Everything Cyrus Wadia said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Wadia: Scientific founders do not need MBA co-founders to be CEOs
“For any scientist or engineer who wants to be the CEO to actually run the business, that is why Activate exists as well, because we are, you know, we firmly believe if you are trying to retire risk in these hard tech ventures in the very early days, there is a…”
Wadia: Post-PhD or postdoc is the ideal time for science entrepreneurship
“One of the best insertion moments in a person's career trajectory is really right after that PhD or like during or right after the postdoc, because at that moment in time, They're making a career decision, right?”
Wadia: Activate excludes software and AI to fund physical hard tech
“We don't do software. We don't do AI. Like we're in the business of the physical world. So steel in the ground, that's who we are.”
Wadia: Activate's 230 portfolio companies have raised $5B in follow-on funding
“We've supported roughly 300 founders, scientific founders. That's led to about 230 companies, and here's a stat that I think is really worth knowing, that those companies after Activate Have raised collectively five billion dollars and fall on funding.”
Wadia: Corporates face hard structural limits on metabolizing startup innovation
“These corporations, they're operating at a scale that is really unimaginable to many entrepreneurs. And so it's not so simple to just take your thing that you created and just slide it into a product or service line. There's a lot that needs to happen. And so …”
Wadia: Activate accepts 40 to 50 of 1,000 U.S. applicants annually
“We see about a thousand applicants a year in the U.S., and we're able to support anywhere between 40 and 50 fellows across the country”
Wadia: Activate gives fellows $100K salary and a $100K recoverable grant
“So a 100,000 a year in basic salary on top of that, they get health benefits and then an additional a 100,000 over the fellowship as a recoverable grant. And that means if they end up hitting milestones, they raise funds, they can return those funds to activat…”
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