00:00It's fascinating line of work. And, you know, I think we're both happy that someone is doing this.
00:06I want to shift gears, though, to leadership, because you have had a fascinating career path, right?
00:11You come out of the service, you go to grad school, you get into VC, and now you've got this
00:15idea that seems like incredibly scalable and successful.
00:19Is there best practices that you would recommend?
00:22You know, more CEOs watch Bloomberg TV than any other network, but also aspiring CEOs are watching.
00:28What would you tell someone who wants to get into this?
00:30Look, I think what I most admire about leaders when they really go through different periods and they're looking at
00:37the problems in their own domain is when they pick something that seems unsolvable but that you know is of
00:44massive importance.
00:45And then it's actually about persistence.
00:47You are going to be told, no, that doesn't work. We've tried that over and over and over again.
00:52But if you really know your domain, you think first principles about what needs to be fixed and you stay
00:57on that mission and you bring people along with you, that's how the big things change, whether it's launching rockets
01:03or doing any of these other really game-changing technologies.
01:08And that's for us very much.
01:09It's been a long slog to show people that this threat exists and there is a way to solve it.
01:14It's not that we just need to put our head in the sand and hope something doesn't happen.
01:19One of the other things that I think leaders of all types of companies are contending right now is these
01:24rapid technological changes, which, again, are both aiding Perimeter and making the challenge of biosecurity more difficult.
01:31How are you thinking about the capabilities that you need when you're hiring people for Perimeter, the ability of tech
01:38to replace versus be additive?
01:42How does that change your outlook for the company?
01:44Yeah, this is super interesting.
01:45So we operate in 10-plus countries, as I mentioned, and huge programs here in the U.S.
01:49So there's this dynamic of can you operate in many different markets, even if the infrastructure you're building is super
01:55AI-enabled, it's centralized, so you need to be both local and contained with a highly high-performing team but
02:03also operate globally.
02:04That's one piece.
02:06I was asked to testify in front of Congress in December on AI biosecurity risk, which, as those two converge,
02:11it really is the acceleration of the frontier.
02:14And the other piece is how do you take technologies that can create opportunity and risk, like biodesign tools to
02:20make new medicines, and then really think about a team that understands how to adapt them to the security problem.
02:26And so that's actually a nuanced skill set to be able to say, instead of just making new drugs, medicines,
02:31I want to really learn about national security.
02:34Selling to the government, providing them with the capabilities that they need is not an easy task, and it takes
02:39a unique mix of people.
02:41And a lot of that you have to train.
02:43You have to bring people along.
02:44It's not something you can go to college and learn.
Comments