Episode 1: Introducing Boba & Biotech: The Only Thing We Sugarcoat is the Boba

she: [00:00:00] Hello. Dink. 

Armon: Dink. Nice. Okay. At am Boba. 

she: That's right. Uh, what does yours taste like? 

Armon: It's okay. But address, I think did a pretty good job at, uh, making the boba because it is 8:00 AM it 8:00 AM So the boba place was actually, okay. 

she: This is homemade. 

Armon: This is homemade 

she: scratch.

I know. Uh, I like the [00:01:00] electric neon color of this one, and I didn't even realize it's because the electros that there's like bubbles in it. So I'm gonna give one of these a try. Let's, 

Armon: what is the neon one aside from pure radiation? 

she: Pineapple Ma. Mango. 

Armon: Oh, I thought uranium consumption had gotten cool. 

she: The Boba are very weird.

It's a popping bubble, but andreza, this is excellent. Okay. 

Armon: Weird is a compliment, man. 

she: Correct. Okay. 

Welcome to Boba and Biotech pilot episode. Um, okay.

Armand, uh, for people that don't know you outside of LinkedIn mm-hmm. Um, how would you introduce yourself? 

Armon: Uh, I dunno if I meet them. If I have to give like a minute, I would be like. Born in California. I grew up in Iran and Dubai because my parents did the opposite of what everybody else did. Uhhuh and moved away from here when I was five.

And then, uh, yeah, did undergrad and grad school, chemical engineering. Uh, during chemi, during my chemE (chemical engineering) PhD, we accidentally discovered if you squish cells at high speeds, you can disrupt the membrane, put whatever you want in [00:02:00] them. And so we started our first company squeeze based on that. Uh, initially I didn't wanna let go of the academic side, so I did a.

Immunology postdoc as well. 

prod: I remember that. 

Armon: Yes. Uh, at Harvard for about a year, probably like record short postdoc, uh, before jumping to the dark side. Uh, and then with Squeeze, we did that for 10 years. We raised about 300 million on the equity side, another hundred on, uh, from the Roche partnership. Uh, we went public in 2020.

It was all about engineering cells to go after this holy grail called cancer vaccines. Uh, and then two years after we were public, uh, me and the board had a nice big fight 'cause they really wanted to focus everything on the lead program as one does, and biotech when financing gets hard. I really wanted to open up the technology side so we agreed to disagree.

Uh, and then we got portal going as a next gen version of what we used to do. Uh, and so now we have over. 50 customers. We're about 23 people. We got a big grant from DARPA recently to make a point of care machine, and so we've been [00:03:00] continuing on that journey. 

she: Nice. Is this what it's like to be on the VC side across the table when you first meet?

Armon: Uh, probably. I think that's normally what I would say. 

she: Nice, nice sense. Yeah, 

Armon: because that's usually the context in which I'm introducing. Well, no, even if I'm, even if we're like recruiting or. Partnering stuff. It's about that. 

she: tell us about your life outside of work since that to be whatever 

Armon: life I have. I mean, probably the two things I, aside from playing with the kids, probably the two things I cling to is trying to play soccer still. Mm-hmm. Uh, I love going out, so clubbing and EDM and stuff like that.

Uh, that's about it. I otherwise like, just really only think about work. 

she: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am familiar with the clubbing and the soccer, many soccer injuries I recall. Um, I 

Armon: was like, you've never been to one of the games? No. You've 

she: just about the injuries I've seen you before, after the games. Correct.

And on crutches. Um, okay. So, uh, going back to your early childhood, when was the first [00:04:00] time you wanted to do something like science related? 

Armon: Uh, 

she: like how upset was that? 

Armon: It was pretty ingrained early on. I don't know why. I just always liked, I especially liked math. Um, but then my derivative, I kind of liked science stuff, so I think I always just liked it.

My dad was big on really promoting us going to a good university. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Ever since I was little. So I would like go to bed at night being like, all right, I wanna get like as many PhDs as possible. Not knowing what 10 degrees, not knowing what any of that involved 

prod: Uhhuh. 

Armon: Uh, but I just knew I liked science stuff and so when I went, when I eventually got into.

University. I was like, all right, clearly we're gonna do something technical uhhuh. It was just a question of which thing, like any humanities stuff was way outta the question. 

she: Did you have a dream college? 

Armon: Uh, yeah, Stanford, which is where I ended up going. 

she: Why was that your dream college? 

Armon: Oh, because my dad had instilled it.

Oh, I see. He's like, you guys like Stanford and Berkeley. Top one. Interesting. He had gone to Berkeley. Oh, I see. See, I see. [00:05:00] So, yes, that's all I would, that's all that was ingrained in me. 

she: Oh, that's, that's so cute. Um, 

Armon: yeah. 

she: Okay. 

Armon: Because I only really applied to the ucs and Stanford. I didn't even apply out of state.

Just 'cause for financial aid that out of state wasn't gonna be a good option. And MIT seemed too nerdy to me, so the hell if I was applying there. 

she: That's, that's rude, 

Armon: but true, but true. 

she: so did you ever think that one, you would, uh, or at what point did you think that you would become a founder? Like, was that something that you thought about ever growing up or like pre, like right before squeeze?

Armon: Uh, no, I never had like a strong disposition for or against it. It was just kind of neutral, Uhhuh, uh. I had been exposed to it as a kid because, uh, when we had moved to Iran, my dad had started a company there. So I was around it, but it never, it was never romanticized to me. Unlike getting into a good university was Uhhuh, but like [00:06:00] that stuff was never romanticized.

Uh, yeah. So to me it was just like a means to an end. 'cause my. Goal was always the cliche, make the world a better place. And one thing that had res, one thing that had forced me to think about this was when I was starting to apply to grad school, uh, I was doing it because like in science, there seems like there's this glass ceiling.

Mm-hmm. Unless you have a PhD, I don't think. I think PhDs are overrated, but uh, there's a glass ceiling unless you have one. Like 

she: do you think that's still the case now? I mean, that definitely was the case when 

Armon: the ceiling were the glass ceiling. I still think it true. Oh yeah. 

she: Okay, 

Armon: cool. Yeah, I still think it's true.

Uh, I think it's been reduced, but it's definitely still there. Okay. Uh, it's like frat hazing. It's like the people that have it feel like they wanna make you go through it too, even though they hate going through it. And it was like not worth. Um, so it has its utilities, but I think it's overrated. Anyway, uh, during that process, funnily, there was a question on the app of like, why do you want a patient?

I'm like, that's an interesting question. Why do I want one? Uh, and then it made me go down this mental path of like, [00:07:00] well, I wanna make a difference in the world. And I think if you make a difference through science, it's irreversible. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Meaning that, like if you invent an airplane or mm-hmm. Cure a disease, the world will always be better.

People will always fly. That disease will always be gone. Whereas let's say you do something to, I dunno, drastically improve education in a country. Mm-hmm. The next asshole can just come in and blow it up. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: And it'll be as if it never happens. 

she: Yeah. We see that. 

Armon: Uh, yeah. And so with science, because it's irreversible, that's what I liked.

Uhhuh. I'm like, okay, no one can ever take it back. So I think that's what I wrote about. 

she: That's a pretty deep cut for like a 18-year-old, 

Armon: well this was for grad 

she: school for Okay. 

Armon: 20 year young, 

she: 20-year-old. 

Armon: Yeah. For a 20-year-old. Um. So I was like, yeah, that, that is why I wanna do this. Mm-hmm. Uh, and ironically, what had extra convinced me of staying down the science and technology path was not a science class, but an econ when I was taking econ.

'cause in the, in the economic class, when they're teaching all the supply and demand stuff, like everything tends [00:08:00] to be a zero sum game. Usually. It's like, oh, if X group is making more money, it's at the expense of Y group making less. The only two things that were just fundamentally good were like. Trade and specialization, but also technology.

'cause suddenly like things could just be more plentiful and cheaper. Yeah. And everyone can have them. I was like, great. It's like fundamentally good. Mm-hmm. So it reinforced my weird view of things. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, so yes, that's why I went down. 

she: I see. So it sounds like you weren't necessarily planning on being a founder the first time even.

So when you were a founder the first time, did you ever think that you would do it a second time at that point? 

Armon: Oh yeah. I deviated from the why the founder. And so to complete that first part, then to get the second part. Because of that mindset. To me, the science stuff was always a means to an end of making mm-hmm.

An improvement. I, I wasn't the type that like cared to understand how something works just for the hell of it. Whereas I feel like many scientists are like that. They're just fascinated by complicated problems and wanna go down a rabbit hole. Uh, so the founder [00:09:00] thing came up because I was realizing during.

PhD that, oh, just 'cause you helped make something or find something new doesn't mean it's now gonna automatically go make a difference. Someone needs to go do that. 

Mm-hmm. 

And that second step is very non-trivial. Mm-hmm. And so that's what made me feel like, all right, we gotta go start a company and go do this, uh, because otherwise no one else is gonna pick it up and run with it.

And so that's what made me become a founder the first time. Uh. And then you said the second time what? 

she: Yeah. So at what point, uh, like when you were doing it the first time, did you ever think that it would happen again? Like, did you ever think there's like a post squeeze and that you 

Armon: Uh, no. I was just like, squeezed for life.

I, I mean, on the one hand I was like, this could very easily fail and die. Mm-hmm. And it kept not happening. Uh. But I wasn't even thinking past that. I'm just like, if that happens when it happens, we'll just figure it out. Then There's no point thinking about it now. True. Like what am I [00:10:00] really gonna do about it if I think about it now?

So I was just all in, let's go do it. I will say it was one of those things where it's like so painful and there's so many. Things, you gotta do that. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: I didn't think I would ever do it again. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Like if you had abstract for squeeze was 10 years for mm-hmm. The last eight years of it. If you abstractly asked me like, oh, if Squeeze disappeared tomorrow, what would you do?

I would not say, go start something else. I like, it's way too painful. I'm not doing this again. Even though it was going well. Yeah. I would just think it's just too much. 

she: I see. But, but you obviously changed your mind, um, clearly before. Yes. But before we dive into that a little bit more, um. I actually think that I've seen you, uh, like talk about how, uh, you decided to go the, uh, non-traditional, non-academic route and go into industry.

And I want you to talk about more, um, some of your advisors and how they like, had maybe given you influence that. Yeah, 

Armon: yeah. I think you've 

she: spoken to about 

Armon: as far as going into industry. Yeah. [00:11:00] So. I guess their role was prominent in me going to grad school in the first place, Uhhuh, because my undergrad advisors Oh, 

prod: interesting.

Armon: Uh, I was initially gonna go into industry uhhuh, uh, and then my undergrad advisors kept being like, no, don't waste your time. Go to PhD because you like the science stuff and you kind of need it if you're gonna go. And luckily during undergrad they had these really useful sessions where they would bring in alumni 

prod: mm-hmm.

Armon: To talk about their career paths and from their talks it was very clear. If you wanted to advance in like science leadership stuff, you kind of had to have a PhD. There was no choice if you were gonna go to finance or something else, you didn't need it. Um, so anyway, that's what made me go to a PhD and I was one of those people coming into PhD wanting to get out as fast as possible.

prod: Yes. 

Armon: And go. To industry, which is the opposite of most people going into PhD. Mm-hmm. Most of 'em go in wanting to become professors. I was not that. 

prod: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Armon: And then finally a few years in, I flipped 

she: mm-hmm. 

Armon: To being like, oh, you know what? Like, I kind of like this stuff. Mm-hmm. Maybe I will be a professor.

Mm-hmm. Just when [00:12:00] all my classmates were flipping the other way, where they're like, screw this. I hate science now. And industry 

she: to you at that point meant like drug development, like big pharma 

Armon: or just like anything. 

she: Anything. 

Armon: Anything. I mean, by the time I was midway through PhD, I'd gone down the bio-engineering biotech side more, but during undergrad I was doing organic electronics and flexible displays.

Nothing to do, 

prod: oh remember you? 

Armon: Nothing to do with biology, Uhhuh. Uh, and so anyway, I had become attached to the professor route all through the lens of if we can create cool new things mm-hmm. And that can help people. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We, the academic types help come up with it and then someone else will go translate it.

That was my mindset, um, when I was realizing that it's not trivial to do that because we had developed the squeeze stuff. We thought it was interesting, but it seemed non-trivial to get it out there. I started debating, jumping. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so my two professors, uh, Klaus Jensen and Bob Langer were the.

Too, I was bugging about whether or [00:13:00] not I should do this. Uh, 

she: did they originally plant the seed in your head, or had you come to that conclusion on your own? 

Armon: No, they didn't really plant the seed. 

she: Oh, okay. 

Armon: No, I, I mean, everyone in Bob's lab tends to try to do spin outs. Okay. Okay. But actually Bob himself doesn't necessarily encourage it.

prod: Okay. 

Armon: Which I think is a good thing. Uh. They hadn't really planted the seed, it was just kind of building up inside me, uh, to do it. And I had been taking some of the MBA classes just 'cause you have to take some 

prod: Yeah. 

Armon: Minor for the chemmy PhD and I didn't wanna take more science classes, so I took that, uh, anyway, the seeds were of my own doing.

And then I was asking them about whether or not to jump. Uh, and I got interesting advice. Like Klaus was like, yeah, just, you know, we should just clone you and then one of you should go do that and one of you should stay in the lab. Uh uh, and you could probably just run the, but in the end, yeah, you could probably just run the company as well as be lab oriented.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and then Bob had interesting advice. 'cause even though his lab [00:14:00] has spun out a lot of companies, he had never jumped. Uh, and I found that interesting. Mm-hmm. I was like, why didn't you ever jump? His logic was basically that, well, he values the mentoring of the students and having more technology stuff spin out more than he does.

Jumping into any one of those concepts, uh, and his point was that if you think this is the greatest thing you'll ever do, you should jump. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: If you don't think it's the greatest thing you'll ever do, don't jump and like come up with other stuff. And I'd also ask him like, were there projects companies that failed?

Mm-hmm. That you feel like if you were there, that wouldn't have happened? He's like, oh, for sure. Um, and so I was like, all right, yeah. I do think this is the coolest thing we'll ever do. So yes, I will jump. And even though my mindset was very 50 50 at the time 

she: mm-hmm. 

Armon: In retrospect, I'm like, damn, I'm glad I did.

she: Yeah. 

Armon: Uh, but at the time it was very, uh, Knight's Edge to do it. 

she: Interesting. I didn't realize it was such a debate because I was just there and it was just like slowly happening and [00:15:00] progressing over time. So that's really, it's actually, 

Armon: I think it may have been way more obvious to the people around me than it was to me.

she: Ah. 

Armon: Because I think people like. Klaus who knew me. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Because he dealt with me more than Bob did. But like, who knew me best? I think in his head there was no question, I'm gonna go do this and I should do it. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, but to me it was still very 50 50. I, I think it's 'cause I didn't have their perspective of like, what does it take to do this versus not.

And so for him, he was more convinced, whereas I didn't know how to wait. What we're good at, what we're not good at. 

she: Very cool. Um, so then, um, thinking back to those like maybe early days or early first few years of squeeze, um, when did you think like, oh, like this as in being the technology or the company, uh, like might actually work and when were you like, oh crap, we're like really in trouble?

Armon: Uh, you mean the company would be in trouble 

she: or you mean? 

Armon: Oh, 

she: yeah. Or like you as your founder journey. So like, it could be like, uh, you know, yeah. I guess it would be the company at that. 

Armon: [00:16:00] Uh, I think I was always living a high intensity version of both things. Mm-hmm. Simultaneously, which is part of what makes it so tiring, uh, in the sense that on the one hand you see all these opportunities and cool things you can do, and.

That's exciting. 'cause it's like, oh, it looks like we can open up new mm-hmm. Uh, applications and all that. Like this could be really exciting. Uh, on the other hand, there's plenty of resistance in the field in the sense that they're not doing what you do, or others may have done a version of these concepts in the past and it failed.

So what makes you think that it's gonna succeed? So there's a lot of reasons to doubt. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, and as and as science goes, like whatever, 90% plus of your experiments fail. So every time you're doing things down a path that others have died on. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: And your experiment fails too, like, shoot, are we wasting our time?

Like, is this actually not gonna work and we're delusional. Um, and so you just gotta cling to those moments [00:17:00] where clearly important new stuff does happen, and use that to bear through when you're going through these phases where stuff doesn't. So I don't know that. Those things were accentuated by certain moments where we almost died, which we can get into or or had glory.

But at every moment there was that underlying tension. 

she: I see. And what you just said right now speaks more, I think, to moments of scientific insight. And clarity. Um, but then tell us more also about like the business side of like moments where like either we're very triumphant or 

Armon: Yeah. Um, yeah, so for, for what we were doing, we started off as a tool company 'cause the technology could do a lot of things.

Mm-hmm. And a lot of people were interested in what we could do. So I think the initial very, very early triumphs were just getting. A lot of people to adopt it. So within MIT, within Harvard and some prominent other companies that we were [00:18:00] talking to, like they were. Trying it out and seeing some success.

So that was like an initial triumph. I think the biggest one in the early days would've been getting our Roche, our first Roche deal because at the time we were like rinky-dink spin out. 

she: And was this before or post fundraise? Like what stage of fundraising 

Armon: were those two were very linked together. So we had raised Angel money Uhhuh, so we had about a million in angel money.

Uh, that we were operating off of. And then, uh, what we wanted to do in cell therapy. 'cause like with Squeeze, you could engineer cells in ways that weren't possible and there were new things that we could enable in cell therapy. The angles we were pushing were, were one related to cancer vaccines where a lot of people had failed in the past.

So it wasn't the most popular thing to do. And, uh, Roche got really interested in what we were doing and that was a big deal to us because. We were this like rinky-dink bootstrapped thing that had spun out of MIT run by a grad student, which is like the opposite of what [00:19:00] most biotech VC invested things are.

It's usually some like 50-year-old in a suit that they inserted there to bring some adults guidance. Uh, they don't let the children run with the science 

she: Uhhuh. 

Armon: Uh, and so Roche had gotten really interested, which was important to us. And then the VCs knew Roche was interested. And so it, it culminated in like one of the VCs.

Polaris decided they would lead our series A for 5 million, knowing very well that the Roche discussions were progressing. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, and then a few months later we closed the Roche deal, which was. Um, it was a $500 million deal, 12 million upfront. The rest, uh, would come later, but that was a big, big moment for us because it was something like Roche, the giant well-respected, conservative adults has decided these children are onto something.

And so suddenly all these like VCs or other partners that had ignored us for some that had had whiplash, because there's some like, whoa, the, the [00:20:00] kids with their cartoons, like Roche cares, like, what's going on here? So. So many people that wouldn't answer our call or our emails were saying like, hi bestie, how are you doing today?

Sorry, I missed your five emails. 

she: Oh, they just went to spam. 

Armon: Yeah. The first 

she: five times. Yeah. 

Armon: Yeah. I didn't know you were cool. What? 

she: That's great. Oh my gosh. Um, 

Armon: that was one of the first, I like that. That was one of the first huge moments. Yeah. 

she: Summarizing now, um, or transitioning a bit to more the leadership side.

Um, tell us about something about people in biotech that, uh, outsiders might not expect 

Armon: people in biotech. That outsiders. 

she: Ooh. 

Armon: Uh, which kind of people like the scientists, the, 

she: I mean, it's up to you to design a user or persona. 

Armon: Um, I think relative to like the general world, people think pharma and biotech is.

Way more evil than it is. Uh, 

she: [00:21:00] yeah, 

Armon: because I think the, mm-hmm. I mean, I come from a family of all non-technical people. Like I think the perception of pharma and biotech is way more negative than it deserves to be, because I think 90% plus of who's involved in this industry, like truly just wants to make.

People better and 

prod: mm-hmm. 

Armon: All those things. I mean, I agree there's weird incentives with pricing and how 

prod: uhhuh 

Armon: the business works, but in general I think they get way too negative a wrap. Uh, and I think they misunderstand how confusing and uncertain all the science and stuff is, uh, other mis other things people don't realize.

Uh, I think the upper echelons. Can get very jaded. Uh, 

she: and do you just mean people that have been in the industry for a really long time 

Armon: in the industry? For long periods of time, especially at higher levels. 

she: Okay. Yeah, 

Armon: they can get very jaded because they see so, so much failure. Um, just 'cause the trials are extremely likely to fail.

And they'll also see, like, as with any industry, I guess, like. [00:22:00] Not nice people get rewarded versus them. And so I think they start becoming the things they hated. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, and I think that's unfortunate. So there can be too much of a cycle at the top, let's say the C levels for, uh, public biotech or, or somebody.

These more experienced C levels. C-level and VCs where they, they become a little disconnected from actually caring 

prod: mm-hmm. 

Armon: About the stuff they do. And it's just like a job to them. Oh, the company failed them as long as I got a good paycheck out of it. Or, or there can be a huge perverse incentive in public companies to pretend like a trial worked.

Mm-hmm. Just so the company can keep existing. As opposed to 

she: how long can what someone do that 

Armon: for a very long time. 

she: Oh, interesting. Okay. 

Armon: Uh, because these trials take so long. 

she: Yeah. Uhhuh. 

Armon: So for example, if someone had very middling phase two results mm-hmm. And in their heart they know, Hmm, this is really not likely worth it.

Mm-hmm. They, they will still go out and say, oh, like [00:23:00] we think there's really something here. Like, look at this corner of the data. And by the way, we know way more data than we actually put out. So we're putting out the parts that like we had to, plus the part that we thought is arguably interesting, we should really get funded to go do a phase three.

And that's two, three years or something. Mm-hmm. Or maybe even more. Um, so they have job security. For the remainder of that. I mean, I'm being cynical, but I uhhuh think, sadly this does happen in a number of cases. Uh, and then it causes this mistrust with the investor side or public side too, where they're like, okay, did this thing actually, does it become very, do you really think it's working and it's worth this or no, you're just saying that.

she: I see. And do you think that becomes, like very apparent in like two to three years later then that that is what happened? Or is it just 

Armon: really clear? I mean, it's to say because it's like, again, these things. Fail more often than they don't. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: So it's really hard to say, would you have truly known that?

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, so I think it comes down to like what was in those [00:24:00] people's heads or the people that had maximum information. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: What, what did they truly think? 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, and I argue a lot of times they're more ambivalence about the outcome, then they'll lead on. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: But their incentive is to just keep going.

she: Um, so then I guess from your point of view, uh, because you. Had the most potential information at your time doing trials at Squeeze, were there times where I guess you maybe even felt that same way because like the data comes in and like. 

Armon: Well, that's part of why we had the big fight is 'cause from the little bit we knew of, because the board wanted to focus everything on a lead trial.

Mm-hmm. I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to open up the tech side more. Like from the little bit we already knew about that most advanced trial I was getting very nervous. Mm-hmm. Um, even though ironically I was the one that had like convinced everyone it was a good idea to do it. I was saying like, Ooh, like this.

Something's off. Mm-hmm. Like we missed something. 

prod: Yeah. 

Armon: Mm-hmm. I, I still think the concept in general could have [00:25:00] totally worked. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But like, something about that implementation was wrong. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, and we had no idea what, and that was just my sense, like there wasn't enough full evidence to clearly declare it, but I was like, something's off lot.

Press 

prod: your intuition. 

Armon: Yeah. Something's not right. Um, and. Yeah. That's why I wouldn't have bet the farm on it. I see. Yeah, because like the mission for 10 years had been like, make a cancer vaccine work. 

prod: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, and this was like our latest and greatest version of trying that. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, and I was like, something's off.

prod: I 

Armon: see. Um, in, in contrast to we had this other trial, which was using a different mechanism, was red blood cells, which. We ha didn't know any data yet, 

prod: Uhhuh, 

Armon: but I thought that was a shot still worth taking. And Uhhuh very ironically, that one is the one that ended up with the most interesting data, 

prod: Uhhuh, Uhhuh, 

Armon: uh, because it seemed like it gave a, it gave a complete response to one of the patients who's still alive today and two cases of stable disease.

So that one was actually, yes, ended up becoming super interesting. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, [00:26:00] the lead one, I had doubts. 

she: I see. And then at the time when you had doubts on the lead one, did you have like. Enough data or any data from the red blood cell one to have a sense on that? No. Okay. 

Armon: No, we didn't have any data.

she: Okay. Okay. Got it. Cool. Um, 

Armon: uh, it was just in my view, like a mechanistically distinct shot 

she: mm-hmm. 

Armon: That would succeed and fail for reasons. Independence of the lead thing we had. So that's why I thought it was still worth doing because it would succeed or fail for different reasons. Um, and that's where like if I'm getting nervous about option A 

she: yeah.

Armon: And option B is independent, I think we should keep option B. Mm-hmm. 

she: That makes sense. Um, cool. Okay. Diversify the portfolio. 

what's a leadership lesson that you learned the hard way? 

Armon: All of them. 

she: I mean, you did look through experience, you know? 

Armon: Yeah. Because I wouldn't really read any books or listen to people that, well, it was just really a matter of run headfirst into the wall.

I would kind of listen, but I would still, [00:27:00] I would listen, but I wouldn't defer. I would hear what they were saying and why they were saying it. 

she: I see your point, but to 

Armon: your point, but I'm still gonna go left. Uh, I think one of the hard ones was how terrible things can happen with mildly, with a collection of mildly well-intentioned moves by others. And what I mean is. That people end up becoming too siloed, like in the sense that they just don't know everything else going on. They don't have context.

They think they're doing something good. Uh, they're making decisions based on what they know and understand and are good at, whereas someone else might have a completely different view of what to do there. And so there's all kinds of like political chaos that can happen. Because the CFO thinks one direction, the CSO thinks a different direction.

Mm-hmm. The whatever, CEO thinks a third direction, and everyone's trying to like fight for what they think is right. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Uh, and it's a [00:28:00] mix of ego plus genuine good intention that plays in and. Very often stagnation is the result, or you go for the option that no one actually thought was a good idea.

It was just the least disagreeable option. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, so it made me eventually learn and through a series of various, uh. Little ish things that went wrong or like took way too long to decide. It made me land on like, all right, for better and for worse, you gotta figure out who's gonna be the single decision maker on these topics, no matter how big or small.

And just freaking let them go for it. And either they get it right or they don't. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: But this kind of like committee base. 

prod: Yeah. 

Armon: Call mm-hmm. Very often results in just the least offensive option mm-hmm. Being chosen, which no one necessarily thought was a good idea. 

prod: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, yeah. And, and when things go south 

mm-hmm.

In those committee based things, no one. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Takes responsibility, 

she: huh? Yeah. I'm sure [00:29:00] it was a vote. 

Armon: They all pretend like it was everybody else's thoughts. Right. 

she: Um, so on that, like from that framework, um, how do you then decide when to step in if you've like named an owner of a decision? 

Armon: Yeah, 

she: right. Uh, if you disagree, where with, where things lived?

Armon: Um, if I've already named the owner, unless I think. The decision is catastrophic, I'll stick to it. 

she: Okay. 

Armon: Uh, 'cause I think you needed to have decided that a priority, not after they've come up with what they wanna do, unless they came up with something psychotic that you didn't even like, I dunno, you told them to pick colors for a logo and instead they're like, Hey, let's go do this illegal thing.

I'm like, no. But yeah, so I think, uh, I think you just have to decide. In advance, which ones you're gonna let them do. And I think whenever you're doing that, it's a balance of how capable are they of making the decision? Should this really be their domain to [00:30:00] decide? 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Um, 'cause sometimes you might be like, uh, I don't know if they're good at this.

Yeah. But they really should be the one deciding it Uhhuh so. I should let them do it. And if they keep screwing it up, then they should be gone. 

she: Okay. I, yeah. 

Armon: Um, so sometimes I'm like, I don't actually think you're gonna make the best call, but you should be capable of making it. So let's find out. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. So if it's big enough or multifunctional enough, I'll do it. But if it should be within someone's domain, that's where, or. If it's not in their domain, but it doesn't encroach on someone else's, but I think they're very capable of it, then I'll also let them do it. Mm-hmm. Just as a test kind of thing.

she: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Armon: Yeah. I know it sounds confusing, but 

she: that's fine. We, we just want to learn, explore the mind of Arman. 

Armon: Oh gosh. 

she: we're going to jump into a friendship segment where we learn about more about Arman as a person. I think Uhoh. Uh, okay. So we've known each other for a very [00:31:00] long time.

Uh, what's a fun story that you think listeners should know about us that sums up our friendship? 

Armon: Yeah. The getting up to this reminded me of like 20.

I don't know why my head goes to this, but there was that phase where with all the undergrads, the desk next to us had been scared away and under the desk had turned into a nap zone. 

she: That's right. 

Armon: And so I don't know why, but one of the times I like. I don't know why this is what pops into my head, but one of times I like walk in to do something and I'm like, you just like crawl out from under there.

And I'm like, what the fuck? What? I didn't even know you were, why are you down there today? And then they're like, oh, last night was rough. So I came here, I'm like, oh my God. 

she: It is possible that I was working my EMT shift and just came in. 

Armon: Yeah, probably. And then, which probably proceeded with a lecture. Me being like, you're overstretched.

Stop doing the T thing. [00:32:00] Stop 

she: doing the EMT thing. 

Armon: Yeah, 

she: just do more labs. 

Armon: Yeah. You're just doing it because you're trying to be a pre-med nut job. But I don't think you'd make a good doctor. 

she: Rude, 

Armon: but true. 

she: We dunno that. 

Armon: We do know that. 

she: Um, and just for listeners, uh, some context behind that story. Uh, I was an undergrad, uh, working for Armand. He was my first boss. Uh, and yeah, he had a bunch of undergrads, a whole army of them, um, which we fondly refer to ourselves as minions perhaps. Not sure anyways. Yeah, we did take over the desk, um, and it turned into a nap, uh, 

Armon: under the desk.

Nap 

she: under the desk. Was nap 

Armon: on top of that desk was all work? 

she: That's right. Okay. Um, so what do you think we bond over more clubbing on Fridays or coming up with our cell cartoons? Cell stories plug by the way. 

Armon: Uh, I dunno there're different types of bonding because clubby I think we're generally agreeing on where to go and what to do.

Sell cartoons will fight [00:33:00] over some ideas or 

that 

she: is true. 

Armon: Uh, concepts. Yeah, you'll like just aim for random cosiness and I'm like, no, that is not how that mechanism works. This is stupid. 

she: Um, uh, queen of Cute. That's right. Uh, okay. Um, so then I guess, um, what inspired you, uh, to launch this podcast? 

Armon: Oh, uh, I think a few things in addition, aside from people telling me I should do it, uh, 

she: you went right for one, done for one.

Armon: Uh, I 

she: You went right for one. 

Armon: Well, it's 'cause I was kind of agreeing. I, I think biotech and pharma have a massive communication problem. 

she: Mm-hmm. 

Armon: Like that's the, there's a reason people hate them. Yeah. On average. And I think it's just because they're terrible at explaining to the rest of the world what they do.

Whereas, uh, tech or other industries are very good at it. Um, 'cause you know, you can grab your phone, you can get a feel for it. And whether it's Apple, Google, or whoever, like their advertisements and their public [00:34:00] personas are very positively perceived, even though. All they really do is sell us toys and tools to do stuff.

prod: Uhhuh, 

Armon: they're not saving anyone's life per se. Um, whereas Biopharma is horrific at it. Uh, and I think it just comes down to the communication of it. How well do you make people understand how drugs work or how diseases work, et cetera. Uh, and we're surprisingly bad at it, so that's part of the reasons why.

Thought it could be useful to give a real space and lens to how this side of the world works. Mm-hmm. That it's not some just big evil conspiracy that comes up with cures to cancer and then hides it and then keeps selling you $200,000 drugs to make money. Uh, and in addition to that, more narrowly, I think within biopharma, you'd be surprised how little certain segments understand how other segments work.

Like. A scientist or someone in the science chain may have very little clue 

prod: mm-hmm. 

Armon: How like big pharma deals work or the finance side works and, and vice versa. Like the finance people may [00:35:00] have no clue 

prod: mm-hmm. 

Armon: How some of the science stuff works, even though they've been around it for 10, 15 years. And so hopefully just allowing for that crosstalk.

prod: Nice. 

Armon: Um, and I think our industry is also one where the limited channels that do exist, where people talk, it's way too filtered in vanilla. Mm-hmm. Like they're not actually saying what they think. Spicy content. Yeah. So it's more about like extricating the real views and opinions of what's going on. 

she: Cool.

So, uh, I know we're just like at the beginning of starting this podcast series, um, but kind of what's your vision for beyond this? Communication and visibility into this industry. Um, what are like types of guests that we can expect and what do you hope that listeners get outta? 

Armon: I'm really hoping to hit a broad spectrum and even though I love science stuff, not fall into the trap of doing too much science stuff.

So it's gonna be a mix of, um. Investors, pharma folks, biotech folks, both on the technical and 

prod: mm-hmm. 

Armon: Non-technical side. Uh, I also think it'll be interesting to throw in a few [00:36:00] of the, I'll call it like peripheral service providers to our zone. Mm-hmm. Like let's say the banker types or lawyer types, et cetera.

'cause they also have visibility into a lot of certain dimensions of what goes on. Uh, and it's easy to forget about them or hate on them. But they also serve a critical function just to kind of give a rounded sense for how does this world function that helps generate drugs that could help save people and hopefully draw more interest into it in the long run, such that we can have the.

Uh, much, you know, healthier future. 

she: Yay. Cool. I can't wait to meet all these guests. 

Cool. Okay, so now we're going do a rapid fire question round, uh, for the listeners here. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, don't worry. It's fun. Uh, favorite boba drink 

Armon: all time. Uh, black milk tea, brown sugar. 

she: Okay, cool. 

Armon: 30% sweetness. 

she: Yeah. That's great. 

Armon: Not a hundred 

she: percent, 30% ice too. Um, okay.

Early bird or night owl? [00:37:00] 

Armon: Ooh, uh, probably early bird, but I can do both if it's for clubbing. It's not all actually, I probably do both. 

she: Yeah. Yeah.

At the club at 2:00 AM go wake up and run at 5:00 AM question marks. Yeah, we dunno. 

Armon: That has 

she: happened. Yeah. Uh, your least scientific guilty pleasure. 

Armon: Least scientific. Guilty pleasure. 

she: Yeah. Is it just clubbing? 

Armon: Uh, I think the weirder guilty pleasure is, I dunno if it's guilty. I'll blast EDM in the morning when I'm driving over, like very loud windows open.

she: Oh, 

Armon: I think the other commuters hate me. 

she: Oh my gosh. Um, one word or sentence that describes, uh, the biotech field right now, 

Armon: depressed. 

she: Oh, no. If you could make up one rule that everyone in the world should follow, what would it be? 

Armon: Rule that everyone [00:38:00] in the world should follow. Hold on. I didn't, I didn't actually read those questions earlier.

prod: I 

Armon: tried to make one rule that everyone in the world should follow.

All right? This might be too utilitarian, but like, I don't know. They have to take at least four STEM classes in college. Is that too vanilla? 

she: No. It's if that's truly your view, that's truly your view. 

Armon: I think some people just really need some baseline of analytical thinking. It, I'm just like, oh my God. How did you come up with to that?

How did you come to that conclusion? 

she: And that it up. Thank you. Bye. 

​ [00:39:00]