Leeches, Cancer Abstracts, and Coming Home

Why now is the time to pursue problems you genuinely care about. Also, we’re hiring.

"Ok, here are the leeches the doctors put on my neck… and here's how big they got!"

That is the scene I found myself in at baggage claim last week, just minutes into a conversation with a total stranger.

And honestly, I loved it. It reminded me how grateful I am to have sold our previous business and pivoted back into science. It’s amazing how the things you work on ripple out into every nook and cranny of your life — for better or for worse.

You see, this older man and I started talking about which belt our bags were coming out on, which led to what I do, which led to our work helping biotech companies bring new drugs to market, which led to his cancer.

Let's call him Jim. Thankfully, Jim is confident he's going to beat his cancer. "The drugs these days are pretty awesome, although the 30 days of hardcore chemo I finished recently were brutal." Whether that is medical opinion or manifestation, Jim is clearly not going without a fight.

When I told Jim we are using AI to help biopharma companies bring new cancer drugs to market, his face lit up. "I gotta show you something which is basically exactly the opposite of what you do."

Jim had a skin graft, and evidently doctors still use leeches to drain blood that isn't draining properly. They're painless and create a natural anticoagulant. I of course spent the ride home from the airport researching it — leeches are good at what they do.

Since I can remember, I've loved science. I just can't get enough of it. I didn't love the bullshit and bureaucracy of being in neuro labs, but I always saw myself building a career around science in some form.

I won't bore you with why and how we spent three years starting and selling a business that had virtually nothing to do with science. I'll just say that if it had been obvious how to start a great business in science three years ago, I would have done it.

That's the magic about the current moment with AI. The ability to dive into any domain and create real value is unlike anything I've seen in my professional lifetime. It's a phase shift – if there's a problem you truly love that you aren't working on, go do it.

I have no idea where this next company, Robo, will take me, but I'm deeply grateful to know that I'm one step closer to building a life in science — and for all of the little moments that might come because of it.

What I learned from letting agents digest 20,000 cancer abstracts

Speaking of cancer drugs, I recently set AI agents loose on 20,000 abstracts from the last three years of AACR conferences. The result? A lot of insights, like this network map of companies and labs targeting specific antigens with antibody-drug conjugates:

This cost me a day of tinkering and $20 of compute, which is pretty nuts and just makes you realize how much value platforms like Robo are going to have to deliver in order to compete with generic tools and vibe coding. I must say, it’s an incredibly exciting challenge :)

I shared more details on LinkedIn, and I’d love to connect with anyone that’s curious to dig deeper — especially if they’re going to a conference this year and want to get more out of it.

Come build with us

Traction on Robo so far has been promising, and we’re ready to scale up our capacity to work with some truly inspiring cutting edge biotech companies. We're hiring a senior engineer — someone who wants to apply AI to problems that actually matter, like helping scientists develop better cancer drugs for Jim.

If that’s you or someone you know, let’s chat!

-Joey