldn't say I've made a big impact there. I kind of joined, I said, you get to learn it for the first six months, you're going to actually deliver. And I helped them with documentation. I found some bugs, I improved processes and some things. So I learned a bunch about PyTorch, but ultimately I realized it was still not, I still don't want to stay in the company. I wanted to do my biological thing. So I was like, okay, I'm going to quit. And my manager at the time, there was like some reason she didn't want me to quit. And he was like, why don't you just stay? And you don't have to do a whole lot of work. You can like time off. You'll just do another quarter with this. I'm like, okay, I'm going to stay and all the money I get from this quarter, I'm going to invest in biotech. So I'm not going to get money anyway. So I'm like, I'll just quit that. So I ended up investing in Insilico Medicine and Schrödinger. And those were my first two. And they were kind of slightly larger investments that I normally would make later on because I really liked both companies and I really liked Alex. So that's kind of how my biotech investing started. And then I decided, and I quit Facebook and I came back and I was like, yeah, I'm going to get more disciplined. I'm going to get, real experience. I had a few advisors, but I'm going to form more of an actual structure and do proper research before investing. So at some point, we got a full-time PhD on staff who was head in biology of aging, who was really connected to Biosciences. So I looked at that, and I decided I was very interested in, one, any kind of therapeutic thing which addresses aging, and also scientific tools as in either like wet lab, automation, anything which helps you to discovery and or software on simulation to speed up progress. So those are where two themes where I decided to start forming conventions with. And that's ultimately what I decided I'm going to go and I'm going to do mostly seed, sometimes like early A contributions to companies that I like.  

Jon - 00:21:57: Very cool. And I guess, how did you learn the ins and outs of investing? Was it via the advisor or did you also do a Berkeley Extension?  

Michael - 00:22:05: Well, investing... Like after being through a few rounds of startups in this space, you kind of know bits of it. And we and Brendan did fundraise. So I was in the circle. And I also did a lot of finance research personally for like seven years. I would read books and such. And it was more public markets and things. But I kind of knew about risk and things and, you know, the idea of how do you raise revenue from running a company? There's all these things which I kind of knew. So it wasn't any official learning I did for that. But I did bring my chief of staff. My best friend would join me. And he has an MBA. And he was helping me around family office and then this. And I bring one finance guy on board in addition to the PhD. So we had a group of people who could help me. Analyze and make decisions. I don't think it was as structured maybe as other funds because. Also, I was very mission-driven. So if you think about very thoughtful fund, which really understand the return profile of what they're investing in, and they would be very, like, they kind of predict, here's what conditions might be true for these kind of returns. Here's a probability, and you model it, and you make a criteria based on that. And you kind of do this whole analysis as you build your portfolio, right? And for me, it was more important to move longevity and move the industry forward. It's just as important as making money. So I don't want to invest in something where I lose money, right, clearly. And I want to be thoughtful and analytical. So I want to believe I will succeed or have a good chance of succeeding. Or at least it's so meaningful that I'm willing to take a high-risk gamble. But that's more risk and impact focus than a traditional VC. So that was kind of a distinction. And ultimately, I ended up going to lots of events and meeting startup founders and listening and learning about science. And that's really the fun part. Like, you have young, enthusiastic people presenting you cool science, and you get to immerse yourself in it. I think the biggest challenge though, or thing which was kind of tricky in biotech is It's very easy to get enthusiastic about thinking you understand some mechanism of action and here's why this will solve this major disease or issue. And it seems so incredible. But the wisdom is not in understanding those details because clearly it requires some knowledge, but it's actually what are all the things which can go wrong? What is the actual data that you need? And I didn't really have that experience. I was delegating that. But I think that's a hard thing in biotech is that you really need to have a critical analytical experience eye, because most things are not going to work in all kinds of ways. So you need to be able to filter that out. 

Jon - 00:25:19: Absolutely. And I think I feel the same exact way where I get like inspired and fired up hearing about like, you know, what like like, Nucleate the student run org. And you see and I talk to a lot of grad students who are like excited to like translate their technology and commercialize it. And then. I get very fired up about it. And then, but also there's like so much, there's so many factors above and beyond the science itself, right? You're like, you're trying to figure out what are all of these other risks. There's like operational risks. There's like the macro, there's like the finance. And then there's like regulatory as well. So it's like this like big, hairy, kind of like audacious thing. And I'm not a VC, so, but I can imagine that like trying to, especially, you know, for you, you're like, okay, I'm passionate about biology. I'm going to learn this. Like you're kind of like in the beginning playing catch up. And then now you're there. You're like, this is like investing on hard mode, like in a space where like, there's so many different factors that could like change the momentum really quickly. 

Outro - 00:26:24: Thanks for listening to part three of our conversation with Michael Antonov. In the final episode of this series, Michael walks us through Deep Origin's product suite, how they're making advanced drug discovery tools more accessible, and what the future of biological stimulation could look like. He also shares lessons on building mission-driven startups, his evolving philosophy on fundraising, and why staying consistent is one of the most powerful traits for any founder. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend. See you next time. 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.