Childhood Without Tech: Building a Foundation for VC Success | Sergey Jakimov (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 Sergey Jakimov, founding partner of LongeVC, a venture capital fund backing early-stage biotech and longevity-focused founders. A serial entrepreneur, Sergey has co-founded three deep tech ventures and raised more than $15 million 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, he co-founded Lungesys, 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 and venture creation to global efforts in longevity, Sergey'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.

Over the next four episodes, Sergey shares how a mix of curiosity, resilience, and practical thinking carried him from his early years in Latvia to building startups and investing in longevity. He reflects on lessons from entrepreneurship and venture building, the transition from founder to investor, and why evidence-based innovation and patient outcomes-driven investing are key to advancing human health and longevity.

Today, we'll hear about Sergey's roots in post-Soviet Latvia, where, without computers, phones, or video games available, he spent most of his time outside or reading countless books from the library. We'll also hear about his years training under a retired national tennis coach, finishing school early, and the weekly four-hour bus rides he took to Riga to secure his university spot , where he juggled a grueling workload with translation gigs and coaching to get by. Lastly, we'll follow his path from a disillusioning parliament internship to a scholarship at Central European University in Budapest , where he focused on political economy and quantitative research.

Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Sergey Jakimov.

Jon Chee - 00:03:11: Sergey, good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:03:14: Thanks for having me, Jon.

Jon Chee - 00:03:15: Really looking forward to this conversation. I know it's been a while, kind of in the run-up to this. But now that we're finally here, I'd love the opportunity to really just learn about you and kind of go all the way back to what got you into business, science, and investing, frankly. So, take us all the way back. I know before we hit record, you said you had visited your mother this past weekend back in your hometown. So take us back to your hometown. What was it like growing up?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:03:39: Yeah, you start with a hard one, to be completely honest. So it's a complicated question that's going to have a complicated answer. I think I was pretty happy growing up, to be honest with you.

The story starts with the fact that as we speak, I'm now in Riga, in Latvia. Right? And so Latvia is where I was born and I was raised, and this is where my family still lives. I do travel now quite extensively, as you might imagine, but this is still the home, days in the home, pretty much.

So I was born in Riga, but my parents were living in this very small—by US standards, that would be a village. By Latvian standards, that would be a rural town sort of thing, which is by accident also the oldest town in Latvia. It's in the eastern part, sort of 30 kilometers-ish from the Russian border on the right side of the country. So I was born in Riga, and I was immediately taken there. And this is where I spent seventeen years of my life. So I grew up there. I graduated school there in Latvia. It's twelve years. I actually finished school faster. I finished it in eleven years.

But, yeah, I don't know how much you know about the post-Soviet reality and growing up in a post-Soviet reality. I mean, I think it's much better to watch Chernobyl or something. I wouldn't be able to do it justice and to talk in all the colors, so to say. But, I mean, it was definitely not rich financially. I can't say I'm coming from a poor family or something like that. That would not be fair to say. But we didn't have anything excessive, I would call it that way. So it was definitely not a materially excessive childhood and upbringing. But at the same time, it was a very social one in terms of how we basically entertained ourselves, and we did entertain ourselves.

We, I argue, were the last generation of already post-Soviet kids. We were the last generation of already post-Soviet kids because I was born in 1992, which was right after Latvia got independence and the Soviet Union collapsed. And we were basically growing up outside. As you might imagine, no phones, no computer games. Even when the first consoles appeared and kind of the first Nintendos appeared, that was absolutely way out of our financial and technological reach.

Yeah. I can tell you I got my first PC when I was, gosh, 13, maybe, or 14 years old. And I got my first mobile phone roughly somewhere there. So we didn't grow up with tech gadgets or anything. So every single social experience was multiplied by the fact that it was a period historically. It was a period of—I often say anarchy, but it was very dodgy on the social level in terms of law enforcement, in terms of how people were reimagining and rediscovering their identities after the Soviet Union collapsed , in terms of how people were seeking new employment, new means of providing for their families, and things like that. And that obviously also resonated with how you grow up.

I literally went to a village school. And a village school, man, I mean, it's like a Navy Seal course with the classrooms. So it basically teaches you to survive in any situation, in any argument that you might encounter. That argument, mind you, is normally within the amount of people, which is with an n of more than one. Right? Yeah. So you're usually on the lesser side of that argument, at least amount-wise, in terms of the allies. So it teaches you diplomacy apart from basic math and whatever skills school teaches. It teaches you diplomacy. It teaches you pretty good social flexibility in terms of how to get yourself out of situations which seem to be fairly the dish for you. And that's about that.

I mean, interestingly enough—and that's always something which is absolutely not obvious about me—I ended up playing tennis for my whole childhood , and this is where I spent quite a lot of my time. Actually, I spent it on the tennis court. So in the beginning of the nineties, like, growing up in the beginning of the nineties with all these three gangs that were forming from kids, pretty much already , you kind of have two choices. You either go that route and try to integrate with this part of the social expression of people , or you dig yourself into studies and sports. That makes you tremendously unpopular. Right?

But as dumb as it sounds, when you were a kid, you really need to very early need to make this decision about what you want to do , and I honestly wanted to leave. So I always understood that this is not the future for me. I love the place where I grew up, but I love to visit. I wouldn't really want to live there. So I decided I'm going to dig into the books and then spend most of my time at the tennis court.

And back in the days, interestingly enough, I was six years old , and my mom, she didn't know where to sort of put me in terms of sports. And I was very bad at martial arts. She tried to get me into the martial arts part. I was very bad at it. I basically tried to do a conflict resolution via diplomacy, not by hitting someone. I didn't really see much use in that, to be honest. So it didn't resonate.

And one of the coaches for the national team of Latvia, he was from the nearby village originally, and he got old. And he was playing during the Soviet times, whatever. So he was basically a retired pro tennis coach. He got old, and he retired in that village where he was from. And at some point, he got bored, and he started a group with kids. Not even school kids, but like, I was six years old, so like first grade at school. Early, yeah. And it was like the least obvious thing and the least obvious place where a tennis group could have been started, honestly, in 1998, in Latvia, in Ludza, my hometown.

So I ended up being there, and I ended up pretty much playing tennis for my whole life after , and I did reach a fairly good level. I would say I never progressed into trying to become pro or something, because I eventually chose education. It was never a goal, but it was always a great support for me going through childhood and kind of the early youngster days. It also worked tremendously well as my first kind of side gig when I left my hometown. I went to Riga for my bachelor's. I was 17 years old , and I worked part-time—worked when I had a chance—as a coach or as a sparring partner. That was my first side gig that actually helped me turn some money back in the day. So tennis helps.

Otherwise, yeah, Latvia, the full school cycle is twelve years. I did it in eleven, so I skipped one grade. And I actually went to school when I was six instead of going when I was seven. So I ended up graduating twelfth grade at the age of 17 , where normally kids would do it at, well, kids, quote unquote. I mean, they're like 18, 19 years old. It's not really a kid anymore, is it? But young adults would do it at the age of 18, 19. So I basically just prioritized studies and whatever sports I could do and was digging through it.

Jon Chee - 00:10:49: I mean, that's amazing that a professional tennis player just so happened to be nearby, and you're just like, "Oh, this is just a great opportunity". I mean, I can't imagine the training was easy either. You're probably getting whipped into shape.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:11:05: When I started as a kid, we didn't have any facilities to actually play tennis, because you need tennis courts and whatever. And whenever I say "tennis court," you imagine something a normal person would imagine, which is a clay court or, you know, a hard court or whatever it is. Right? But some sort of a facility. We really didn't have those.

So I remember when I was a kid, we started playing on concrete courts. So it was basically a concrete pitch with the lines that were drawn with some paint.

Jon Chee - 00:11:33: Yeah.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:11:33: And a brush to resemble the size of the court , and then you had two poles and then the net. And that was it. That was our outdoor court. And we had some sort of a similar construct inside, in an old Soviet stadium closed hangar type of thing where people were usually running. We have the same pitch drawn there , and this is how I got into tennis back in the days as a kid starting six.

If you actually were in this thing on an asphalt concrete pitch , whenever you end up on a proper court, it's a breeze for you. It's an absolute breeze.

Jon Chee - 00:12:07: You're playing on hard mode.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:12:09: Yes. You almost don't understand what you should do here because it's so much easier and so much slower. So it turned out to be a pretty good advantage whenever I actually reached the normal train facilities.

Any post-Soviet kid you ask, like, my age—and I'm 33—so someone who grew up in the nineties in the post-Soviet space, especially not in the big city, but somewhere out in the village, they tell you the same story. Summer, you're on a bicycle 95% of your time , or you're outside with a football or something, whatever you have. And honestly, having a football was an asset. The guy in the yard—and because we were living in these multistory buildings—the guy in the yard who had a football, he was one of the most popular persons out there, I mean, because that was rare. In the beginning, I never had one , so then I acquired it at some point. I think I got it for my birthday or something. That was a big deal.

So it's always outside. It's always summer; it's swimming. It's getting lost in the woods nearby with a bike or something. Figuring it out. And then in the winter, it's always minus 25, minus 30 Celsius.

Jon Chee - 00:13:25: Then you're inside.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:13:27: No, you're not. This is the point. It's waist-deep in snow, and I'm not kidding. I mean, it's waist-deep in snow. And you are somewhere on the top of the hill—the highest hill in your area—with pretty much like a plastic bag or whatever slides on snow. And then on that plastic bag, you try to descend the hill, and then you go up again, and then you descend again. And you're beaten up as hell at the end of the day, but it was fun. Retrospectively, this was honestly the best childhood one can get , and it was absolutely without gadgets.

Whenever you wanted to entertain yourself, you read a book. It was only books. And I've pretty much read through most of the town library that we had when I was a kid. So it was great. It was great. Sometimes dodgy, but mostly great.

Jon Chee - 00:14:16: Yeah. Sometimes dodgy. Like, there's some dodgy experiences kind of woven in there. So it sounds like you had a very free-spirited childhood and very independent. You had to be independent pretty quickly. And you mentioned that you're crushing books at the library, and you're focusing on sports. You're focusing on education. Take us to when you're thinking about going to university. Like, did you know what you wanted to study? Do you know which university was in your sights? How are you thinking about that?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:14:44: I think retrospectively, one of the limitations whenever you live in a small town and you don't really leave it—and it's not that nowadays, you know, kids have the access to the Internet, and they basically have the whole world at their fingertips. Right? Back in the days, it was not like that. So one of the cons of living in a small town is thinking that the world is a huge place and not truly acknowledging all the opportunities that are there.

And the reason I'm telling this is that for my BA, I never really thought of going abroad. It was not even on the radar just because it was incomprehensible. That was a thought that had no room in my head because it sounded like something impossible to accomplish, absolutely impossible. We were going to the moon and back, pretty much.

So the low-hanging fruit was to get into the university, get admitted into the university as fast as possible. And retrospectively, again, I really wanted to study medicine. So I really wanted to become an MD, and I specifically wanted to become a neurosurgeon. It so happened that I was not the brightest star in chemistry and physics at school for the reasons which I understand. I mean, I didn't really have much sync with the specific teachers that we had. And these subjects, the way they were taught, I guess, was just not syncing. It's not that they were taught badly or something. It was just not syncing with the way I process information. Right?

So I was not the brightest star there, which got me thinking in an absolutely false way. That was a huge cognitive mistake and bias that I had, that I was not good at those, and I could not be a doctor. I could not get into a medical college or anything. So my second favorite interest was international relations, international affairs, and politics. I was always digging into the history books and whatnot. So—

Jon Chee - 00:16:41: You're doing diplomacy when you were younger already.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:16:45: I was forced into diplomacy. Whenever you have, like, getting your ass badly kicked on the line, that makes you the best diplomat out there. I'm telling you, even if you're 10 years old, that's even worse. And in my case, I was the smallest kid because I was two years younger than everyone in my age group in my grade because I started earlier, and I jumped through one grade. So the age gap was there already, and I was physically the smallest one, proportion-wise. So that was a diplomat for sure. Couldn't have survived without that.

So I scouted for the university programs that were doing this, and I ended up with what is here in Riga is called Riga Stradiņš University , one of the most well-known international relations programs here in the Baltics. It was called International Relations in European Studies.

So I started my twelfth grade. I finished my eleventh year at school—well, technically tenth, but it was number 11 chronologically. And then I started in my twelfth grade. And the way that the university wanted us to do it is every Saturday, they wanted us to get into the prep course. And then in January, so half a year later, they wanted us to take an enrollment exam.

So every Saturday, I woke up at 2 AM at night. I walked to the bus station in my hometown. I took an overnight bus, which was like four and a half to five hours for the bus. It was a pretty cool thing, I must admit. So I took that. I was in Riga by 8 AM-ish, and then I went to the university. I sat through this prep course for the whole day. And then in the evening, I took the very same bus, and I went back. So I basically spent every Saturday for the whole semester from September to January until I was able to take the enrollment exam , and I got admitted.

So, technically, by the mid-twelfth grade, I already had my university spot reserved for me. I just needed to complete the state exams, so the high school exams that everyone is doing, and that was it. By the time I graduated, I had this already done and reserved.

Jon Chee - 00:18:53: Interesting. So now that you're at university, talk about what was that experience like for you? I'm sure being on campus was mind-expanding.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:19:01: A lot of homesickness to begin with because, again, you grew up in a place which has like 4,000 people, maybe four and a half at best. Right? And then Riga, which is technically by a lot of standards a village as well , and it's like 700,000 people here, which is not a lot. So it felt huge. Felt absolutely huge.

I was commuting every morning. Again, one and a half hours, waking up God knows at what time. Remembering it now, I do not sincerely know how I survived this whole ordeal. I wouldn't be able to repeat it. I would literally die if I was to repeat it now.

And that was it. The workload was super intense. They made us read through an abysmal amount of material. They made us write an abysmal amount of essays, summaries, analysis, reports, whatever. The way that workload was structured at the university in my bachelor's is the bachelor's was three years. And the way it was structured is that if you basically get into some sort of debt with, you know, submitting your assignments, it was impossible to get out of this debt. So, whenever it started to snowball, you're pretty much a 95% chance you're done.

So I was trying to keep up. I was sleeping on average three hours, four hours. Four hours was a good night , and this is how I lived for the first year. I don't know how. At the same time, I managed to go visit my mom. I didn't have a driving license because I was 17, and you were not supposed to have one in Europe. So I used to visit my hometown pretty often. At some point, I even completed my driving exam while doing the first year's coursework. I do not know how. I literally do not.

But fact is a fact: I loved my driving license. I was always really into cars and everything that moves. So getting a driving license at the very point when I got 18 years old, which is in January, it was like a must-have. That was an honor thing for me to do. It was absolutely not an option to wait, and like, wait for the summer or something. I was like, "January, we're going for it. If I die, I die". And that was the first.

And then in the third year, it got a bit less intense. And I was able to do some side hustles to buy my first car through side hustles. And this is where the whole thing, I think, evenized for a slight moment.

Jon Chee - 00:21:28: Could you talk about the side hustles?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:21:30: I would either translate something. So I would do translation work for written translation work.

Jon Chee - 00:21:34: You're coaching tennis, too?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:21:36: Sometimes I would do tennis lessons. Yeah. I was having there a small group of kids.

Jon Chee - 00:21:40: How are you sleeping at all?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:21:42: By year and a half, it got easier. First year was a freaking nightmare. I was barely making it. But then it got a bit easier. It's either one-third or almost half of my group left in the first semester, in the first half a year. So the dropout rate was absolutely horrendous. And then it got easier.

We got into the part where we were supposed to get internships. I went on to intern at the parliament. So it was much more trying to interact with the outer world versus just sitting, reading books, and writing stuff twenty-four seven.

Jon Chee - 00:22:16: Cool. I guess before talking about the internship, were there any professors that kind of took you under their wing, or is this just on your own? You got to figure it out.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:22:26: I was figuring it out. I think I was figuring it out because I was fairly introverted as a kid. I had quite a lot of struggle historically with socializing, really, with people , understanding the emotions of people to a certain extent, but also understanding the social constructs which would require you to do something or would prohibit you from doing something.

And the best example of it is whenever you're having a conversation with a person, there are a lot of things that you do naturally. Right? You sometimes smile naturally. You laugh. You do a certain gesture or your facial expressions tell something, and you do it without thinking about it. Right? So it's just your standard operating procedures, SOPs. It didn't really happen with me , so I was teaching myself how to go through these social situations and how to interact with people to begin with, and how to blend in.

The university part, I guess, continued for me in a certain way as well because in the university, you finally encounter smart people. I'm not being arrogant. Right? But in school, you're basically locked in the same room with random folks. Some of them are very bright. Some of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed , and you're just there. Right? It's like being in a cell, pretty much. If you are lucky with your cell and you are there for, like, eleven, twelve years sentence. Right? So if you're lucky with your cellmates, it's not that dramatic. Super fun. But, seriously, think about it. It's mandatory, and you're locked with these people.

So at the university, some of the guys that I went to school with were absolutely tremendous and very bright. But with some, I had reasonable problems with understanding how they live their life, but whatever. The point is, at the university, I had my renaissance moment in terms of, "Well, that's really interesting". Everything here is merit-based. Everyone got here because of passing some sort of testing or some sort of evaluation. So they actually—it's not about the evaluation per se, but about the effort that they took to actually get here. So no random people, or seemingly random people, at least.

So it was great in that way, but I was still pretty much on my own. We had a lot of great professors, actually. One of my professors that was supervising my thesis, my bachelor's thesis, back in the days, is actually now the defense minister of Latvia. We still keep a good, friendlier relationship and send birthday wishes to each other when the time comes. So we had good professionals working with us. Most of the studies were in English as well, so that definitely helped.

I wouldn't say a certain person influenced me or something like that. But the bottom line is everyone was helpful. And school, you see, is very uneven in terms of rewarding the willingness of kids. Some teachers do reward it. Some teachers just don't give a damn, you know? And a teacher is the sort of profession that it should be like a God's gift type of situation, because otherwise, it doesn't work. And it's the thing with doctors. A good doctor is the doctor that really thinks that this is his or her calling, because only this actually justifies all the, you know, messed up (*fucked up*) to this, I do apologize, of how you become a doctor. Like, all the education and all these nights in front of the books and whatever.

At the university, I think the attitude was even. That was something that stood out for me. Every single teacher we had actually cared about the subject and actually cared about teaching us something. And international relations, it's a lot about politics. It's about negotiation tactics. It's about understanding the societal context. It's a lot of behavioral economics, interestingly enough, because it also kind of moves the masses to a certain degree. Right? So all that stuff was super useful.

Jon Chee - 00:26:31: Interesting. And so now you have this internship opportunity at parliament. Talk a little bit about that.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:26:37: I went through a process of getting it. I thought that it would be a great experience for me. I was wrong.

Oh, no. Look. I had a very glorified and somewhat romanticized version of how state institutions actually work , right, and how parliament is the major legislative body. And Latvia is a parliamentary republic. Right? So it's not a presidential republic. It's a parliamentary republic. We do have a president, but the president does not have a legislative power. Right? It's more of a symbolic—well, it does have some negative powers, but it's not a standalone figure per se. So the parliament is the main one.

And I was just disappointed. That was it. I was disappointed. I thought that I would see history in the making , and I just saw a bunch of dudes sitting there, not doing their best job very often , being lazy very often. And in my 18-year-old, back in the day, second year of university, 18 years old, 18-year-old idealistic mind, that was not the way of how you—you're re-elected by people. You were shaping the future of the country, and you're working on legislation. In my mind, it just didn't add up at all.

And I spent half a year. It was good experience because I got to see how the decisions were taken , how the laws were actually prepared and moved through the whole consultation mechanism and then through all the commissions into an actual vote, et cetera, et cetera. So process-wise, it was extremely helpful. But, ideologically, I was very disappointed. I really did not think that I'd really want to work in the governmental apparatus type of thing.

Coming out of it, the only thing I was sure about was I don't want to work in government. This is literally not for me. The hierarchy did not make sense. The reason why this person has the authority over this person where this lower-standing person is seemingly much more competent and much more sane, for God's sake, than this one didn't make any sense. So for me, as a kid back in the days who was trying to get through everything, including social interactions, with reasoning—"You do this because this and this" —it was absolutely abysmal for me. It was illogical, and I didn't want to be in it. It was just not my pond.

Jon Chee - 00:29:04: Sometimes it's important to figure that out, though, and figure it out early.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:29:08: Early. Absolutely. And this is why it was tremendously helpful. This is what, for me, since then, and now even more, for me, politics in general and any sort of political representation or assuming the responsibility of political representation of a certain part of the population—which in a parliamentary republic you do. Right? So you're assuming political representation of a certain group of people that elected you in the parliament.

For me, it is only acceptable as a part of societal added value that an accomplished individual actually assumes once this individual, he or she, whoever that is, has accomplished a lot in his or her own profession. So politics as employment is a no-go for me on all sorts of levels.

So I really think, looking at this, I really became what you would call a technocrat. Right? So I'm somewhere between technocracy and meritocracy in my political beliefs , where I think that, a, you need specialized people for specialized areas. Like, you need the guy with a lot of finance background to run your economical pillar in the country. Makes sense. You don't need a former teacher to do it , or a marketing guy who just went into politics for some reason. And you need to do this by merit , where it should be an accomplished individual. He or she should have a track record that proves that you can now rule or be responsible for this part of affairs in the country. Otherwise, you know, you're risking creating a circus.

And I still think that way. Right? So I still think that the politician is someone who just wants to give back to society, not earn money with it. It is a very unpopular opinion. It's a popular opinion. It's not a very popular execution. But, yeah, on paper, a lot of people would agree with me, though.

Jon Chee - 00:31:00: Yeah. That's crazy that you got that firsthand experience so early on. And so now you basically just say almost like that Simpsons meme or like, just go into the room and you're like, "Nope, I'm out". I'm going to turn right back out. So you're like, "Okay. Peace out. I'm not sticking around". Is that when you started thinking about grad school or you're getting your master's?

Sergey Jakimov - 00:31:19: Yeah. So I went into my year three, so the final year of BA , and I wanted to pursue further education. I wanted to go into a master's straight away. I just turned 20 years old , and this is where I started to think about going abroad. I still didn't really have the financial means, and my family did not have much financial means, to, you know, send me to Stanford or something. Even theoretically, if I would be able to get into it, I wouldn't be able to afford the fees.

So this is where I started to sample the field. Right? I needed something with a scholarship and something that would teach me what I wanted to dig deeper into , and that was political economy and quantitative methods of statistics, pretty much.

And I did end up applying to only one school, which was the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest , which was founded and funded back in the days by the Soros Foundation because Soros happened to be a Hungarian citizen. Oh, Hungarian by ethnicity, I don't know if he's a citizen, but he's Hungarian ethnically. So he opened up, like, he funded the university, a very pro-liberal kind of institution in Budapest against all odds because everything in Hungary, including the Orbán government, was pretty much pushing the very contrary agenda to this very liberal type of agenda that the Central European University had.

So I got accepted , and this is where I spent two years in Budapest for my master's. Again, a level up in terms of clever people around you. It was great. I honestly enjoyed it. Again, it was not the wealthiest or whatever period of your life , but retrospectively, it was also one of the happiest ones, both BA and MA, just because, well, you got to live the life. You got to travel Europe. You know? You got to travel somewhere. You got to travel to Vienna on a weekend, you know, and see places just to live the life of a normal individual , and you got to interact with extremely clever professors and very bright professors.

The school had, I think, a double accreditation with NYU. So, you know, we got half of our staff coming in from the US. So it was very academic. It was a very academically inclined institution. It was not an MBA type of course, but it was nevertheless very high level, and I did enjoy that. And, yeah, I think CEU is one of the coolest experiences from the early educational part.

Jon Chee - 00:33:45: Very cool. I loved your analogy of your cellmates. You got some cool cellmates.

Sergey Jakimov - 00:33:49: You constantly got an upgrade to your cellmates. At some point, your cellmates are there voluntarily. This is the coolest part. They actually paid for it, or they actually enrolled to be there. Right? And that makes a huge difference.

So via MA, the cellmates were absolutely off-the-charts. And being among people that are interested in the same thing but a slightly different area of that same thing, it brings the difference in perspectives. It brings a tremendous color in terms of the cultures that are mixed as well because CEU had students from all over, starting from the African countries ending up with, you know, the US, Europe, Asia, whatever. And it was tremendously useful in terms of getting this notion of the world being a very diverse place. It's actually a very small place, really. The world is not big in reality, but it's very diverse. And how all these diverse cultures are going to co-live together and how they approach studies even differently, that was tremendous. And that helped a lot, by the way, as I went on and did whatever I did in life. That background has helped a lot.

Jon Chee - 00:34:52: I love that.

Outro - 00:34:55: That's all for this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast featuring Sergey Jakimov. Join us next time for part two of our four-part series, where Sergey takes us from student life in Budapest to his first startup, a small CFD modeling venture breaking into the oil and gas industry. He shares what it was like to build a company at 22 with no experience, no safety net, and everything to learn. We'll also hear how that experience led him toward medical devices, why he sees team building like planning a bank heist, and how curiosity and respect for education became his real advantages. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

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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.

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