Jake Adler

Founder & CEO, Pilgrim · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderscientistengineerexecutive@jakeradler ↗pilgrimlabs.com ↗

Jake Adler is a Thiel Fellow and the founder and CEO of Pilgrim, a defense-oriented biotechnology startup developing battlefield medical technologies. He drew widespread attention after demonstrating the effectiveness of his company's hemostatic dressing, Kingsfoil, ahead of raising a funding round backed by Thiel Capital.

17statements → 10claims → 7claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 2.35/5average debate potential →

7 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 10 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 9 assertions · 4 opinions · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 10 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 7 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jake argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Jake Adler Cut Holes in His Legs to Demo Wound-Healing Tech
“So on limited time, I had to cut holes in my legs on camera to demonstrate the rapid healing abilities of one of our composites.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 15:13 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".

Everything Jake Adler said on TBPN that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Adler: Academia does a horrible job translating military medicine to the battlefield
“Sort of the chasm we're trying to cross here is that if you look at the state of things today, you know, academia rules, military medicine, and they do a Horrible, like totally shitty job of taking technology from the bench top to the battlefield.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 7:53 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Opinion
Adler: Partnering with DoD enables faster clearance than FDA breakthrough pathways
“And notably, like big companies right now with big startups like Neuralink and Synchron, like these big brain computer interface companies, you know, which have breakthrough designation, which was, you know, prized as like the fastest, most expedited pathway i…”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 8:29 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Opinion
Adler: US Has No Bioweapon Defense and Is Vulnerable
“The U S has a somewhat of a grandstanding policy around this, which is that we will not build bioweapons and the best offense is really stronger defense. The problem is that we have no defense. You know, so, so we're kind of in this really precarious position …”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 12:27 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Adler: Most US Adversaries Are Building Biological Weapons
“The reality is that, you know, most of our foreign adversaries are building out these laboratories. They're building out these weapons.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 12:54 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Adler: Dozens of BCI Startups Bypass FDA Using General Wellness Loophole
“A lot of the companies in the space are building brain computer interfaces and trying to circumvent the food and drug administration by trying to fall into this general wellness category. I've seen like dozens of companies do this.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 14:23 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Jake Adler Cut Holes in His Legs to Demo Wound-Healing Tech
“So on limited time, I had to cut holes in my legs on camera to demonstrate the rapid healing abilities of one of our composites.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 15:13 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Opinion
Adler: Military Medicine Has Not Changed Much Since Vietnam
“Military medicine hasn't really changed much since Vietnam.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 0:46 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: Military Seeks Neuromodulation To Compress Five Hours Sleep Into Three
“And this has been a really big point of interest for the military is can we build neuromodulation or brain stimulation devices that can control sleep architecture and make it so when war fighters sleep three hours, they really feel like they're sleeping five h…”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 4:55 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Adler: Future Military Deployments Won't Medevac Troops for Up to Two Weeks
“Military is heading towards like the military doctrine is heading towards this environment where, you know, troops are going to be deployed in combat for an extended period of time and military medics, we won't even be able to retract them for maybe upwards of…”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 2:09 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: Military Is Trying to Move Away From Benzodiazepines
“Obviously your benzodiazepine class is, is pretty big as well although the military is trying to move away from those.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 4:30 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Disclosure
Adler Explored a Brain-Computer Interface That Shocks Users to Sleep
“One of the early technologies we were exploring was a device called NewSleep which was a closed loop brain computer interface that would effectively shock you to sleep.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 4:46 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Insight
Adler: DoD Contracts De-Risk Biotech Startups Before Civilian Market Launch
“Really in many ways, I see the that DOD and our work with federal partners as a launch pad, right? We kind of get the to offload of all a lot of this initial experimental and financial risk kind of deployed into this first customer market and, and be able to e…”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 6:19 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: QuikClot cleared regulatory approval in nine months without human trials
“So quick clot, which is an example you brought up, got cleared in nine months with no human trials, right?”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 8:15 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: COVID-19 Cost US $16T and Caused Pacific Fleet Gap
“You look at COVID-nineteen spread across the globe in nine months. Killed like 1.2 million Americans and wiped out 16 trillion in our GDP. It also took, took off like a, for 10 weeks, we had an operational gap in the Pacific due to the USS Theodore Roosevelt.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 12:05 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: China Leads the US in Neural Interface Patents
“China is beating out the US in patents around neural interfaces. They've been doing that, I think, for a few years now. So they've really taken the lead.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 18:36 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Disclosure
Adler: Biotech Startup Raised $3.25M Led by Peter Thiel, Cantos, and Refactor
“We just announced a three and a quarter million dollar round led by Peter Thiel, Cantos, and Refactor Capital to transform really the battlefield with advanced biotechnology.”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 0:33 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".
Assertion Supported
Adler: Early QuikClot Formulations Caused Severe Burns on Warfighters
“The challenge with Quick Claw, at least its initial formulation, was that it used to burn warfighters. So it actually would cause like second or third degree burns. So it would effectively stop the hemorrhage, but it would also burn them in the process of doin…”
Jake Adler Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 1:57 Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter".

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Jake Adler on Raising $3M to "Make Soldiers Heal Faster and Think Smarter". Mar 24, 2025 13m
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