Business for Good Podcast

President Biden recently signed into law the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, new legislation that ends the FDA's mandate that all drugs be tested on animals prior to human clinical trials. The new law doesn't prohibit animal testing, but it does give companies the choice of whether to conduct animal experiments or not, and could lead to many fewer animals being used as test subjects. If we don't use animals as test tubes prior to human clinical trials, what should we use? Emulate claims it has the answer. The organ-on-a-chip company's CEO Jim Corbett testified before Congress in favor of the new legislation and says his company's products deliver much more reliable data than does animal experimentation. And why shouldn't it? We all know that rats (the most popular animal on whom to experiment) have pretty different biologies than humans. For example, people with pet rats are regularly warned not to give their rats onions since it can sicken them. We all know dogs are apparently not supposed to eat chocolate. Yet humans do just fine eating these foods that are toxic to rats and dogs. So what if we could test on actual human cells that have been placed on chips which mimic the functions of a human body? In this episode, Jim discusses Emulate's technology, its promise to slash the number of animals used for testing while delivering safe drugs to market more quickly, who opposes their efforts, and where this is all leading us. Emulate so far has raised a whopping quarter-billion dollars of venture capital investment, so someone believes that these folks are onto something big. Time will tell, and for now, their CEO will tell you the Emulate story. Discussed in this episode Emulate was birthed from Don Ingber's lab at Harvard with funding from DARPA Fast Company and WIRED on Emulate's work. Nature Communications Medicine Performance assessment and economic analysis of a human Liver-Chip for predictive toxicology (2022) Science Translational Medicine Reproducing human and cross-species drug toxicities using a Liver-Chip (2019) Jim recommends the book Endurance to would-be startup founders Jim credits the Center for a Humane Economy with leading the passage of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0. More about Jim Corbett Jim Corbett has served as a leader of successful international businesses across diverse sectors, including biotechnology, medical imaging, analytical instruments and in vitro diagnostics. His experience ranges from Fortune 100 companies to entrepreneurial start-ups. Until becoming the CEO of Emulate, he served in leadership roles at PerkinElmer during an 11-year tenure, including Executive Vice President and President of Discovery & Analytical Solutions. His other roles at PerkinElmer included President of Diagnostics & Life Sciences, Senior Vice President of Life Sciences Solutions, and Vice President of North America Genetic Screening. Prior to PerkinElmer, Corbett was President of ViaCell, Inc. which was acquired by PerkinElmer in 2007. Previously, he co-founded CADx Systems, a company focused on the oncology market, where he held the position of Executive Vice President and Director with responsibility for worldwide sales and marketing, technical support and business development. Following the 2004 acquisition of CADx by iCAD, Inc., he was named Chief Commercial Officer. In addition, Corbett worked for Abbott Laboratories for 14 years in a variety of sales and marketing positions including Worldwide Marketing Manager for Abbott Diagnostics Immunoassay Systems and Region Manager for Abbott Diagnostics. Corbett holds a Bachelor of Science from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

You've heard of the companies seeking to build new brands of animal-free meat, but you hear a lot less about the B2B companies working behind the scenes to give those pioneers the tools they need to succeed. One such company, Matrix FT, recently debuted what it's calling Ohio's first cultivated chicken nugget, featuring chicken cells grown on the scaffolds and microcarriers it produces. Via a technology called electo-spinning (more like this than this), Matrix FT is creating edible, animal-free, cost-effective ingredients that cultivated meat companies can use in their media to more effectively grow their meat. And now the company's starting to work with plant-based meat companies to improve texture, as well. Recently Matrix FT's founder and CEO Eric Jenkusky stepped down from his role, and their executive Teryn Wolfe assumed the helm of the company. In this interview, we talk with Teryn about what circumstances in her life led her to be running an alt-protein food tech company, what she views as the big hurdles in the space, and why she thinks it's taking longer for cultivated meat to reach your plate than many had predicted. Discussed in this episode Using electro-spinning for plant-based meat (cool tech here on this too) Using electro-spinning for cultivated meat Teryrn recommends the Good Food Institute's deep dive into cultivated meat science She also recommends New Harvest's resources About Teryn Wolfe Teryn Wolfe is the Interim CEO at Matrix Food Technologies, where she was the former Vice President and Director of Corporate Development and Strategic Relationships. Before joining Matrix F.T., Teryn founded and managed Measurement Matters, based out of Colombia. She is also the founder of a startup that helps female artisans and entrepreneurs get their products to market, and a NGO. She is Fulbright Research Scholar Alumni, a former Adjunct professor and possesses a diverse, international professional background, marked with unique experiences that have been driven by curiosity, determination and desire to deliver on creating meaningful, positive change in the world. Teryn lives in Columbus, Ohio with her son, Adrian, and her dog, Penny Lane. She spends her free time reading, cooking, playing, conjuring up new business ideas and planning logistics of adventures to come!

Usually when you hear about meat's connection to methane, it's about all the methane that cows are emitting into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. What if, however, you could capture methane before it goes into the atmosphere, and feed it to microbes which in turn convert it into protein-packed ingredients to make alt-meat? Sounds like magic, but it's not magic, it's science! And it's a science that Dr. Ezhil Subbian and her team at String Bio are advancing right now. The India-based company in 2022 closed its $20 million Series B round and is now scaling up to commercialize its microbial protein ingredients. In this interview, Dr. Subbian and I talk about how she started the company, why she moved it from Silicon Valley to Bangalore, India, where they get the methane to feed their microbes, and much more. It's a fun conversation with someone passionate about fermentation and seeking to scale it in a part of the world where it's desperately needed—where meat demand is rising the fastest: Asia. So enjoy this conversation with a real pioneer in the microbial fermentation space as she tells you her story of going from biotech researcher to startup CEO. Discussed in this episode Our past episode with Zero Acre Farms. Ezhil recommends Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Paul's favorite quote from Meditations: "Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it's unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well." Ezhil recommends The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee Finally, Ezhil recommends Good to Great by Jim Collins More about Ezhil Subbian, PhD Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil's work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog. Ezhil completed her degree in Industrial and Biotech engineering from Anna University, Chennai, and then went on to do a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. She then worked for over 12 years in Silicon Valley's Bay area as part of the biotechnology industry. She worked as a scientist and technical lead across multiple companies before becoming a consultant and then starting up. Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil's work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.

Nearly none of the plastic we use gets recycled. Even the plastic we throw into the recycling bin often ends up in landfills since it's just not economical to recycle the plastic, especially now that China has banned imports of American plastic waste. So what are we going to do with the vast oceans of plastic we love to use? Shelly Zhang has an idea. As you'll hear in this episode, the death of Shelly's father led to the birth of her company, Molten Materials. Armed with her PhD in engineering, Shelly has pioneered a method of taking plastic waste and upcycling it into pavement sealers, asphalt rejuvenators, and more. In other words, she's betting that she can take our trash and turn it into her treasure, all while solving the pressing problem of what to do with all our plastic waste. Already, Shelly's earned seed investment, hired a dozen team members, filed for various patents, and is now readying her first-ever product, an upcycled-plastic DIY pavement sealer you can use on your own driveway or other cracked surfaces. Her story is an inspirational one, moving to the US from China, earning her PhD, and now founding her own company. I think you'll be impressed, so let me allow Shelly to tell you her story herself. Discussed in this episode Shelly recommends Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, by Richard Feynman Our past episode on nuclear waste with Deep Isolation CEO Elizabeth Muller More about Shelly Zhang Shelly Zhang earned her PhD from California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2020 Shelly founded Molten Materials, her vision is to create a clean and sustainable world for future generations by replacing big oil. She believes that through technological innovation, it is achievable to solve the toughest problems our world faces."

Is Sugar by Another Name Just as Sweet? Ali Wing and Oobli Are Fermenting Their Way to a Sweet Protein Future We all know that eating too much sugar isn't good for us, but millions of years of evolution led us to love sweet foods. After all, they provide us with a quick boost of energy needed in an ancestral environment where we were largely active throughout the day. Of course, today most people in the developed world are far from being active all day, yet we still crave sugar and eat it in an abundance far greater than what was available to our distant ancestors from whom we descend. There've been plenty of attempts to create sweetness without the negative effects that go along with eating the refined sugars we seem to love so much. From older products like aspartame to newer ones like stevia or allulose, a pot of gold awaits those who can help humanity satiate our sweet tooth without contributing to the health crises we now face. To that end, we're talking today with Oobli CEO Ali Wing about her company's efforts to commercialize the world's first sweet proteins. Yes, you read that right: sweet proteins. In 2022 Oobli closed a $25 million Series B round, bringing the company's total fundraising to date to $40 million. So, how do they create sweet proteins? As you'll hear Ali describe in this episode, some plants naturally produce proteins that happen to be sweet as an evolutionary trick. It'd be difficult to mass produce those plants, but via microbial fermentation, Oobli has figured out how to produce the bioidentical proteins themselves. I had the pleasure of enjoying some of Oobli's pre-market products and I certainly couldn't tell the difference myself. I was especially excited to try the company's chocolate bar which tastes as sweet as a full-sugar bar, but with 70 percent less sugar. It's an exciting way to sweeten the food industry without turning our health sour. I think you'll enjoy hearing Ali tell you the story of how she and her team intend to make your life, and your health, a little bit sweeter. Discussed in this episode Paul recommends Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott Ali recommends Loonshots by Safi Bahcall Ali also recommends John Doerr's books Ali mentions this study about the metabolic impacts of alt-sugars More about Ali Wing A growth CEO, Ali is best known for tackling big consumer problems, brand strategy & building high performing, agile teams. Specializing at the intersection of consumer brands, technology & healthy living, Ali's value creation track record crosses CPG, retail, technology, healthcare & biotech. Ali is currently the CEO & Director of Oobli, Inc., a food technology company leveraging precision fermentation to disrupt sugar. Prior to Oobli, Ali served as the Chief Consumer Officer of Bright Health Group, EVP of Digital/Chief Brand Officer at Ascena Retail Group, Founder/CEO/ Chairwoman of giggle, an EIR for a variety of venture-backed consumer software & technology companies & a Corporate Securities Attorney in the Silicon Valley. Ali launched her career at NIKE in brand leadership & strategy. In addition to her operating role at Oobli, Ali currently serves as an independent director on the boards of Casey's General Stores (NASDAQ: CASY) & Worldwide Orphans (WWO), & acts as an advisor to several growth technology companies. Previously Ali served as an independent director for Bazaarvoice (NASDAQ: BV) until it was sold to Marlin Equity in early 2018. Ali lives in the California with her husband, has an only son in college & holds a dual JD / MBA from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Ali has completed Harvard Business School's 2020/2021 Corporate Governance Certificate Program & was recognized among Women's Inc Top 100 Corporate Board of Directors in 2019.

The inside of the earth's pretty hot. How hot? As hot as the surface of the sun. Seriously. That heat could generate unbelievable amounts of clean geothermal energy to power our civilization—if we could reach all the way down there. You see, to get to fossil fuels like oil and gas, we only need to drill down a couple kilometers. In places that have volcanoes, like Iceland, you can fairly easily reach down into hellish parts of the earth to harness geothermal energy, but most human populations tend not to be crowded around active volcanoes for obvious reasons. In the places where power plants typically exist—near human civilization—we'd need to drill more like 10-20 kilometers down, which just isn't really possible with conventional drilling techniques. Enter Quaise Energy, a four-year-old startup that's raised $70 million so far to drill deeper than humans have ever gone. Their plan isn't to use mechanical drill bits, which are limited in their utility at such deep depths, but rather to vaporize rock using microwaves. Their plan is as bold as it is simple: Drill thousands of these eight-inch-wide but super-deep holes right next to existing power plants. That way, the plants can run on geothermal energy and stop using coal to create the energy we all use daily. If it works, it's a rapidly scalable solution to quickly slash our fossil fuel use and avert the most catastrophic climate scenarios. Our guest in this episode is Quaise Energy's CFO, Kevin Bonebreak, a guy who spent most of his career in the conventional energy investment world, and is now working to bring about a cleaner, safer, and saner way to power human civilization. Discussed in this episode Kevin recommends books by Vaclav Smil, including his works on energy Kevin also recommend reading Loonshots MIT on Quaise's holes Bloomberg on Quaise's gameplan Quaise's latest (2022) financing round of $52 million More about Kevin Bonebrake Kevin Bonebrake is the CFO of Quaise Energy. He joined the startup from Lazard, where he was a Managing Director in the financial advisory business focused on the energy industry. Prior to joining Lazard in 2017, Bonebrake was a Managing Director in Morgan Stanley's Global Natural Resources investment banking practice and was a Vice President with Citigroup's Global Energy, Power and Chemicals investment banking team. Bonebrake completed his graduate research in industrial laser applications in the Naval Architecture department at the Helsinki University of Technology and was a member of the intellectual property licensing team at Delphi Automotive.

This is a cool episode, because Grant Canary has found a way to make money by cooling the planet—with trees! In episode 98 with Maddie Hall, we learned about how her startup, Living Carbon, is bioengineering trees to grow faster so we can reforest the planet faster. And in this 101st episode, we'll hear about a different approach to reforestation. Every year, millions of acres of forests in the US burn down, and the number of acres burning is increasing annually. We know that trees not only provide critical wildlife habitat, but they're an important part of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere, yet literally billions of trees burn up in wildfires each year. Regardless of how fast those trees grow, just imagine how much time it would take to hand plant enough seeds to replace billions of burned trees. Enter Drone Seed. Founded in 2016, the company's raised well over $30 million from venture investors so far to essentially automate the reforestation process. Rather than planting seeds by hand or even randomly from the air, the 100-person startup's drones survey the burned land, plan the mission, and then strategically drop pucks filled with seeds and the nutrients they'll need to grow in the areas they're most likely going to take root. The company is already selling carbon offsets to companies like Shopify, proving that sometimes it can be more profitable to grow a forest than to cut one down. Discussed in this episode Grant recommends The Lean Startup, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and Multipliers Shopify's Planet app Mark Rober video TechCrunch story and CNBC story about Drone Seed More about Grant Canary Grant Canary is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DroneSeed, which reforests after wildfire using heavy lift drone swarms. It was founded to make reforestation scalable and mitigate the worst effects of climate change. It recently acquired subsidiary Silvaseed which has been expanded to be the largest private seed bank on the west coast. The company is now a one-stop-shop for reforestation providing seed, seedlings, aerial seeding, and financing via carbon credits. Grant has focused his entire career on sustainability—working at Vestas wind energy in China, the US and Denmark, and for the US Green Building Council in its infancy. He has had one prior acquisition. He founded Biosystems Co., in Bogotá, Colombia that utilized food waste to feed insect larvae for use as industrial fish feed— alleviating overfishing pressure and utilizing food waste. He worked with the acquirer to scale that company to a 60k sq ft insect protein factory which is going strong today. Grant is a pacific NW native growing up in Oregon playing chess, then poker, then improv. By virtue of DroneSeed he is a Techstars Seattle Alumni ('16), Mulago Foundation Fellow, and Grist list of 50 Fixers.

If you're familiar with the Silicon Valley world or venture capital space, Steve Jurvetson is a name that needs no introduction. For the rest of you, Steve's a legendary venture capitalist perhaps best known for his early backing of companies like Hotmail, Skype, Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, and more. He sat on Tesla's board of directors for years, and currently sits on SpaceX's board, too. These big bets he's taken on then-risky and out-there companies have led Steve to astronomical financial success (pun intended), but also to become an influential thought leader on space and technology issues, along with others. He was also an early backer of the cultivated meat industry, investing in Upside Foods' Series A. In 2016, President Obama appointed Steve as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Steve's also been honored as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors" by Forbes, and as the "Venture Capitalist of the Year" by Deloitte. The dude's a pretty prolific photographer too, it turns out, as I've learned. In fact, if you enter his name into Google without hitting enter, one of the dropdowns you get served is Steve Jurvetson Flickr! Today, Steve runs a venture capital fund called Future Ventures with his business partner Maryanna Saenko, and for full disclosure, as you'll hear in this interview, Future Ventures is an investor in my own company, The Better Meat Co. But as you'll also hear in this interview, that doesn't stop us from discussing taboo topics like Steve's personal wealth, how he spends his money, and more. Other interesting topics we explore include: What led a deep tech investor like Steve to invest in alternative meat? How many startup pitches does Steve hear weekly? What makes a good pitch, and what gets him to cross the finish line to actually wire investment dollars? What company does Steve want you to start and pitch him on? What does Steve think you should look for in a cofounder? For what does Steve think his future self will condemn his current self? What would be one of the greatest discoveries ever, in Steve's view? What happened in his life when Steve stopped drinking? What does Steve suggest you try as "the funniest google exercise"? In all, it's a riveting conversation with one of the most consequential names in business, including businesses that are seeking to do good in the world. Resources referenced in this episode NASA's Planetary Protection Division and Paul's thoughts in Astronomy magazine about its implications Massive liquid water oceans in our solar system, such as on Europa and Enceladus Europa report, which Steve still needs to see Steve's thoughts on Boston Consulting Group's report on where best to invest for the climate Steve's review of Paul's book Clean Meat (which he reviewed before the two knew each other) Other books Steve's enjoyed: Steve Jobs, The Founders, and Code Breaker More about Steve Jurvetson Steve Jurvetson is an early-stage venture capitalist with a focus on founder-led, mission-driven companies at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation. Steve led founding investments in several companies that had successful IPOs and others that were billion-dollar acquisitions, representing $800 billion of aggregate value creation. Some of those early VC investments include Planet Labs, SpaceX and Tesla. Before co-founding Future Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Steve was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his chip designs were fabricated. He also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT and management consulting with Bain & Company. He completed his undergraduate Electrical Engineering degree at Stanford in 2.5 years, graduating #1 in his class, and went on to earn a MSEE and MBA from Stanford. In 2017, Steve received the Visionary Award from SV Forum. In 2016, President Barack Obama appointed Steve as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship. Steve has also been honored as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors" by Forbes, and as the "Venture Capitalist of the Year" by Deloitte.

As we continue to empty the oceans, our species' demand for fish only seems to increase. But what if we could eat all the bluefin tuna and salmon we wanted without having to harm fish and other aquatic animals? That's the vision that companies like Wildtype are working toward. Founded in 2016, this cultivated fish startup has raised $120 million so far and now has 60 employees who are growing real fish meat without the fish. I've enjoyed their product now twice, both pre-pandemic and recently, and enjoyed it both times. Wild Type salmon that I recently enjoyed while in their San Francisco HQ. Today, Wildtype is building serious cultivation capacity to help turn the tide for the oceans, and in this episode, we discuss the company's origins, the role bird poop played, and what the company's up to today. We even discuss the co-founders' first company idea which they abandoned in favor of Wildtype: a redesigned Neti pot that would've been called The Schnozel. (They never trademarked this, so maybe one day you'll be able to buy that Schnozel of your dreams.) In addition to chatting about whether it's faster and cheaper to grow fish cells compared to mammalian and avian cells, co-founders Justin and Arye open up about what impact it's had on their personal lives to have gone from normal jobs to running their own company. We also talk about the perennial question in this industry: If the FDA gave them approval today, how soon would it be before we see Wildtype fish on restaurant menus? Discussed in this episode Our past episode with BlueNalu New Harvest founder Jason Matheny recently became CEO of the Rand Corporation The 2018 book Clean Meat (still highly relevant!) Bored Cow's great chocolate milk made with Perfect Day's animal-free whey protein More about Justin Kolbeck and Aryé Elfenbein Justin Kolbeck is co-founder and CEO of Wildtype, which is on a mission to create the cleanest, most sustainable seafood on the planet. Before Wildtype, he spent nearly five years as a consultant at Strategy& (not a typo!) helping companies develop and launch products, grow into new markets, and operate efficiently. Justin started his career as a Foreign Service Officer, serving in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Australia, and Washington DC. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Management, L'Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, and UC Berkeley. Aryé Elfenbein is co-founder of Wildtype, where he directs the company's scientific research. Aryé completed his MD and PhD at Dartmouth and Kyoto University; he completed his clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology at Yale. Prior to Wildtype, he completed a fellowship in regenerative cardiovascular medicine research at the Gladstone Institutes / UCSF. He currently practices cardiology in the critical care setting.

What's the most old-school way to capture carbon from the atmosphere? Trees! But is there a new school way to help trees stand up to the task of quickly removing the carbon humanity's been spewing into the atmosphere in recent centuries? Living Carbon is pioneering an exciting new field in which it's enhancing trees' natural ability to photosynthesize, causing them to grow dramatically faster and therefore capture carbon more quickly. You see, trees are essentially just big columns of carbon, and when we cut them down—something humans seem to like to do quite a lot—all of that carbon in the trees, and much of what was stored in the soil underneath those trees, gets released back into the atmosphere, heating up the planet. One problem with relying on tree-planting to recapture that carbon is just that trees take such a long time to grow, and we just don't have the luxury of time as the climate heats up. So Living Carbon is bioengineering trees that just grow a lot more efficiently at the beginning of their lives, and in turn making money in part from the carbon credits they can generate. Now, there are other benefits of trees aside from carbon capture, including that they provide critical wildlife habitat, shade, and more, and it'd be better if we had millions more large trees without having to wait a large number of years. That's where Living Carbon comes in. This three-year-old startup has raised $15 million and has successfully engineered two species of trees to grow so quickly that they have up to 53 percent more biomass than comparably aged trees of their species. They've already done trial plantings and their CEO, Maddie Hall, says in this interview that they intend to plant 4-5 million of their enhanced trees before the end of 2023. Not too shabby, and that's just the start. They're also working on drought-resistant trees so we can still have forests in places that climate change is drying out. In this interview, we talk about what Living Carbon is doing and why, we discuss the controversy over whether anything "natural" is better than "human-made," and of course, why it's a good idea to genetically engineer trees that will help fight climate change, something that as you can imagine, elicits a number of differing views. Discussed in this episode CNN short video on Living Carbon Bill Gates' book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster Maddie recommends Nonviolent Communication The number one cause of deforestation: meat production