Third Time's a Charm

OK, I'm back. I'm back for the second time, or as some might say, "Third time's a charm". Well, you might ask, "What will make this time different, Dr. Shepherd?" There are a few things that are going to make this time different and not the least of which is my intended use for this blog, in general. I now intend to use it as a space to be a little more creative. Share a few of the things I like and give me a place to be a little bit sappy and introspective. It's about to get cheesy up in here.

The fact of the matter is that I'm pretty insecure. I do a seemingly decent job of seeming confident, but I feel a lot like Dignin on in Bottle Rocket, on his little motor scooter with his sweet yellow jumpsuit saying, "I'm not as confident as I look." The reality is that I'm insanely jealous of people who accomplish things. I'm not jealous in a bad way. I don't wish anyone harm, I don't want anyone who is succeeding to fail or go down in the proverbial ball of flames. Instead, I want to be there. I want to be that person. It's more of a felling of admiration than jealousy, but who can really tell the difference and, at some point, those feelings of admiration have a tendency to dabble in jealousy. I think what they are doing is kick-ass and I want to do it to. I love smart people. I love information and, naturally, admire the hell out of smart people because they are full of info. By the same token, I loathe arrogant, lazy, entitled, uninspired people. So, with that said, I'm going to devote some time to name-dropping people I know who are doing great things with themselves. People with seemingly no other connection other than me, like Bengt Anderson Marcus Lalario and Nathan Collins, who I'll talk about below. I'll come back to this idea every now and then in my blog and intermix some of my own original content. This might make it a little more fun.

I'm going to try and keep this blog post fairly brief, because I have a ton more to say and want to percolate on it a little while. It's enough to fill up 4 or 5 posts. But I'll leave with this...I was in a high school class with 3 other guys who were really, really, really bright. A set of twins and one other kid. Two of them got into MIT, the one who didn't got his masters in physics there and then did a PhD in Economics from Stanford. Not too shabby for a public high school in a Seattle suburb, huh? Of the twins, one I liked and one just did not suit me well. In spanish, "no me cae, bien". He didn't fall on me, or sit well with me would be the direct translation. Well, I'm pleased to say that he's doing well as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington in biophysics, but the twin I did like - he's doing some cool stuff.

Nathan Collins is a guy who is just smarter than me. I have a PhD, have done some pretty decent research in tissue engineering, co-authored 15 or 16 papers and am married to a pediatric surgeon. I'm proud of my accomplishments, but remember the thesis of this post; other people are better at stuff than I am. I think Nathan is an intellectual ass-kicker and now he's plying his trade at the Santa Fe Institute doing work in Economics, a discipline I am fascinated by and wish I knew more about. Nathan, cheers man. Good work and tomorrow, I'll try and re-connect with you after about 15 years and see if you can teach me a few things about game theory, people's decision making behaviors and econ.

So Close I Can Taste It

So, it's been a very productive last two months since I posted. I really thought that I would end up getting a job with a former grad school colleague of mine who was effectively running R&D for a newer company in SD. I hesitate to call them a start-up because the core group of people had been together with a prior company and with this project they already had nearly 40 employees and were set to launch their first product in March of '09. After going out there to meet the group after some preliminary discussions, I left without a job offer but feeling confident that they would raise some more angel funding, complete their Series A and offer me a job.

Well, long story short is that I think I've landed a much better job and the company that I was so sure would offer me something has been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit and has had to let everyone go.

I never stopped talking to people even after I had a strong indication that I had something solid lined up and that persistence turned out to be very valuable. I continued to network and ended up meeting a great group of people with some interests that are very similar to mine, with a need for someone who knows what I know, and a very compelling technology portfolio. At the moment, I've received an offer from them which is very good but lacks a few important things. I've countered and I'm waiting to see how this will be received. We are really not that far off and I'm sure we'll get this done soon. I mean, I'm so close I can taste it.

I know that it's been an incredibly long time since I've posted anything. I also know that nobody is following my blog or has even taken a look at my blog besides me. Sooo, at this point all I've really done is create a journal that nobody has, or probably, will ever, but could, read. It's really like I'm a 14-year-old girl circa 1984.

So, a quick update on how things have gone. I was really fortunate to land a phone conversation with the CEO of the largest pharma in the world through my brother who owns a restaurant in Seattle. It's a small world. Long story short, I was able to connect with him and make a contact through him. He passed my info along and through him I got about 5 or 6 solid leads that I was able to follow through with. Got in touch with some old colleagues from grad school and I was now fishing with 10 lines instead of one pole with no reel.

That was a lot like what it felt. Like I needed to go fishing but had no pole. Like I was dropped off in western Montana and told to fly fish a big, beautiful river and had nothing to work with besides my waders and a bag. All the peripheral gear and none of the essentials.

Well, that has started to turn around. I made a trip out to San Diego and had a few fruitful sit-down discussions that led to a few more discussions and I think that I may be on to something with a very small start-up that has some technology I would be really excited about. There is still a long way to go before a deal is finalized and any offers are agreed to, but there is real promise here with respect to both parties and I'm fairly optimistic something will work out.

As much as anything, I intend to come back to this blog and see how things have gone for me as I progress through this transition in my life. After 25 years of training it's difficult to move out on your own and break free from the mold. However, it's important to realize that truly successful people are never the ones you find in the middle of the herd and the best way to separate yourself from the herd is to separate yourself from the herd.

That's what I hope to do and I hope that I've gone about this in the right way.

I intend to keep these posts un-edited and, at least somewhat, a free-flowing stream of consciousness sort of affair. We'll see how that works. I'll also start posting pictures and trying to figure out how to link things and what not.

We are left with less than 24 weeks before we leave CT and move to San Diego. Considering I will be dormant until January 13, at least 2 more weeks, the time is going to get very short, very quick.

Here we go,
Ben

Was Gathering Moss

So, it seems that my blog has been lost and I had to rename and start over.  I think that the moral of this story is that moss was gathering on my blogging stone.  I had just started posting, hadn't logged in and lost what I had done to "the internets".  Oh well.

This is really just a forum for me to get some things out there and see what we can get going.  My original post was entitled "A Lost Shepherd" and was intended to be ironic but, instead, I think just got verbose and took itself too seriously.  The Cliffs Notes version of it, is that after a lot of hard work and the establishment of what I thought was a good foundation for my career, I now find myself at an interesting point I had not predicted.  Basically, I'm looking to completely change directions now that it's time to really get going.  Academics is a disaster right now in the world of biomedicine and I'm not convinced it's going to get better any time soon.  

Perhaps more importantly, I think that the real thing that drew me to science in the first place was my desire to know stuff.  I like to know stuff.  As a result, many things interest me.  More to the point, things I don't know are what interest me.  After being in science and medicine for about 12 years, I am starting to feel the pull to other things.  I don't know much about the business or economics of biotechnology and know very little about bringing products to market.  

This leads me to the conclusion that if I'm going to ever make a change, this is the time to do it.  Now is the time to leverage my knowledge - things I do know - to get myself started in an area full of things I don't know.  

So, through some rather serendipitous connections, I now find myself trying to get into the world of Venture Capital and feeling both incredibly overwhelmed with my loss of a concrete plan and unfathomably excited about all the potential opportunities.  I hope to keep people posted on how this works out and on what progress I'm making.

I suppose that somewhere there's an appropriate reference to be made about being from Seattle and looking for a new team, much like guys from Seattle are now trying to figure out whether or not it's OK to root for the Blazers.  I say, Go Brandon Roy!