The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Casdin: Scaling check sizes over time de-risks capital-intensive life sciences investing
“What typical venture investors try to get as much money in, in their first slug, and then they fight dilution on the way down. What we're doing is scaling up over time because these companies are burning a hundred to a hundred and fifty million dollars every 1…”
Casdin: High event catalysts are negatively correlated with investment returns
“What we learned was that high catalysts were negatively correlated with return. And low catalyst actually was positive quarterly.”
Casdin: Human genome sequencing cost dropped from $3B in 2003 to $500
“The human genome was finished in oh three, cost the government about three billion dollars, and took about 13 years to do.
If you had started in that day, it would have taken you three, four, five years, and cost you 300 plus million.
It was done in a room f…”
Casdin: 90% of life science stock volatility is macro-driven
“When volatility hits in the public markets, I would say in my experience over the last decade in this fund, nine out of 10 times, it has been because of something unrelated to our industry.”
Casdin: Public-Only Investors Miss Half of Sector Innovation
“If you're only investing in public companies and not talking to private companies, you're only hearing half the story. If you're talking to them, but not investing in them, they're only telling you half the story. And on occasion, the tip of the spear innovati…”
Casdin Capital invested in Paige AI to digitize eight million cancer slides
“We're invested in a company called Page AI that is digitizing all eight million pathology slides, little bits of tissue out of cancer patients.”
Casdin: Casdin Capital's therapeutics allocation will drop from 55% to 30%
“We're about 55% therapeutics. I bet we're 30% therapeutics.”
Casdin: Overweighting M&A potential in valuation models drove excessive position sizing
“The biggest investment mistake I've made in this firm, this fund, which, because I've made a lot, my wife can tell you about those, is that I calculated the potential of M&A into my valuation model and overly weighted it. For a particular outcome, and it drove…”