Anyone who remembers the days of Flamel and Sky Pharma knows that the promise of nano drug delivery never really panned out for retail investors. These two firms promised to transform healthcare by using nanotechnology to deliver drugs more effectively. The technology moved on, while the supposed pioneers didn’t. The first nanotechnology-based cancer drugs to […]
When you’re managing a portfolio of tech stocks with a limit on the number you can hold, you need to start making difficult judgment calls. Perhaps you find two compelling companies addressing the same theme and you need to pick “the best one.” This is the Palantir vs. C3 problem. Or you might be holding […]
Don’t invest in stories. Don’t invest in a company before they have meaningful revenues. Don’t invest in drug developers that have a great deal of regulatory risk. These are all rules we need to break if we want exposure to a technology that allows mankind to start playing with the recipe of life – gene […]
When we first encountered the exciting world of synthetic biology, we couldn’t wait to invest in the leader at the time – Intrexon. Then, when the company’s fearless leader spent an earnings call talking about how much money they planned to make selling apple slices, we exited our position and realized that most synthetic biology […]
Synthetic biology is the single most exciting technology we know of, but execution has been problematic. From Intrexon to Zymergen, synthetic biology stocks have punished investors for believing that harnessing the most powerful technology known to man – nature – was going to be easy. While we couldn’t be more excited about the potential of […]
Spending six figures on bee school means you get to do cool things like networking (begging for an internship) and working on case studies (solving problems with no correct answer). Analyzing a case study trains you to make decisions with conviction based on limited facts. That’s how we often approach investment decisions. For example, consider […]
We’re firmly convinced that retail investors can avoid most bag holder pitfalls by not investing in companies unless they have meaningful revenues. Too often we see exciting stories being spun that never come to fruition. For whatever reason, investors are attracted to growth stories like moths to a flame, and nothing gets the attention of […]
Admittedly, this is a clickbait title. Nobody is capable of deciphering why stocks move the way they do which is why hedge funds are now dominated by algorithms with a vociferous appetite for big data. However, we do know two things are true – Ginkgo Bioworks released their 10-K annual report yesterday, and the stock […]
Synthetic biology is probably the single most exciting technology theme we cover. Nature is the most powerful technology known to man, and we’re not only on the cusp of harnessing it but making it better by using technologies like gene editing. But for investors, synbio has been anything but exciting. Over four years ago, we […]
A great interview question to ask a fresh-faced MBA goes something like this. “Take the most sophisticated financial concept you know and explain it to me like I’m your grandmother.” It’s an elegant way to find out just how well a candidate understands the dreadfully boring financial concepts they’re forced to memorize, while simultaneously probing […]