How Open-Source Programming Teaches Company Building Skills | Sujal Patel (Part 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 Sujal Patel, co-founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology, a life sciences company pioneering single-molecule proteome analysis to revolutionize how researchers understand their proteins. Before founding Nautilus, Sujal founded and served as CEO of Isilon Systems, which completed one of the most successful IPOs of 2006 before being acquired by EMC in 2010 for $2,600,000,000. He served as president of EMC's Isilon storage division from 2010 to 2012 where the business generated over $25,000,000,000 of lifetime revenue.

At Nautilus, Sujal leads development of the Nautilus Proteome Analysis Platform, which uses single-molecule technology to achieve comprehensive protein coverage at unprecedented scale. The platform analyzes billions of protein molecules simultaneously, enabling researchers to map proteoform modifications critical to understanding diseases like Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disorders. With 19 patents in storage and networking plus five patents for Nautilus's proteomics innovations and having raised to build the platform, Sujal's journey from tech entrepreneur to biotech CEO demonstrates how interdisciplinary experience can tackle humanity's biggest challenges, making this a conversation you won't want to miss.

Over the next four episodes, Sujal shares how growing up in suburban New Jersey as the son of Indian immigrants shaped his drive for excellence, why his father pushed him towards STEM disciplines, and how his brother's fascination with computers sparked a lifelong passion. He reflects on learning to code on a Franklin Ace 1000 in elementary school, choosing University of Maryland for computer science despite wanting to escape New Jersey, and how contributing to the FreeBSD project opened doors to his first job.

Today, we'll hear about Sujal's early days, how his engineer father instilled an entrepreneurial mindset, and why his brother buying an Apple II clone became the inflection point that launched his computing career. We'll also hear about University of Maryland's cutting-edge computer science program, building operating systems and compilers from scratch, and landing at RealNetworks through BSD project connections. Lastly, we'll hear about demanding his boss's job at age 22, managing 40-year-olds three months out of college, and the phone call that almost sent him back to the East Coast, and how not leaving a voicemail changed everything. Without further ado, let's dive into part one of our conversation with Sujal Patel.

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

Sujal Patel - 00:03:47: Great to see you, Jon. Thanks for inviting me.

Jon Chee - 00:03:49: Yep. Really looking forward to this conversation. I know we've had this on the calendar for a while now. And, you know, as we were thinking about a fun place to start, we always like to go all the way back and really learn kind of, like, what inspired you, influenced your leadership philosophy and business philosophy. So take us all the way back. What was your upbringing like?

Sujal Patel - 00:04:07: What was my upbringing like? Alright. Well, let's see. I grew up in a suburban, quiet part of New Jersey. I am the son of immigrants. My parents are both from India, and, you know, they take on the traditional Indian roles in marriage. My mother took care of the house, the children, and so forth. My dad went out and was a structural and civil engineer and worked his entire life in the engineering trade.

And I think that my upbringing was probably a stereotypically Indian upbringing. Right? I'd come home with an A, and it should've been an A+. I should've I should've pushed myself harder. From a very early age, my father instilled in me and my brother that we've gotta go and pursue something that's worthwhile. And in my father's eyes, worthwhile means you make a lot of money. You could do good in the world, but mostly make a lot of money. And so it's like, okay. What are we gonna be? Are we gonna be an engineer? Are we gonna be a doctor? Maybe a lawyer, but I don't know about that. Yeah.

But my dad being an engineer was always pushing me and my brother in a STEM direction. Right? Like, growing up, I would watch Nova on TV, which is all about science, and watch these engineering shows about how things are built. And, you know, my dad is a man of not a lot of words, but he was always—he's very matter-of-fact and pushed us, you know, both very hard, pushed me very hard to go and do things that are interesting and creative. As I got older, he was one of the first people to say, "Hey. You know? Get out in the world. You wanna go do something yourself. Be entrepreneurial. Go solve problems out in the world". And I think that those early experiences definitely did influence sorta how I looked at the world through college and then as I got out into the world as well.

Jon Chee - 00:05:48: Very cool. I have a similar experience. My father is—or he's retired now, but a structural engineer and also a man of little words. So just like, you know, just like generally—yeah. Same thing. You get the grade, just like a little bit of disappointment. It's like, God. Like, I do remember too when I was, like, early days, I'm not as math-oriented as he is, and just coming back and not getting math like he does where it's, like, that's, like, a second language. I was like, "I don't got it". And there was, like, a big—I could just see the disappointment. I was just like, "Oh, I'm sorry". But I love that, and I love that your father also kinda, like, encouraged you to go out there and finding problems to solve. And I guess, like, when you were in the kind of early high school, college, did your father steer you towards engineering? Or was it kind of like as long as you are out there and finding something that you can put your focus to, that's all good?

Sujal Patel - 00:06:41: Yeah. If you kinda looked at my later childhood, how that emerged, right, I think there were a few things. Right? I mean, we were talking about these fatherly traits. It sounds like your father and mine are very similar. If I'm like, "Hey. I'm struggling with this math problem, and I'm having a bad day," he'd be like, "Oh, sounds like you need to work harder". There you go. That's it.

But I will tell you, when you ask the question about something engineering-oriented and, you know, they could be crazy questions like, "Why do they build the Citibank building in a way where the wind could knock it down?" "Oh, let me tell you". And he could just start. You could—it's like a tape recorder. You hit play. I don't know—we don't have tape recorders anymore—but when we did, you hit play, and he could go on for twenty minutes and tell you about all the little details and so forth. And so from an engineering perspective, he was very talkative, but just did that one very narrow slice.

The way that my transition into computers came about is really kind of wrapped up in my childhood. So my brother is seven years older than me. He was born in India and came here when he was two. It was a long gap between me and him because they were settling in a new country and so forth. And so seven years older means that I was in elementary school while he's off in high school learning how to use these fancy computers. And, you know, this was the day of the Apple II, the Apple II Plus, the Apple IIe, and he really became enamored with those computer classes.

And I don't know how it happened, but somewhere along the line, he convinced my parents that, "Okay. We need a computer". Now we're Indians. We're frugal. We can't go buy an Apple because it costs too much money. But the Franklin Ace 1000, the Apple II Plus compatible, that one's in our budget. Let's go buy that. The second that thing showed up, I started playing around with it. I must have spent 10 times more time on that thing than my brother did, and that's where I started to learn BASIC and Logo and started to work my way through languages. And then as I got older and older, delving into the operating system and low-level programming, and it just kept going and going and going.

And, you know, my parents were just like, "Yeah. Go for it. That's a great thing to learn". And so I already knew from the love of building my computer science education through that computer that this is what I wanted to do. Like, I was firmly convinced I wanna go be a computer scientist. And so for me, you know, I went and applied to schools. I already knew I wanted to go be a computer scientist. And then I already knew before even getting into college that I ultimately wanted to do something entrepreneurial, creative, because that's what I was told I should do. And so all of that already was instilled in me as I was getting ready to go to college.

Jon Chee - 00:09:21: I love that. And was this, like, in the early days, like, self-taught? I'm gonna imagine the resource to kinda, like, teach yourself languages was—now it's like you can—it's prevalent, and you can find materials and resources. Was it something where you were feeling it out on your own, or was it—did someone, like, kind of, like, show you the ropes?

Sujal Patel - 00:09:39: So my brother got me started with Hello World and some very basics. Maybe I could have a loop in BASIC. Mhmm. Yeah. But then it was like a book or two books. That was what your resource was. And you just start at the beginning, and you start to learn from it. And you just take it one step at a time, and you start to get better and better at it. You know, my brain thinks very much in a procedural manner. And so these early languages and how my brain thought were perfectly aligned, and so I picked it up very quickly, and I just absolutely love figuring out new things I could do with the computer.

Jon Chee - 00:10:13: Very cool. Very cool.

Sujal Patel - 00:10:14: My video games. It was pretty cool.

Jon Chee - 00:10:15: Yeah. Exactly. I do remember early days of when, like—this is a bit afterwards, but, like, when StarCraft came out, and I was just like, "Oh, this is cool." Like, this is really cool and, like, finding that spark. But I love that you found that really early, and it's always, like, the serendipity, like, just because, like, your brother had this exposure and then it kind of, like, changed the trajectory of, like—for you, like, it sounded like in a big way. And as you are thinking about colleges, I guess, did you always know—like, did you have your eyes on, like, University of Maryland, or were you thinking about other schools as well as you're thinking about where to pursue computer science as, like, your major?

Sujal Patel - 00:10:55: Yeah. You know, if you looked at my upbringing while my parents were like, "Go get A pluses," I didn't have the best grades outside of my very, very, very big spike in computers and math and science and engineering. You know, if you went back and you diagnosed me with today's chart in psychology, you'd be like, "Oh, that kid's got ADHD".

Jon Chee - 00:11:15: He—yeah.

Sujal Patel - 00:11:16: Doesn't wanna pay attention to English and social studies. It bores him completely. He gets by just as much as he needs to. He studies for the whole exam from 2:00 AM to 8:00 AM the night before. Like—

Jon Chee - 00:11:28: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sujal Patel - 00:11:29: So for me, you know, I'm son of immigrants. I'm going to school. I don't have resources. I don't—I think maybe I didn't have college counselors or people helping me. I think maybe I had a test prep class at the school. You know, for me, I had some other schools I liked. I liked Berkeley. I liked Carnegie Mellon. No one else took me. Well, other schools like University of Maryland took me, but none of the ones in the top tiers.

And so University of Maryland was a great choice for me for a few reasons. One, it does have a really great computer science program and great fundamentals for undergraduate. And for me, it was kind of important. Like, yeah, I told you earlier I had this, like, spark that I wanted to go do something entrepreneurial and be creative. And one of the things—you know, you live in Central Jersey in the suburbs with your Indian parents. You live a sheltered life. Like, I wanted to make sure I got away from New Jersey unlike my brother who went to Rutgers in New Jersey and still lives there today within 10 miles of my mom. And I wanted to get away explicitly. A little bit of tension with my parents, I've added. So for me, it was a perfect balance. I could still get home in three or four hours, but nobody's coming to visit the other weekend.

Jon Chee - 00:12:36: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I—I totally get it. It's funny because I'm from the Bay Area. And, basically, when I was considering schools, father also went to Berkeley. And when I applied for schools that are, like, outside of Berkeley, there was a very, like, a very harsh, like, reaction. Like, it was just like, "What do you mean you're leaving the Bay Area?" And so I succumbed. I commend you for spreading your wings. And my joke is, like, I haven't left. I'm in San Francisco now, but haven't left pretty much, like, a 10-mile radius. So I'm like—I'm like your brother. Very much still in the—the kind of the same little bubble over here. And so when you got to University of Maryland, like, what was that first experience like out there? Like, was it, "This is it. Like, this is it," and, "This is, like, the world is my oyster"? Kind of, like, what were the early college years for you?

Sujal Patel - 00:13:23: Yeah. And let—let me kinda separate it into, like, personal experience and then computer science. So, I mean, I think personal experience-wise, it's a pretty exciting thing. Right? I mean, you're—you're dropped off in this gigantic campus with tens of thousands of kids. University of Maryland has a gorgeous grassy mall with water flowing through the center of it, in the center of campus. They've got a really beautiful old campus. It's super walkable. Just a really great place to be like, "Alright. I'm here. Let's go make some friends. Let's go figure out who I really am and what I wanna do". And so that was super exciting.

I can't recall if—I think it was my first year, but if not my first, it was the second year. The campus just started high-speed Internet with a little wire at the wall in the dorms, which is something transformative. There was no high-speed at—at home at that time. And, you know, for me, that was just absolutely amazing, and that fueled my computer geeky side. And then very quickly at Maryland, I started getting involved in, you know, the usual kind of 101 classes, but also computer classes and learning about languages and compilers and operating systems and all of the sort of engineering that goes into a computer. And for me, that stuff was incredibly exciting, and I always went and pursued independent projects, the biggest and hardest things that I could go do. Just a really, really fun experience.

Jon Chee - 00:14:44: Very cool. I can't imagine just, like, having high-speed Internet, like, right at the frontier. Was it, like, the CS department at University of Maryland really just, like, bleeding-edge? Like, just, like, pioneering—kind of tell us a little bit about that program and, like, perhaps some of the maybe formative professors or classes that you took that really just, like, drove this forward for you.

Sujal Patel - 00:15:04: Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting you asked about the high-speed Internet. Like, with the US government right at our doorstep—the Internet. And so I think it was pretty natural for them to say, "Okay. Let's—let's be one of—" it was one of the—the earlier schools to say, "Let's go and put this connectivity into the dorms". Let's get everyone lit up," and it was pretty darn exciting.

You know, from a class perspective, for me, I've always in computer science had kind of different pieces of the computing world that interested me. On one side, I was super interested in low-level programming, operating systems, how to build an operating system, languages, compilers, like, all of the nitty-gritty of how a computer worked. And on the other side, I was also interested in user interfaces and how to make something beautiful and how to make it usable for an end user, how do you go and build games and multimedia. And I actually took classes in—in both of those areas, and there's a big middle—I don't know about the middle—but I—I loved both of those ends of the barbell.

And, like, for me, those were experiences that really helped me as I started to get into my early career in the computing world. And so during my Maryland time, I built a new operating system. I built a language and a compiler. Some of the professors I had, like, uh, Bill Pugh and John Gannon who's—who's unfortunately passed away. Like, these were folks who, like, created classes where you could do these sort of things. These arts are lost in today's world. If you say to somebody, "I'm gonna build an operating system," they're gonna—"Help". But, you know, like, there's no 100-person class to build an operating system, but I did. It's like—the threading model, figure out what the storage stuff looks like.

And all of those things led me to, outside of school, get involved in these types of projects as well. And so, you know, these were the early days of Linux and the BSD projects like FreeBSD and NetBSD. I ended up taking FreeBSD and installing it onto my home computer that I dragged with me from New Jersey. I had a network port and started working on the operating system, started getting involved in the project. And a lot of my future endeavors link back to the days where I started—I—I decided, you know, it's like a religion. You have to pick—a Linux person or a BSD person. I picked the BSD side. It had, uh, lost out in the long run for the most part, but still, it created a—a set of experiences and networks that I ended up tapping through my early career as well.

Jon Chee - 00:17:34: Wow. Okay. So you can, like, draw a line all the way through.

Sujal Patel - 00:17:36: Oh, I could draw that line for you. Yes.

Jon Chee - 00:17:38: That's incredible. That's incredible. And so, you know, it sounds like you're having, like—it's almost like a very entrepreneurial college experience, and you're, like, really blazing, you know, new trails. We talk a lot about, like, the kind of, like, the CS kind of, like, rich opportunities at the University of Maryland. Like, were there other kind of, like, extracurriculars perhaps that you did, or was it, like, the big focal point was, like, CS for you?

Sujal Patel - 00:18:02: The big focal point for me was CS and things like the FreeBSD project and getting involved outside. Other than that, I mean, I had newfound wings being outside of New Jersey, so there's a lot of, well, college things.

Jon Chee - 00:18:15: Yeah. College things.

Sujal Patel - 00:18:16: College things. Particular extracurricular—one of the things that really was great was University of Maryland had a bunch of these classes. They call them 498 classes, which are experimental classes. I did an experimental class in multimedia where I made this three-dimensional chess game, very rudimentary, very old. One of those classes was an entrepreneurship class, which was kind of a—a bridge between CS and business. There was some relationship there. And we had this big project that we had to go do. This is like, I don't know, somewhere between '93 and '95, maybe, somewhere in that range.

And the project that I chose was based on all these experiences I'm telling you about. I had this computer. I put FreeBSD on it. The BIOS version was incompatible with the OS. The driver didn't work. And I said, "Hey. What if we made hardware that was linked up with the operating system in a way that it came to the end user as a unified unit where they just turn it on and it's got FreeBSD?" What do you know? That's like Penguin Computing. It's, you know, all of the PC manufacturers who bundled Linux. And a lot of those general ideas we came up with, like, "How do we reprogram the—the basic parts of the system to be linked up with it? What can we do for security? How do we make this easy for the end user to upgrade?" Like, all those sort of things came to fruition. And so it was kind of fun to come up with those kind of ideas, and then at the end of it, be like, "Calm—probably maybe I should have done that".

Jon Chee - 00:19:39: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was—and I was gonna say that, I mean, that time as well is just like you're at the bleeding—you know, proper bleeding-edge. I mean, like, startups now are, like, very much—it's in the common vernacular, but I would like—like, now you're, like, bleeding-edge of, like, CS, and then they're also introducing, like, CS plus entrepreneurship. So you're, like, really at the frontier here, which is awesome to hear. And—and as you're thinking about, like, what's next after college, were you like, "Oh, it's time to, like, start a company?" Was it, or is it time to just, like, go get some experience? Where was your head at when it came to what's next?

Sujal Patel - 00:20:15: Yeah. I mean, the reason why I wouldn't pursue something like that is I did feel like, "Okay. Now it's time to go get a job. Like, go figure out what this really is. Like, figure out where I wanna go and how I get my career going". But, you know, when I left college, I'm like—I applied for, you know, your traditional jobs, and you have to go where tech companies are. So I applied in California and Seattle and some near the university. Nothing in New—oh, maybe I had a job in New Jersey too, but I wasn't gonna take that. Don't tell my parents.

Jon Chee - 00:20:39: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, mom. Yeah. Sorry, mom. And out of those jobs, like, how did you end up choosing RealNetworks as, you know, the one to, like, kick things off for you?

Sujal Patel - 00:20:51: Yeah. It's really interesting. Right? So I had some opportunities on the East Coast, but to me, California had this, like, huge allure. It's like, "Oh, this is the mecca of technology, and it's California. It's the land of sun and opportunity". Did a ton of interview and got a bunch of offers in California. Many of them were larger organizations. And I went to California, and I'm like, "Okay. I'm here". And I drove down 101, and I'm like, "Okay. It's like New Jersey. There's walls. There's a giant highway. There's a bunch of Indian people, but there's some tech companies sprinkled in".

Jon Chee - 00:21:30: Yeah. Yeah.

Sujal Patel - 00:21:31: I'm like, "Yeah". And there was nothing in San Francisco at the time. It was really in the Valley. And then I had an opportunity to interview at Microsoft and at RealNetworks up in Seattle. And RealNetworks felt a little like Microsoft—the next door of people—but it was a tiny little startup with a 100 and change people. And I go up to Seattle, and there's a vibrant city. It's got a huge hill. There's this beautiful bay. There's a lake, which is right—right over here to my left right now, and it was pretty. It was small, but not small. It had half a million people almost at the time.

And, you know, even though I grew up two hours outside of New York City, I think I could count, like, maybe twice or three times I've ever got there and probably just did a few touristy things and left. So I love that idea of being in this vibrant city and as well being in a company that was really small and doing something exciting because I had this interest in multimedia and graphics and imaging, and this is—RealNetworks was audio today but wanted to move in that direction. And so for me, it was kind of a really interesting combination of personal and interest from a job and computing perspective that got me to RealNetworks and got me to Seattle. And I always thought to myself, I'm like, uh, maybe in five years, I'll go to California. Maybe I'll do something else. And in the end, I never left.

Jon Chee - 00:22:47: I always, like, talk to my wife about this. It's like, if we were not in the Bay, we'd probably be in Seattle. Absolutely love it there. Like, I—the way you described it is just like—it's exactly when you touch down, you're just like, "Oh my God. Like, this—it is beautiful out here". Granted, you have to like the rain. That is, like, a prerequisite, but, like, it's funny because, like, sometimes when we—we visit and we bring friends with us on the trip to Seattle, we're, like, there, like, right around the August time frame where there isn't rain. And a lot of our friends who haven't, you know, gone to Seattle a lot are like—"It's like this all the time". You're just like—

Sujal Patel - 00:23:18: No. June, July, August, September. That's your sweet spot.

Jon Chee - 00:23:23: Yeah. And this—this is like a dream.

Sujal Patel - 00:23:25: Yeah. Not even May. May—yeah. I like to say in Seattle, April showers bring May showers. Like, it's—yeah.

Jon Chee - 00:23:31: Yeah. Yeah. Big event.

Sujal Patel - 00:23:32: Gotta get to June to get that weather.

Jon Chee - 00:23:34: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's just like—it's like everything comes alive, and it's just, like, amazing. So I can see why. I can understand why you haven't left. And I love that, like, when you had this opportunity to join a smaller organization, but still 100 people—that's, like, you know, still a deep—like, a decent size. And now that you're at a startup and you're kind of, like, at the ground floor, can you just, like, talk a little bit about, I guess, RealNetworks', like, mission, focus, product? Like, tell us a little bit about RealNetworks and, like, what your early days there were like.

Sujal Patel - 00:23:39: Yeah. Let me take a second before I delve into that and trace back to something we talked about earlier. So RealNetworks is a 100-person company across the country. How in the world would I have found this opportunity? I didn't. RealNetworks reached out to me. And how did they reach out to me? Well, while I was doing work on the FreeBSD project, which is an extracurricular activity on top of my schooling, I met a bunch of people. And one of these guys is a guy named Bakul Shah, who was running the back-end engineering at RealNetworks. And, uh, he's, you know, opened between Seattle and Silicon Valley his whole life. And he knew I was graduating, and he's like, "Send me the resume if we wanna go and talk with you". And I'm like, "Okay".

And I go over there. I'm like, "Well, it's a great opportunity. It fits perfectly". But there's that first thread of extracurricular activity on the BSD project made its way all the way into me getting my first job. And that thread gets pulled twice more in my early career, so I keep circling back to it. So Bakul hired me, and, you know, I had a fun experience. Like I told you, like, I'd never been out to Seattle. I barely had been out to the West Coast, and they flew me out there for an interview in May 1996, a long, long time ago. It was very—I remember it well. It was a stormy flight. They flew me, like, through St. Louis because it's cheapest fare. I got over there. They had this, like, great old office in, like, a very old part of town. It was really fun. You could see the water and loved the opportunity.

I joined. Like, uh, I decided the second school ended, I was gonna go pack everything I had into my Ford Probe. I was gonna drive across the country because that's the cheapest. Right? If they gave me a relo package, I said, "Can I have that in cash?" They said, "No". "I'll give you two-thirds of it in cash". I said, "Okay". Then I threw everything in the car and just drove as cheap as I could. I got out there and got started.

So as my career might suggest, I am an eager beaver. Like, I got in there. I'm like, "I wanna go get stuff done. I wanna go and figure out how to build things quick". I jumped into that team very, very quickly. It was a small team. The team that I was on was seven people, something like that, and we were building the back-end infrastructure software. So at the time, RealNetworks' business was: bring audio to the Internet because there was no audio on the Internet. And so there's a server component, which was the team that I was on. There's a client component, which is a whole 'nother team. And together, they bring audio to the Internet.

And I got on that team, and I was very quickly getting projects, bigger projects, bigger projects. It was one I remember particularly where I'm not a very patient person, and so somebody's code was just awful. It wasn't architected right. So I ended up rebuilding a big piece of it, like, committing it. It was bit—it was a little—probably a little stepping on someone's toes a little bit. I remember the next day, Bakul, my boss, was pissed at me. He's like, "What did you just do?" And I'm like, "Well, here's what needed to happen". And he sits at a whiteboard with me while I explained it to him for, like, I don't know, thirty, forty-five minutes, an hour, and, you know, another good Indian immigrant, not a lot of words. At the end of it, he's like, "Okay. Good". And he just—you could go out. I'm like, "Okay. I guess—I guess that was good".

Jon Chee - 00:27:07: I love that. That's funny. My wife works in tech, and they talk about, like, committing something to code. It's just like—I—I've never worked at a tech company, but, like, it's a big deal, like, a big, big deal, and, like, it's a whole thing. I love how you're just like, "Gotta fix this. Gonna commit it. Like, we're pushing this out".

Sujal Patel - 00:27:25: Yeah. So this was, like, a very, very, very fast entry into the working world. Right? I started on June 10. The first day I took off was Christmas Day. So I worked seven days a week until then. All my entertainment, all the things I did for fun were with people who were around me at work, and it was pretty darn exciting. But that—well, it seems like six months is pretty short. It was a pretty eventful six months.

So I started on June 10. August, September, October—three months later—uh, my boss, Bakul, pulls me in the room, says, "I'm leaving". And he closes his door. He says, "I'm founding a company, like, in Maryland or in DC, like, right where I came from". And he's like, "And I want you to come". I'm like, "Woah". He's like, "Who?"

Jon Chee - 00:28:08: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sujal Patel - 00:28:10: And so I'm like, "Well, that's kind of interesting". He's like, "Well, I need you to go meet with the CEO". So I go over there and meet the CEO. I think this is a great opportunity. It's a networking company that Ericsson bought for about half a billion dollars. And so I do the whole interview and I get my offer. And, like, RealNetworks is like, "Well, we want you to stay, and here's what I can give you". And I'm like, "This is not gonna keep me here". And by this point, I've rearchitected things. Three months—they already know they don't wanna lose me. It's October—from June 10 to October.

And I said, "Well, listen. If you wanna keep me, I want Bakul's job". And I'm too dumb to—I don't know what I—

Jon Chee - 00:28:50: I'm—yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sujal Patel - 00:28:51: Twenty-twenty—two years old. What do I know? I was like, "I want Bakul's job". And I'm like, "I want his equity package". And they, like, laugh at me. And then shortly later, they come to me with an offer that is pretty darn close, and I end up staying at RealNetworks. Now I will tell you, it was very, very close. So while they were working on that offer, they, like, owed me something by, like, 4:00 PM, and it showed up at, like, 5:00 PM. And so after 4:00 PM, I called Bakul or his CEO—I don't remember who—but I called one of them to accept the offer, and they didn't pick up. And I don't like leaving a voicemail, so I didn't leave a voicemail. Had I accepted, I would not have reneged on it.

And then in the intervening time, RealNetworks came to me with the offer. I'm like, "Okay. I'm gonna stay. That—that it was close enough". It's the cool job, big enough equity package. It was very close to his equity package, and I had a whole team working for me three months after being at—out of college. And so I suddenly had 40-year-olds working for me who were twice my age, and I had to learn how to manage people and build the architecture. Took Christmas Day off, kept working after that. January that next year, I started their second-generation architecture, which is the one that carried them for a long, long period of time, and then started building a team, a multi-level team, and, uh, really exciting process as we transition from audio to video to network intermediary products and products that enabled you to really distribute audio and video everywhere across the Internet. Really fun times.

Jon Chee - 00:30:25: Woah. That is wild. Also, what a—like—sometimes, like, things come down to, like, a knife's edge like that.

Sujal Patel - 00:30:32: You got it. Like, it was a toss-up. If they answered the phone, I would have gone to the East Coast. I would have—

Jon Chee - 00:30:39: Basically back home.

Sujal Patel - 00:30:40: Been at that company, been at back home. I would have sold the thing to Ericsson. Who knows where I've gone from there?

Jon Chee - 00:30:45: Yeah. It's crazy. And, also, just, like, I love, again, kind of, like, how your brother's gravitation to computers had this, like, inflection point.

Sujal Patel - 00:30:53: That's right. Yep.

Jon Chee - 00:30:54: And then in college, you're pursuing your passions, and you happen to get into, like, these extracurricular activities that—boom. Just another kind of, like, inflection point. You could piece it together when you're looking backwards, but it's just like—you just never know in the moment. And whenever I think about folks who are trying to navigate all of this, it's just—it's kind of a thing. You just, like, just go out there and just, like, get that exposure because you never ultimately know. It's, like, impossible to know. And it's also another aspect too of it—it's like—will stand out to me. It's just like, it doesn't hurt to ask. And you're 22, so, like, you probably don't know better. You're just like, "Yeah. I'm gonna make the ask". And it ends up working out, and you're just like, "Sweet".

Sujal Patel - 00:31:34: That's exactly right. And as we continue, if you wanna keep talking about the RealNetworks story, I had another one of those kind of asks later when I decided to leave, and I didn't get the response I wanted. And I left, and that's what got—I started my first company off the ground.

Jon Chee - 00:31:47: That's, like, an actually super fascinating thing too because, like, I remember when I was starting Excedr, I made an ask of, like, one of my early roles or, like, early jobs about what, like, future employment would look like. Didn't get the answer I wanted. Ended up starting a company. And—if—if I did get the answer I wanted, probably would have been a very, very different life. But, exactly, like, it cuts both ways. Right? It kinda, like, it cuts both ways.

And I guess, question for you—at—like, you're in at RealNetworks. Like, you're 22, and now you're managing—like, you're managing a large team and you have a bunch of responsibility. Was this again kind of similar to when you were learning how to code, where you're just, like, figuring it out on the fly? Or was there someone who kind of showed you the ropes on, like, what managing is like, what it means to kind of pack up a big—like—all these responsibilities that are—and you're right out of college too. So, like, how did you, like, come up to speed?

Sujal Patel - 00:32:42: A lot of it is just learning on the fly and falling back on technical strength, which is what I had as something that people would respect you for. But, you know, RealNetworks, the—the founders all came from Microsoft. And so even at—like, by the time—remember, this is from the four and a half years I was there, we went from a 100 people to a thousand people. It was dot-com days. So as the company's market cap also went from, like, pre-public to $10,000,000,000, and, oh, boy, they're still around today. Like, if you look at where they are today actually, I guess they've—they've gone private or—I can't even remember. It's, like—tens, I think, is what it cut back down to.

So it's had this huge arc over—over the course of what is now thirty years. It's been a long time. And so during that time frame, they did have more formal speaking training, manager training, how to deal with tough situations. And I took every opportunity to take those things because I was awful at those things, and it's not like my upbringing taught me how to have an empathetic conversation. And so all of those things helped. I'm still not certain—I'm an engineer. I'm still not certain I have any empathy, but the programming of what to say and what the responses are and the flowchart, I've got that down now.

Jon Chee - 00:33:55: Look. I—I know. You got it down pat. I—I—and you got it down pat. And one, going from a 100 to a thousand, talk about, like, scaling quick. Like, that is quick. There's always, like, these tech companies now that are doing kind of, like, hyper-scaling. We're now seeing it in AI and everything like that. But, like, when you're watching it unfold with a front-row seat, how do you keep the company from just, like, breaking at the seams when you're scaling like that? Or does it just, like—it's unavoidable? Like, you're—it's kind of, like, you have to.

Sujal Patel - 00:34:25: It's difficult. I think that RealNetworks did a lot of things that were good that helped them to scale through that. There was just a lot of complexity too. People that were in jobs that didn't really have the skills to be able to succeed at it, people who were brought in through acquisition and, uh, there were multiple acquisitions. Some of them worked well, some didn't. So I think I kinda took some of the goods and the bads from that as I started to think about that at Isilon.

You know, both at Isilon and here at—at Nautilus, you know, one of the key lessons that I've learned is that every company which succeeds in this tech biotech type of world is gonna hit this hypergrowth stage. And at hypergrowth, you can hire the people. You just can't bring in the managers. You can't bring in managers and senior people who have tribal knowledge, who understand the culture, who understand what we're doing and how it works. And so I always think about the fact that when we get to hypergrowth, you have to be able to promote more than half of the people that you need to manage people from within. And that means that people are gonna get thrust into jobs they're not ready for, that they're too early in their career, but you have to make them succeed.

And so to do that, you back up to when you're not in hypergrowth, which is right now for Nautilus right now, and you're investing in people. Me as CEO, I'm meeting with one-on-ones with people down two levels from me and even some that are three levels down from me, mentoring, talking to them about where they're gonna stretch, pushing them in their thinking of what they wanna do in their career. We have, you know, leadership development opportunities. Like, we're—we're investing in that today so that we don't break later in hypergrowth. And I think that those were some things that have gotten better and better. RealNetworks was okay at that. You know, Isilon was a little better at that. I think Nautilus is set up even—even better for that. Though in a different space, a little bit different personality of people. Uh, tech and biotech—the people is the biggest part, but a very different way of thinking and philosophies.

Jon Chee - 00:36:24: Absolutely. You know, what a rare opportunity to come out of college and get—this is a crash course. Like, crash course. Like, everything kinda just, like, condensed, and there's, like, being able to, like, soak that up and just, like, as a sponge, it kinda—I love how you're just, like, took some things there, kinda left some other things at RealNetworks, and as I kind of continue to have, like, build these, like, accretive experiences. And so now you—you mentioned you made an ask, and you didn't get the answer you wanted, which then led you to consider starting your own company. Talk about a little bit about that phase and, like, what was the inspiration for starting your own company, and, like, how did you meet your co-founders, and how leaving RealNetworks kind of, like, cascaded this whole journey.

Outro - 00:37:09: That's all for this episode of the Biotech Startups Podcast featuring Sujal Patel. Join us next time for part two where Sujal recounts identifying the storage problem while watching customers spend millions on systems that barely worked, the famous scissors of opportunity story with co-founder Paul Mikesell, and leaving RealNetworks to start Isilon. He also shares why founding a company in late 2000 during the dot-com collapse required blind faith, raising $8,400,000 as the only Series A in Seattle that year, and landing Kodak as a customer by delivering software in half the expected time.

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. 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.