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 10 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
Afeyan: Science-driven adjacent innovations face an overlooked risk of commoditization
“In the science driven, technology driven space, I think adjacencies have their own problem, which is the risk of commoditization, which is a risk they usually don't take into account.”
Afeyan: When Flagship started Moderna, no other companies were developing mRNA therapeutics
“MRNA, which was our 18th company that became Moderna is a good example of this. There was no mRNA drug or vaccine before. There was nobody working on it. When we started, there were academic labs that had worked on it and given up.”
Afeyan: Parallel entrepreneurship forces founders to systematize reproducible venture processes
“The learning cycles of doing things at the same time is completely different than if you actually force yourself to think about the essence of what you're doing and what's reproducible, what has to be different in each case.”
Afeyan: Generate has over 15 computationally designed antibody programs
“Generate has more than 15 different, you know, computationally designed antibody programs, some in the clinic, some advancing to the clinic.”
Afeyan: Renewable fuel innovators cannot command a price premium over commodity diesel
“The price of diesel, whether it's renewable or not, is the price of diesel. The price of carbon when we started was 50 bucks a ton, when we ended it was five. And When we started, the U S was energy dependent. And when we were done, the U S was cushing with en…”
Afeyan: Flagship uses generative AI to generate novel proteins and products
“Generative AI is one hell of a technology for emergence, which we're using for that in pretty cool ways these days, whether it's emerging new proteins or emerging new consumer products.”
Afeyan: All 110 Flagship Pioneering companies are platform companies
“Every single of the 110 companies we've been involved with for 25 years are a platform. Every single one. There's no exception to that.”
Afeyan: Flagship engineered photosynthetic bacteria to produce diesel at Joule
“One of the most advanced ways we could make carbon neutral liquid fuels was to engineer photosynthetic bacteria that usually grows in the depths of oceans. Really cool bacterium that sees a little bit of photons. We engineered these things to make diesel. It c…”
Afeyan: Flagship has recently launched ventures in semiconductor and carbon-capture materials
“And as we speak now, we have started things recently in the material space. So kind of semi-conducting materials, carbon capturing materials.”
Afeyan: Flagship Pioneering employs 550 people and files 600-700 patents annually
“So today flagship is 550 people, about 200 plus are Scientists, engineers, MDs. We file six, 700 patents a year centrally, and every one of the things we work on has essentially no connection to what's been done before.”