Episode 22
From AI to IP with Bruce Wu, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Deep Cell
In this episode, we chatted with Bruce Wu, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Deep Cell, a biotech pioneering new methods in single-cell analysis by combining innovations in microfluidics, optics, and AI. Bruce's diverse background in engineering and law has led him to his current role, where he continues to combine his love for helping others, solving puzzles, and building innovative companies.
- Bruce's favorite book: Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
- Get Bruce's favorite book: The Rabbit Listened
- Deepcell
- Link In With Bruce!
Connect with us!
Subscribe here:
Learn more about Recruitomics Consulting
Check out our reading list
Download our free startup resources guide to grow your biotech efficiently
If you're on the job market, visit the Collaboratory Career Hub
Transcript
I have to say, I was so excited to talk to Bruce, and it
Speaker:did not disappoint. We talked about all kinds
Speaker:of things, including AI. You could almost see him switching
Speaker:hats. He was like, OK, I'm going to put on my chief people officer
Speaker:hat, and now I'm going to put on my chief legal hat, and now my IP hat, and
Speaker:Bruce is a super interesting person. He has a wealth of
Speaker:experience. He is currently the chief legal officer and corporate secretary
Speaker:at Deep Cell, but he has held a variety of positions with
Speaker:a variety of companies and just a really interesting guy to talk to.
Speaker:So I think people are really going to like this episode. Bruce, thank you so
Speaker:Awesome. Well, as always, our first question is, what did you want
Speaker:Yeah, I spent a lot of my time trying to figure it out rather than what
Speaker:I want to be, but what I like to do. And so with
Speaker:all the activities that I sort of try, attempted, I sort
Speaker:of came to a conclusion that I like to kind of
Speaker:ask, they all grab at two things, right? One is that I like to help
Speaker:people. I, for some reason, I found even
Speaker:at seven years of age, that people have a tendency to
Speaker:come and wanting to talk to me. They want to just talk
Speaker:to me, ask for suggestion or just for me to listen. And
Speaker:so I found that to be fascinating. And then if there's anything I can do to help people, even
Speaker:just cousins, neighbors, and I don't know, parents, I
Speaker:love doing that. And then the other one is I like to build things, events.
Speaker:So there are a lot of broken watches. be put
Speaker:together or sometimes they're together, but sometimes they're not. But
Speaker:what I also enjoy doing, I find myself liking to do, is to
Speaker:find some sort of pattern out of chaos. And
Speaker:so you could be putting things together in a new way or the
Speaker:same way, but I just enjoy that. And so now that I
Speaker:am a chief legal officer at the license company, And
Speaker:along this way, I have tried, again, dabble,
Speaker:I've dabbled in engineering. I have dabbled in business development, of
Speaker:course, legal, HR. And I
Speaker:would like to think that I still have kept a little bit of that
Speaker:It sounds like it. That is really very insightful as
Speaker:a seven-year-old because I definitely was running around in my backyard pretending
Speaker:to be a horse. So I'm really impressed
Speaker:by, you know, how you went about that career exploration and
Speaker:just staying true to yourself. You have a really interesting
Speaker:background. We talk a lot about career paths, both here on the
Speaker:podcast and we work with a lot of job seekers, just guiding
Speaker:them and thinking about what is possible. Your career
Speaker:path is really cool. And so I wonder if you could walk us through
Speaker:the adult part of the career path, you know, from school
Speaker:to where you are now, because you have a number of degrees and it's just really
Speaker:Yeah, I started my academic
Speaker:career thinking I was going to be a professor. I've
Speaker:enjoyed the academia portion of it. I like to do research, I like
Speaker:to find new things, learn new things. But shortly
Speaker:after I started my graduate school at MIT, I
Speaker:realized that I enjoy providing
Speaker:advice as I end up just by coincidence as
Speaker:an advice columnist at MIT Newspaper. And I found
Speaker:myself enjoying that a lot more than the
Speaker:lab itself. And that's
Speaker:also where I started to realize that there is that human element that
Speaker:I really, really liked. And again, if anything, that reminds me of
Speaker:the seven-year-old Bruce, right? They wanted to work with people together,
Speaker:but at the same time, still being able to build things and
Speaker:use the science aspect of it. And
Speaker:then so that's when I started to pivot to a more
Speaker:legal career. And so
Speaker:from that, that has been sort of my trajectory. And at the same time, I
Speaker:never really lost sight of trying to try
Speaker:different things, right? And then along the way, I picked up, as
Speaker:I mentioned earlier, there's the business development aspect of HR
Speaker:and others. And so rather than thinking that those
Speaker:are sort of discrete milestones, I sort of see them as just, I
Speaker:happen to be at the right time with
Speaker:the right people at the right place who are willing
Speaker:to invest in this person,
Speaker:me, and explore a potential new venture together.
Speaker:Yeah, how did you actually get into the biotech space? Because
Speaker:Yeah, so I actually, my initial research
Speaker:was actually on nanotechnology by physicists. And then it
Speaker:was sort of, but I finished, once I finished my master's degree, I
Speaker:decided to do something a little different. So I, for my PhD, I
Speaker:went into medical engineering. And so that was
Speaker:my first foray into a more bio area. And
Speaker:it just happens. And again, when I was in a law firm, I
Speaker:worked with clients in all types of spaces. I've worked with high tech
Speaker:companies, semiconductors, emerging technologies, and biotech. And
Speaker:it just somehow the biotech sort
Speaker:of end up just stuck, right? And be it sort of the mentality, personality,
Speaker:or just opportunity themselves. And I just ended up working
Speaker:That makes sense to me because as somebody who likes to do
Speaker:a variety of things myself, biotech is
Speaker:nothing if it's not variety, right? There are so many
Speaker:interesting technologies coming through and it's fast paced
Speaker:and for better or worse, we do move around with
Speaker:different companies because it's a bit volatile. But
Speaker:for the right personality, that means a lot of fun experiences. So
Speaker:Well, and I think it was Lynn Walder, who we spoke to on the podcast a
Speaker:few weeks ago, who said the thing with biotech is even when you try to
Speaker:get out, you always get sucked back in. So it's
Speaker:like once it sinks its claws into you, you're just working in biotech. That's
Speaker:And just to your point too, biotech is so broad, right? AI
Speaker:is biotech. The company I'm right now at,
Speaker:they try to marry AI engineering and biology all
Speaker:together. So it's as broad as you want it to
Speaker:Can you tell us a little bit about that? Let's dive into that topic because your
Speaker:DeepCell is the company where I'm at right now. It's
Speaker:using AI to image or understand
Speaker:better the cell morphological features
Speaker:so that we can better understand the different properties of cells. And
Speaker:with the hope that maybe it will provide
Speaker:better indications or information that
Speaker:might lead to treatments and all that cool stuff down
Speaker:And you're wearing a few hats there. Do you want to tell us about the couple
Speaker:Yeah. So I joined as a chief legal officer and
Speaker:the corporate secretary of Deep Cell. And recently I also became
Speaker:the interim head of people. And this is
Speaker:not actually my, not my first time being the head of people, but
Speaker:the interim head of people role at Deep Cell was fairly
Speaker:Can you take us through a little bit of what a day in the life looks
Speaker:like in your job, wearing all these hats and working with this cool
Speaker:tech? What do you do when you wake up? And what does your day look like?
Speaker:So my, my, I was going to say my every
Speaker:day is different, but I don't, I think my every hour is different. And
Speaker:then the joke I've turned into is, it's just being, I'm pretty
Speaker:much an octopus, right? I just got off a call. I could be having one
Speaker:call about IP. Um, and the next call
Speaker:I'll be talking about, uh, retention and the next time will be
Speaker:diversity. And the next time would be back to potential contracts.
Speaker:So it's exciting, it's
Speaker:chaotic, but at the same time, it allows
Speaker:me to look at the company even more holistically than
Speaker:That's a legit hat you're wearing, head of people. So we, you
Speaker:know, we work with some very small companies and a head of people
Speaker:might be overseeing, you know, 10 people. And that,
Speaker:you know, that's pretty early to bring in a head of people, but we've seen it before. But
Speaker:a hundred, that's a job. That's a lot of people to care
Speaker:How do you, I mean, if you don't mind me asking, I
Speaker:feel like, you know, everyone, maybe not to the extent that you
Speaker:do, but people are switching gears constantly, but that can be so
Speaker:exhausting and draining. So do you find that energizing or
Speaker:do you do something for yourself that kind of like resets when
Speaker:like at the end of the day, you're like, well, I was in 76 meetings and I literally
Speaker:I think my answer is a little bit of both, right? I will say I
Speaker:am an introvert, so I recharge by having
Speaker:a long time to decompress and then to be able
Speaker:to think through things. But at the same time, and
Speaker:back to my earlier comment, I just enjoy fighting
Speaker:that thread in a pool of chaos, and
Speaker:they thread that into different needles and thread it into
Speaker:something that makes sense. So to me, HR and
Speaker:legal are not necessarily independent because to me they are actually intertwined.
Speaker:Right. How do you make sure that people are empowered to
Speaker:do what they do so that, for example, the company can
Speaker:have the IP generated by the people because those are
Speaker:the assets. And how do you protect this IP that you generate? Because
Speaker:I have noticed that, you know, at companies about that size, it
Speaker:seems like many times the offices for the
Speaker:head of legal and head of people are very close by in proximity
Speaker:because there's a lot. There's a lot of exchange there, you
Speaker:know, to your point. So I want to think a
Speaker:little bit about the strategy role that you're playing as well. So
Speaker:in a growing biotech, I would break these
Speaker:out into two different questions, but let's just keep them together. What
Speaker:are the main strategies that you're thinking through on a daily basis so
Speaker:that you can help the company grow? Whether that's legal people,
Speaker:you know, what are the things that you find most enjoyable and impactful
Speaker:I see myself as a strategist. I spend a lot of my time trying
Speaker:to preempt what the outcome could be in
Speaker:a way that makes sense, right? And a lot of my GC
Speaker:friends, they are trained to sort
Speaker:of put out fires, right? Litigation ensues or
Speaker:transaction happens, then they turn into a
Speaker:more reactive, and there's nothing wrong with it, just different
Speaker:models, different business, a way of doing things. But
Speaker:I spend a lot of my time trying to craft a strategy in
Speaker:a way that if something unexpected happens,
Speaker:it's not an entire surprise. For example, we look
Speaker:at potential problems on the road for IP. We
Speaker:look at potential employment issues because of the new law that came out. Or
Speaker:the AI thing that just, you know, everything is sort of I'm
Speaker:not trying to find an answer to everything. I
Speaker:think it's important to know that because the moment I
Speaker:say I know everything is the moment I don't think I
Speaker:know everything or anything. So if I spend all of my time to
Speaker:understand what the problems are and can be and
Speaker:find a way to proactively mitigate the potential
Speaker:consequences of it. And by doing that, then I
Speaker:look at, back to your second part of the question, what empowers me, right?
Speaker:And so I, I find it the most energizing, um,
Speaker:to be able to work with the people. Um,
Speaker:I, I enjoy working with scientists, um, that sort of go back to
Speaker:my, my IP route, but I also enjoy working with.
Speaker:people on the non-IP portion, right? Talking about inclusion, talking
Speaker:about how to make a place more empowering
Speaker:for all kinds of employees. It touches
Speaker:on the humanity portion of my interests. So
Speaker:I like to weave them together, because I
Speaker:I like the way you describe that. I also like to look
Speaker:for things that could go wrong and have a plan for it. But
Speaker:I just call myself a negative optimist. I hope that it all works
Speaker:That's exactly a point well made. One of the things that I have tried to
Speaker:do so that, you know, lawyers have a reputation, right?
Speaker:Part of no. One of the things I try to do so that I don't become
Speaker:a part of no is I say I'm a part of maybe. Right.
Speaker:And so the way I do it is to say here are the risks. However,
Speaker:here are the things we can do in view of the risk. Now we
Speaker:have a menu in front of us to pick, rather than, no, no, no, no,
Speaker:no, no, no, no, no. And that also allows
Speaker:me to work with the other teams. For example, at the exact choosing
Speaker:level, at the different functional groups, or even down to the
Speaker:most junior of folks. Now we know the
Speaker:different risks. How do we then sit together and
Speaker:craft a strategy that people can actually
Speaker:Yeah, I think risk mitigation is such a fascinating thing. And it's
Speaker:kind of fun, right? Because if you're looking ahead and it's a risk down the
Speaker:line, it gives you more room to play. And you also do put parameters in
Speaker:I am the one, though, who is running ahead full speed. And Allison's
Speaker:like, have you considered X,
Speaker:Y, Z. It's really helpful to have somebody on the team who is maybe a
Speaker:little more, I'm the classic entrepreneur who's like,
Speaker:Right. And you talk about empowering and the energizing part. One
Speaker:of the part I, what makes, what drives a
Speaker:lot of the exercise I said, despite what I said, that being the
Speaker:part of it may be, is I surround people, like surround
Speaker:myself with people who are very different than I am. And
Speaker:that's intentional. I very often hire people who
Speaker:are very different than I am just so that I can get a
Speaker:new perspective, right? And so while I'm doing what I'm doing,
Speaker:my approach is this, I want to make sure there are other people checking
Speaker:to make sure I am not putting myself in a bubble and lose sight
Speaker:of what I don't know, what I don't know, right? And so that has been
Speaker:empowering. It's sometimes uncomfortable because people
Speaker:are different than you are. I intentionally put myself in an uncomfortable situation,
Speaker:but the idea is so that I can grow, the team can
Speaker:And you do a decent amount of work within the
Speaker:DEI realm as well in your company. So I
Speaker:think that getting comfortable with that diversity, that
Speaker:really, once you are comfortable, that makes the
Speaker:whole company better. And I wonder what
Speaker:your perspective is on helping people to push through that and sort
Speaker:of setting the stage for creating that diversity, those
Speaker:different perspectives within the company and helping people to overcome maybe their discomfort,
Speaker:Yeah, so I would say of the D, E, and
Speaker:I, I actually focus a lot on the I.
Speaker:It's not to say the other two are not important, but of the three, I like to focus
Speaker:a lot of my efforts on the I, the inclusion part. And
Speaker:as a gross analogy, the diversity will increase numbers,
Speaker:it will change representation. The equity might actually bring
Speaker:people in, but it's the inclusion piece that
Speaker:makes people stay. And so how do I do it
Speaker:so that people feel they're included? And included to me
Speaker:doesn't mean, okay, you have a party, I invite you. It's that I
Speaker:want you to feel like you're part of the dance. You don't
Speaker:get a ticket and that's it. You are part of the party to
Speaker:dance with me. And so to me, that is
Speaker:my, that's all of my efforts on that piece of
Speaker:the D&I, or I like to call it ID really, I'd
Speaker:reverse the order. But that also means that people
Speaker:come from all kinds of backgrounds, right? And people have different
Speaker:levels of comfort, they view the world differently. So
Speaker:very often we need to calibrate not to lose ourselves.
Speaker:I would like to be true. I think it's important that we are true
Speaker:to ourselves. But how do we do that so other people can
Speaker:also be true to themselves? I think that that has been a
Speaker:lot of work that needs to be done, right? And how do you do it
Speaker:so that people feel they're listened to, they're seen?
Speaker:At the same time, more importantly, they are empower to
Speaker:contribute. Because being seen is one thing, but feeling like they
Speaker:can be part of that community, to be included, and
Speaker:do something together as a team, that is
Speaker:What have you seen work in companies, you know, when they're really trying
Speaker:to focus on the inclusion piece? Are there actionable things
Speaker:that you've implemented or you've seen companies implement that you think if
Speaker:other organizations were to know and do the same, it would actually
Speaker:Um, so I will, I will speak from my own experience, right?
Speaker:That's, that's my way of saying this is not a guidebook because I think it depends, it
Speaker:depends on that demographic of the company. It depends on the industry of the
Speaker:company. But what I found to be helpful, um,
Speaker:is that the, the team that the senior leadership
Speaker:team, um, she strived for transparency, accountability,
Speaker:and more importantly, vulnerability. And so it's
Speaker:important, I think, for the employees to see
Speaker:that the efforts to
Speaker:create a more inclusive environment doesn't just come
Speaker:from one person or some lip service that you
Speaker:give out as a brochure or some training you do once a
Speaker:year. It's that it should all come all
Speaker:the way from the top to all the way to the bottom. And I
Speaker:mean, they shouldn't even be about it. It should be just an entire company should be
Speaker:an effort for everyone to be involved. And that also means
Speaker:if there is a challenge, right? So maybe there's something that hasn't
Speaker:been done well. The team should actually
Speaker:confront it, right? I believe that one way
Speaker:to work together, to build that trust, to
Speaker:build that intimacy is actually by solving hard problems together.
Speaker:Not to avoid them together, but to actually confront them and then
Speaker:deal with it heads on. And that's how I feel
Speaker:in my experience, people starting to trust each
Speaker:other. And once you have that trust, people feel safer
Speaker:to potentially speak out, right? And to potentially make
Speaker:mistakes. And that's when you actually handle
Speaker:and work together as one. Because otherwise you have a bunch
Speaker:of sort of discrete point people working on
Speaker:different things, but they never are bound together by some sort
Speaker:That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's really impactful. Can
Speaker:we switch gears and talk about legal matters? I'm
Speaker:so curious about where you see the future of
Speaker:IP going with all of the rapid changes
Speaker:that we're seeing. Is there anything that you are just fascinated
Speaker:I, well, yeah, the answer is definitely yes. I'm fascinated by
Speaker:quite a few things. And again, just a few months ago, I never
Speaker:heard of JotGPT. I don't think anybody knows what JotGPT is, but and
Speaker:look at, look at where we are now. Right. And I think one of the
Speaker:things I find fascinating and one of the reasons I
Speaker:am where I am in both a company perspective
Speaker:or the legal career I'm in is actually to learn the
Speaker:technology. at the very beginning stage, right?
Speaker:And that's actually by design where
Speaker:IP comes from. You learn it before it's publicly available. You learn it before
Speaker:it's well known. I think there's going to be a
Speaker:lot of unknowns. And it's not going to be a
Speaker:linear growth. It's going to be an explanation because And once
Speaker:we open the door to taking AI as one example, I
Speaker:would not be surprised that all of a sudden AI can be used for multiple,
Speaker:multiple things that had never even been contemplated before. Now,
Speaker:that also means, now putting my lawyer's hat
Speaker:back on, The technology
Speaker:is going to be ahead of the time or before the
Speaker:legal paradigm catch up. So before the courts
Speaker:can act, before Congress can act, we're going to have a lot
Speaker:of challenges as a result of exciting
Speaker:development in science and technology that we need to confront,
Speaker:right? And how do we protect privacy? How do we protect You
Speaker:know, even bias, you know, our AI, should
Speaker:AI be treated as people? I mean, there are a lot of things that are not
Speaker:yet resolved legally, but it has to
Speaker:Within your space particularly, we're talking about
Speaker:imaging, right? And so using your technology to
Speaker:be able to survey vast quantities of
Speaker:images and to find the pattern so that we can identify
Speaker:disease tissues faster and that sort of thing. Are there any
Speaker:thoughts to the ramifications of that patient confidentiality and
Speaker:where will those datasets come from and all of those things? Because, you
Speaker:know, we we're still in the midst of, for instance, the HeLa cell
Speaker:legal issues. And so I'm just curious, are we
Speaker:going to see that again in 50 years with people's
Speaker:I think that problem has never gone away. The
Speaker:reason is sort of on the surface, less
Speaker:heard of is because of the legal paradigm that was created. Right.
Speaker:And then that's my way of saying, because the problem never went
Speaker:away. Anytime there is a scientific advancement,
Speaker:that will probably be brought back in front and center. Right.
Speaker:And so how do you, how do we. advance
Speaker:the science of our kind, humankind, so that we benefit everybody
Speaker:without compromising at the same time the people being part
Speaker:of the experiments. That is
Speaker:going to be challenging, right? And that's another part
Speaker:of that also is there is right now no cohesive framework,
Speaker:Europe act this way, US act that way, even in the United
Speaker:States, this country, different states act different ways. So until
Speaker:there is a more cohesive framework, and I would, I remain hopeful
Speaker:that sometime soon, this will happen. But until
Speaker:then, it's going to be quite a bit of back to the, my
Speaker:earlier comment about how do you preemptively and
Speaker:proactively think about the possible consequences before
Speaker:Karina's question was so intelligent and like so far reaching
Speaker:and consequential. Mine is very in the moment. Do
Speaker:you allow employees to use ChatGTP at DeepCell or
Speaker:is that like, no, don't be funneling our information into
Speaker:Well, that's going to be a work in progress. But for now, we
Speaker:are not prohibiting child GPT. And
Speaker:to be realistic, this is the engineering part of me, right? It's
Speaker:impossible to prohibit. So rather than prohibiting, we've
Speaker:been focused on how do we do it so
Speaker:Yeah, it's a lot to think of right now. I agree. We're seeing
Speaker:schools are prohibiting it. Oh, okay.
Speaker:But how, how are you prohibiting this? You know, this is where it's
Speaker:the education component. What should and shouldn't we use it
Speaker:And actually the joke, the joke actually is when someone asked to,
Speaker:to write a policy of how to not use ChargeGBT, someone
Speaker:But here's my whole thing with it. I mean, here's my soapbox. This
Speaker:is the prime opportunity to teach people how to think critically. Just
Speaker:because it spits it back out at you and the tool is there does not mean it's accurate.
Speaker:And it's like a calculator. If you understand what the
Speaker:answer roughly should be or how you got there, sometimes you
Speaker:mistype in the calculator and it gives you a crazy answer and you need to be
Speaker:able to parse that out. And so I think it's like, you know, when we talk about people
Speaker:using these tools, they just have to understand the critical components of what
Speaker:And also, you raised a very good point, right? I mean, that's again, that's a
Speaker:different way. That's my way of seeing the world is
Speaker:that One reason child GPT becomes child
Speaker:GPT is our framework and our way of
Speaker:looking at data being generated. It may
Speaker:not be healthy, right? So for example, one of the reasons
Speaker:that school kids can actually use child GPT to get away
Speaker:our assignment is those are meeting rubrics, right?
Speaker:If you were to look at this and say the assignment is
Speaker:to for you to actually provide your thinking
Speaker:process, those are not things JWT can do. Just
Speaker:like going back to a larger company environment, if what
Speaker:we are looking for is truly people generating
Speaker:new ideas, and it could be IP, it could be non-IP, but
Speaker:it's the thought process of sharing what you are generating, those
Speaker:are not replicable by JWT, or even created by JWT. And
Speaker:so I think it may be helpful for us
Speaker:as a whole, as a society, to look at what is valuable information
Speaker:Yep. I completely agree. I think it's a great tool for brainstorming. I think people
Speaker:just have to think through it and take it to the next level. Take the
Speaker:first iteration and say, okay, well that's what that's been out, but now how do I
Speaker:improve it and where does that lead me and chase the rabbits, you know?
Speaker:So kind of staying on this legal route, we
Speaker:are moving so fast. How do you keep up with that with the IP?
Speaker:whole thing about strategy is you need to preemptively think
Speaker:of what could be and might be in a practical way, right? And the reason
Speaker:is nobody has unlimited budget. And so that goes
Speaker:to what if the strategy shouldn't be just cover everything, scorch the
Speaker:earth. And so that also means I think
Speaker:it's important when we build an IP, the strategy
Speaker:should be a science-driven strategy rather than a legal-driven strategy.
Speaker:Because if the strategy is based on science, then
Speaker:you capture a technical solution rather than
Speaker:a legal-driven maneuvering, which
Speaker:can come and go based on how the courts act. right, how the laws change.
Speaker:But if a solution is a solution, that actually builds a
Speaker:lot of the foundational pieces of
Speaker:what the assets of the company can be. And that also
Speaker:allows you to be more creative, right? Rather than using legal as
Speaker:a reason of what not to do, or what
Speaker:to do, you now open yourself up to a potential, endless
Speaker:potentials, because your science will
Speaker:allow you to capture that from different angles.
Speaker:How do you find the different elements of that development, that
Speaker:technology improvement? And also, how do you do it
Speaker:to find a synergy of the different elements? Those
Speaker:are things that are independent and
Speaker:agnostic from the legal requirements as well. And
Speaker:with that, then the company can actually have an IP
Speaker:asset that match better with
Speaker:its commercial interest. And you can explain to the
Speaker:investors or the rest of the world, here's what I'm
Speaker:doing and why, rather than some arbitrary legal
Speaker:I think that when we think about people who are building a biotech in the
Speaker:very early stages, you know, obviously, They
Speaker:need to advance the science. There's IP. They have like just standard HR legal
Speaker:issues. But most people aren't bringing in like a full time
Speaker:chief legal officer. Right. But when do you think the right time to start
Speaker:incorporating that in is for a small firm? What
Speaker:do you think the tipping point is to like you need someone on site? Is it in a
Speaker:It's important to know that different companies are different, right? And
Speaker:then there are companies that are not generating as
Speaker:much IP as some of the more life sciences and biotech companies.
Speaker:So I don't, I don't want to pretend that, you know, they should be all the
Speaker:same. In fact, they should not be the same to be strategic. But
Speaker:however, for a science or, or a IP, an
Speaker:IP generating company, life sciences being one, biotech, life
Speaker:sciences and biotech, and also high tech. I, I
Speaker:would say it's probably better. to
Speaker:bring an attorney that
Speaker:is at least knowledgeable on the IP front
Speaker:as early as possible. Because very often what ends up
Speaker:happening is when they hire, when they have the
Speaker:resources, more often is when they were
Speaker:told to do it by the board, it's still a little too late, right?
Speaker:Because a lot of the founders didn't appreciate how important IP
Speaker:really is. And think about this, I would encourage us to think about this.
Speaker:Before a company commercialized a product, very
Speaker:often the only tangible asset is actually IP.
Speaker:And so if there is to be a merger and acquisition, if there's going to be whatever
Speaker:transaction, before a product is actually launched
Speaker:or sold in the market, the only thing that
Speaker:you can show, or one of the very few things you can show, really is the IP
Speaker:assets you have. And so rather than playing catch up,
Speaker:it is important, I would even say critical, particularly for
Speaker:a biotech company, to focus on the assets as early
Speaker:Could see your chief business officer hat in that one. Yep. No,
Speaker:that's really, really point well taken. That
Speaker:is critical. And I think not very many founders do think
Speaker:about that as like, I have an asset. How
Speaker:do I protect this asset? There's a lot of people who can't
Speaker:afford, you know, at an early stage to bring in a full time head
Speaker:of legal or even, you know, someone on the IP space.
Speaker:How useful is it? Is it possible to use a firm to
Speaker:leverage an external firm? And if so, when is that? not
Speaker:At the minimum, the company should focus on
Speaker:IP, right? And be, whether that is on an outside counsel, outside
Speaker:firm or internal, at the minimum, some effort should
Speaker:be made. That's what I recommend. The question of when that
Speaker:balance is tilted so that it becomes an in-house, it
Speaker:would depend on a lot of factors, right? And so
Speaker:resources being one. What I though would say
Speaker:from a sort of anecdotally, what
Speaker:has been successful for a
Speaker:license or biotech company to handle
Speaker:their IP is actually to have that transition to
Speaker:in-house as early as possible. And here's why.
Speaker:Outside councils, law firms, to no
Speaker:fault of their own, they can handle a task-oriented IP
Speaker:project. However, they are not going to have the visibility or
Speaker:even the insight into where the company wants to go.
Speaker:So the information they have is as good as whatever they
Speaker:receive. On the other hand, if you have someone strategic
Speaker:in-house, what they can bring to the table is asking,
Speaker:well, what about something else? What have we missed? Right. And
Speaker:that strategy piece is very often not able
Speaker:to capture by an outside counsel that is not on the ground day
Speaker:to day and figure out where the company may
Speaker:go or where the company can be benefited in
Speaker:That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that was sort of my assumption as
Speaker:well. But so it sounds like, you know, if you
Speaker:have to choose keeping external counsel that's
Speaker:doing like contracts and, you know, more of the regular
Speaker:legal aspects, but can that be handled
Speaker:by your IP attorney or is that not generally done? I know you wear both hats,
Speaker:but can your IP attorney usually generally
Speaker:very often different, but they're also very often
Speaker:the same, particularly in a life science company. And that's another reason
Speaker:I like to weave my legal
Speaker:strategy based on an IP-centric approach. And
Speaker:so again, this is applicable in a more life science, biotech,
Speaker:or high-tech settings where it's very uncommon
Speaker:any transaction will go through without touching IP in some
Speaker:way. even a hiring of a consultant, right,
Speaker:or collaboration. So very
Speaker:often an IP trained attorney should
Speaker:be able to at least contribute to the transactional
Speaker:pieces that legal exercise, although
Speaker:they are, they're designed to be different. But
Speaker:that's my way of saying that if
Speaker:there is to be a legal transactional exercise, IP should
Speaker:have some input into it. But whether the person can
Speaker:actually do both, that would depend on what
Speaker:Yeah, this is an area I have very little experience other than, yeah,
Speaker:we get contracts signed. But we
Speaker:have not had to deal directly with IP because that's just not our
Speaker:area. Other than if a candidate comes in, you know, attached to a patent, we have
Speaker:In a situation, unless it's an IP focus, typically companies
Speaker:like to have people who are focused on the more
Speaker:For anyone listening who is like, wow, what a cool career. I mean, I
Speaker:think it would be very difficult to replicate your career path. It is very
Speaker:interesting and it is just diverse. It is fascinating. But
Speaker:if someone was like, wow, I really think that like being the chief legal officer
Speaker:or, you know, any of these interim roles you had or chief business officer, like
Speaker:I guess in general, what advice do you have to someone who's, you
Speaker:know, maybe early stage career, maybe they're still figuring it out, but
Speaker:I actually get asked that question quite a bit. I
Speaker:do a lot of mentoring. And so that's actually one of the
Speaker:most common questions I get asked. So my recommendation
Speaker:is this. I think it's important to
Speaker:find your North Star values. Because that
Speaker:is going to be what helps you weather the storms, if there is one.
Speaker:That is going to be what helps you find your interests and understand what
Speaker:you don't like. So find your North Star values
Speaker:as early as possible, appreciating that value can
Speaker:change. but in the actions can change and
Speaker:you should be willing to embrace that change because that's how
Speaker:you evolve. But find that value as early as possible and
Speaker:at the same time be intellectually curious, right? And to say,
Speaker:look, there might be things I don't know. But let's find
Speaker:out, right? Don't stop there. Don't stop at there's something I don't know.
Speaker:OK, too bad. But find out, make an effort to find
Speaker:out, be vulnerable and say, I'm going to show up. I'm
Speaker:going to give it a try. And if it doesn't work, then let's be resilient
Speaker:and come back again or do something else. Know what you like, be
Speaker:true to yourself and then give it a try and just
Speaker:I think that's great life advice. Yeah. Honestly, career,
Speaker:Yeah. So what is next for
Speaker:you on this wild career ride that you're on? Do you
Speaker:have anything that is undone and you think, you know, before I'm done,
Speaker:I don't really have one, probably because
Speaker:I keep trying new things regardless. And I know I'm going to
Speaker:keep trying new things regardless. But career-wise, I
Speaker:think, first of all, I have had a remarkable career
Speaker:journey to be where I am. And I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. But
Speaker:being where I am right now, I've started to enjoy
Speaker:a lot more giving back. to
Speaker:the community, mentoring, and making sure that
Speaker:whatever I'm doing can actually help the
Speaker:next generation of folks who want to participate
Speaker:in any part of the journey I've been on, the legal part, the BD part,
Speaker:the HR part, you know, science part, that I'm,
Speaker:I'm part of that community to make that environment a
Speaker:better place, an easier place for them to, to thrive. Right. I
Speaker:see myself in participating a lot more on the community efforts,
Speaker:right. On a, in a board capacity perhaps, or,
Speaker:or, or advisory kind of, so that, so that it's,
Speaker:it's for me to be able to help people
Speaker:what is your favorite book, fiction, nonfiction, could have read
Speaker:it 20 years ago, could have read it yesterday, a book you think everyone should
Speaker:You know what? One of my favorite, favorite fiction
Speaker:book, it's actually a children's book. It's actually called
Speaker:The Rabbit Listened. And in essence, it's about
Speaker:this little kid. He was very frustrated, right? Because the
Speaker:toys fell down. And there are a series of animals coming, came
Speaker:to sort of comfort him. The bear roared because he was angry. The
Speaker:chicken said, let's talk. And the snake, you know, just a whole bunch
Speaker:of different things and said, let's do this, let's do this, let's do this. he
Speaker:didn't feel better. And what happened was this little rabbit, the
Speaker:rabbit came, sat by the kid, the child, and
Speaker:they just listened without saying a thing. And
Speaker:so as a result of that, the child started to
Speaker:angrily scream and then to roar and then to do
Speaker:all that stuff. And then at
Speaker:the end, the child goes, Now I'm
Speaker:ready to rebuild. Right. And so to me, that was such a lot
Speaker:of times we think we're helping people the
Speaker:way we know how to help, but that's counterproductive. Right.
Speaker:And so if anything, that's a reminder for myself that I would like
Speaker:to help. We should help people the way they want to be helped. if
Speaker:anything, that create a more inclusive environment because that
Speaker:can avoid a lot of the issues we're seeing with microaggressions
Speaker:and all that because we don't have the perspective of the other
Speaker:person. I do read a lot of fiction books, but this is probably one
Speaker:of my favorite ones. Yeah. And then now fiction, this book I really like
Speaker:is called Emotional Agility by Susan David. And
Speaker:to me, it was almost a summary of a lot of works that I really
Speaker:enjoy, right? Brene Fran's work, Alan Grant's work, Keenan
Speaker:Scott's work. And so this sort of summarizes how
Speaker:to be vulnerable, how to show up, how to stay intellectually curious
Speaker:and agile, and then give it a try. Right. And so that's
Speaker:Amazing. I'll put that on my list too. Yeah. I
Speaker:love all of the authors you mentioned and so anything that brings that together.
Speaker:Where can our audience get in touch with you if they have questions or
Speaker:Perfect. We'll link that in the show notes. If anyone wants to go Lincoln with you, I'm
Speaker:sure you'll get quite a few folks that are wanting to join your network and
Speaker:just follow your career. I'm fascinated. I can't wait to see what
Speaker:you do next. And I'm going to be following your career religiously because it
Speaker:is so fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on. This was a
