#118: Ash Ravikumar - Beyond the Collider: CERN's Blueprint for Startup Breakthroughs

🎯 Empowering Entrepreneurs with Ash Ravikumar!
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Ash Ravikumar as he delves deep into the world of tech transfer, the essence of entrepreneurship, and the pivotal role of academics in innovation.

🚀 Main Points:
1️⃣ Optimizing Entrepreneurial Time: Ash's unique approach to maximizing time and processes to uplift entrepreneurs and startups.
2️⃣ The Heart of Tech Transfer: The indispensable role of academics and the trust dynamics in the tech transfer landscape.
3️⃣ Global Technological Race: Ash's insights on Europe's fragmented approach and the need for a unified front to rival tech giants like the USA and China.

👤 About Ash Ravikumar:
A visionary with a keen sense of innovation, Ash Ravikumar has been at the forefront of tech transfer, emphasizing the importance of academics and trust. With a passion for optimizing processes, he champions the cause of entrepreneurs, ensuring they have the tools and support to succeed.

💡 LINKS TO MORE CONTENT
Host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiansoschner/
Speaker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashravikumar/

🗣️ Top Quotes from Ash Ravikumar:
(00:03:15) "Life is beautiful; if our only complaint is about the weather, then life is truly good."
(00:57:26) "Success is not by chance; it's designed."
(01:12:16) "You won't compete with a large, unified country moving at a fast pace."
(01:55:59) "You're good at what you do. Seek experts outside of your realm; you don't have to understand everything."
(02:01:13) "Our only hope for addressing challenges, from climate change to poverty, lies in science."

⏰ Timestamps:
(00:03:15) Life's Beauty: Embracing Challenges and Weather
(00:09:56) The Serendipity of Tech Transfer and Global Impact
(00:14:23) Optimizing Time for Entrepreneurial Success
(00:20:50) Navigating IP Challenges in Startups
(00:25:38) Standardizing Agreements for Efficiency
(00:33:42) Building Trust and Serving Academics
(00:36:25) Academics' Service Level and Politics
(00:37:47) The Ugly Side of Equity in Startups
(00:48:32) European University Access vs. U.S. Student Debt
(00:54:15) The Power of Alumni Networks and Global Impact
(01:00:20) Leveraging Technology in Large Companies vs. Startups
(01:08:22) The Ecosystem: Europe's Technological Landscape vs. the US
(01:10:53) "Europe needs to beat the USA and China in technological advances."
(01:12:02) The Dilemma of Localized Photonics Centers
(01:18:13) The Global Mindset: From Europe to the U.S. and Beyond
(01:24:02) Patent System's Evolution: From Mechanics to Modernity
(01:31:10) AI in Business Planning: Efficiency vs. Insight
(01:35:29) Optimizing Superconducting Material Combinations
(01:40:44) Embracing AI: Beyond Fear and Biases
(01:45:39) Technological Biases: Unintended Consequences of Regulation
(01:54:08) The Dynamics of Billion-Dollar Valuations in Energy Sector
(01:57:05) Embracing Humility: Knowing When to Seek Help
(02:01:57) Science as Art: Celebrating Unsung Scientific Heroes

📣 Seeking tools to manage the entrepreneurial chaos? Dive into the world of innovation with Ash Ravikumar and discover how to optimize your processes for success.

Transcript

00:00:00:07 - 00:00:25:23

Christian Soschner

Did you know that the world's largest particle physics laboratory, CERN, is not just about exploring the universe, its mysteries, but also about empowering the next generation of start ups with cutting edge technologies. Imagine the potential when science meets entrepreneurship.

00:00:26:00 - 00:00:47:08

Ash Ravikumar

Life is beautiful. My dad always used to say, If your only complain in life is whether you've got life right, who's our main customer? It's the entrepreneurs. How do I add value to that particular entrepreneur? A deep, deep founder? Where can we do it? So the entire first principle was the only place where I can add value is time.

00:00:47:10 - 00:01:04:18

Ash Ravikumar

How can I optimize time? How can I get the agreements done faster? How can I give the technology in your hands faster? I'm going to give you a prototype so you can build a proof of concept. Your job is to make sure that you service your only customer who is the academic. Without them, you've got nothing to license.

00:01:04:20 - 00:01:27:09

Ash Ravikumar

And if the amount of trust you log on, you lose in a second as well. Right. Glad to talk with a kindred spirit. Science is art, and scientists are truly the heroes. The more we celebrate, we will get more scientists coming in. They are the folks who can actually help us solve or change challenges from climate change to to poverty to everything else.

00:01:27:11 - 00:01:30:16

Ash Ravikumar

It is the only hope by having this on science.

00:01:30:18 - 00:02:08:16

Christian Soschner

Welcome to today's episode, where I'm joined by Shruthi Kumar, the Entrepreneurship Development Officer at CERN's Knowledge Transfer Group. With a rich background spanning from the United States of America to Australia, Ash is here to shed light on CERN's Venture Connect program, a unique initiative that bridges visionary startup founders with state of the art technologies and a robust network of investors, mentors and much, much more.

00:02:08:18 - 00:02:49:07

Christian Soschner

Stay tuned as we dive into the mission and vision behind CERN venture, connect the challenges and rewards of the Spinout commercial terms model, the growing tensions between academic entrepreneurs and universities, the role of artificial intelligence in reshaping the startup ecosystem and the future of tech in Europe, with a special focus on deep tech. If you're a CEO investor or just someone intrigued by the fusion of science and business, this episode's is a goldmine.

00:02:49:09 - 00:03:13:13

Christian Soschner

Don't forget to subscribe, comment, and share your support. Helps me bring more insightful content like this to you for free now. Without further ado, let's dive into this enlightening conversation with Hesh Ravikumar. Trust us, you'll want to hear every single minute how his life stays in Switzerland.

00:03:13:15 - 00:03:27:20

Ash Ravikumar

If life is beautiful. My dad always used to say, If your only complain in life is better, you've got life, right? Got a little bit heart. So the only complain was about weather. So can't complain about life.

00:03:27:21 - 00:03:32:08

Christian Soschner

That's beautiful. How is weather divided currently in Switzerland?

00:03:32:10 - 00:03:51:09

Ash Ravikumar

Today is raining, but this week was a heat wave. And when I complain about whether people say, Well, you're from India and you lived in Australia, you can be complaining about how poor. But I keep telling them we kind of have air conditioning there when it gets too hot. Yes, that's you can't have an air conditioner anywhere. So it.

00:03:51:11 - 00:03:53:12

Christian Soschner

Really. No, no, no. Air conditioners.

00:03:53:12 - 00:03:59:05

Ash Ravikumar

Resident in houses. Yes. But Sun, where I am right now has got air conditioning set up. Good.

00:03:59:07 - 00:04:02:04

Christian Soschner

It's a good reason to stay in the office. Then go.

00:04:02:06 - 00:04:08:03

Ash Ravikumar

True. True. You will see a lot more offices occupancy during summer if you office has the air conditioning. So yeah.

00:04:08:05 - 00:04:14:15

Christian Soschner

I always find Switzerland is more on the cold side also in summer. I mean it's a mountainous area. Where in Switzerland are you exactly.

00:04:14:17 - 00:04:37:04

Ash Ravikumar

So I just work in Geneva. New suburb called Marano Out of out of Geneva. And the French side of the cross. The borders are, you know, I keep telling I've confused the heck out of my kids. They're half Indian, half Romanian, full Australian live in are going to school in Switzerland. So they are kind of United Nations and.

00:04:37:06 - 00:04:42:11

Christian Soschner

It's steady, you know. So basically your kids don't speak English.

00:04:42:13 - 00:04:52:24

Ash Ravikumar

They speak English and French. Right now we haven't taught them Romanian and Tamil. They're six and three. Probably I'll get them talking to you. So they're they're bilingual now.

00:04:53:01 - 00:05:02:12

Christian Soschner

Cool, cool. And Switzerland is a great place to I think also practice German. Yes. And Italian and which language French you have.

00:05:02:12 - 00:05:24:01

Ash Ravikumar

Right. So we live in the French speaking area. Right. And so the Christian school, pretty much they learn French. They're going to start school at least my oldest is going to start school. And I think he has the option to learn German as well, which is stuck in school. So, you know, you always try to do over optimize for what you don't have as parents.

00:05:24:03 - 00:05:32:04

Ash Ravikumar

And for me, language was a big concern. So I think I over optimize for my kids to learn every possible language possible. So happy with that so far.

00:05:32:06 - 00:05:44:06

Christian Soschner

By languages is always, always a great asset in life because I understand culture and people and can connect with them and through via your brain into different thinking strategies. Absolutely.

00:05:44:06 - 00:06:02:11

Ash Ravikumar

I look and so the thing is, you know, when I came here, the first phrase they learned in French was genocide. But I don't know, because it's one of the biggest challenge for people to say those three words to saying, I really don't know, but I can find out for you. But right now it's not a fact. It's an opinion.

00:06:02:13 - 00:06:19:23

Ash Ravikumar

I keep that to heart when I talk to founders on startups, the first thing that I have no idea. But, you know, let's go find out somebody who knows about it. Other people tend to hypothesize and you know, you can't keep on doing it. People call you outside. So that's where I am.

00:06:19:23 - 00:06:43:03

Christian Soschner

And as you work in Switzerland, it's there. And they were for the past English term, a CERN venture Connect program. So it's the institution that gifted the Internet to society in 1993. So I think it's famous for that. And the second one is for physics. Can you tell me a little bit more about the CERN institutes?

00:06:43:05 - 00:06:47:21

Ash Ravikumar

Absolutely. So it's the other way around, right? So for us, we are famous for physics particle.

00:06:47:21 - 00:06:51:08

Christian Soschner

So in my mind.

00:06:51:10 - 00:07:18:02

Ash Ravikumar

The World Wide Web was serendipitous, but it was invented because we kind of wanted to see how we can connect information. So the best way for me to look at so on and what motivated me to come here, we are an infrastructure provider, right? We've built the world's biggest machine so that the world's businesses can come and test their hypotheses from all of member states, 23 member states in Europe, eight associate Member states.

00:07:18:08 - 00:07:42:07

Ash Ravikumar

So and plus the science is open to if you're from the U.S., there still operations. You know, I know folks here from Stanford and Slack who spend a lot of time here. So the aim is if you build the biggest machine to do particle physics research in the pursuit of knowledge that we don't know why things exist, then, you know, you can you can get people together to pursue that singularity towards what is everything made on.

00:07:42:09 - 00:08:04:03

Ash Ravikumar

And that's what CERN stands for. And for me, it's the best way to explain science. A friend of mine explained it this way, and it was probably the best way. If I give a child two balls which has got rattling things inside and I tell them, find what's inside and I don't care if you break it individually, they'll smash it to find out what's inside, right?

00:08:04:05 - 00:08:25:10

Ash Ravikumar

That's what we do, right? We take particles, stick them around the ball to different sides, and in the Large Hadron Collider and we make them collide to see what's inside and not pursue. You need it to make it go faster. You have to. Sometimes you can't go any faster, so the mass increases, you go faster and smash it.

00:08:25:10 - 00:08:41:09

Ash Ravikumar

You will get more bits and pieces. So that's pretty much what son we do. And to make those in the world and to find the properties of the smallest things in the world, you have to be big, build the largest machine in the world. So that's designed.

00:08:41:11 - 00:08:51:24

Christian Soschner

So basically my picture now changed when people ask me now what's new, you can say they have found smashing things and sometimes they invents the internet when they do that.

00:08:51:24 - 00:09:24:07

Ash Ravikumar

So exactly. We we smash things and then we've got so much of info and data. We wanted to do more analysis, more linked documents should be we came up with the World Wide Web. So yeah, that's that's a pretty but rather the cooler of more transitional things where you know I feel magnets which are used in MRI positron emission tomography bad so those things are the ones that which which enable a lot of imaging and medical imaging and proton therapy.

00:09:24:09 - 00:09:45:12

Ash Ravikumar

So those were the ones that moved out. But not everybody uses an MRI or a proton therapy device unless otherwise you actually are sick or your doctors are not in that. So in that world people understand that, right? But World Wide Web, everybody use it. So the impact of that is a lot more and we're proud of that.

00:09:45:14 - 00:09:54:16

Ash Ravikumar

We you know, we made it public. We don't claim ownership of it. It was public domain. Thanks. Is that Tim Berners-Lee? So, yeah.

00:09:54:18 - 00:10:18:22

Christian Soschner

I think it was a generous move by the institution to put it in the public domain and not capitalize on it, you know, as a possible, which leads abstracts to our topic tech transfer module. So you invent technology enabling technology, and sometimes it makes sense to spinout tech into companies to translate it into products. At the end of the day, that benefits businesses or and or consumers like the Internet.

00:10:18:24 - 00:10:32:22

Christian Soschner

And my question to you is, what brought you into this space? What was your journey up to this point in time at CERN Institute? You are responsible for the Venture Connect program.

00:10:32:24 - 00:10:59:03

Ash Ravikumar

Thank you. That's so I I'm Indian the obvious but born and raised in India. And then like most Indians you go to engineering, not medicine. I chose engineering. I'm an electrical engineer. I went to the U.S. for my master's and then serendipitously I stumbled into an internship at the tech transfer office. And I loved everything about tech transfer by the inventions that you get.

00:10:59:05 - 00:11:16:22

Ash Ravikumar

And then and that's pretty much became my career after that. But to do that in South Florida and to Santa Barbara moved back to India for four years and then went to Australia, to Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, and then now it's on for four years. So that's like 300,000.

00:11:16:24 - 00:11:18:12

Christian Soschner

It's kind of a round trip.

00:11:18:18 - 00:11:45:22

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah, yeah. So this is my fourth continent and I've said in another continent I'm traveling alone, so it's got me here. But you know, I love early stage technologies and finding out, you know, I mean the mentality is designed not that this would not work, rather go and say like, what if this works right? What will happen? And then you can go back and say, what do you need to make this work?

00:11:45:24 - 00:11:56:10

Ash Ravikumar

That's what gives me drive to figure it out. Okay? This would have a monumental impact on our lives, but the path is not straightforward. So that's what keeps me happy with the speed.

00:11:56:10 - 00:12:19:11

Christian Soschner

Nuts make energy and that is like the space as well to turn technologies into product and help scientists become entrepreneurs, finding the right investors, and then negotiating deals with the industry to really change too. I do think we, without guys like you and your scientists at CERN, Tesla would not have been possible. I think even in the broader sense, just to bring up some.

00:12:19:13 - 00:12:20:04

Ash Ravikumar

Aspects.

00:12:20:06 - 00:12:34:15

Christian Soschner

Of simple examples where science played plays a huge role in changing the world. What made you then decided to venture Connect program at the CERN Institute, which was the reason that you came up with that idea?

00:12:34:17 - 00:12:53:01

Ash Ravikumar

So for us, so it always had a program to support startups, right? I think it was about 12 years before I came. So I've been at CERN for four years now. So there was a program to support start ups and to help them, but we wouldn't do it. We would give the tech and somebody else helps a lot.

00:12:53:03 - 00:13:14:06

Ash Ravikumar

What we went back to saying, okay, how do we get a lot more impact about, you know, very startup succeeding? We went into the fundamental design space to say, what do we need to change, right? So first principles, what we looked at it was looking at the whole value chain, where can we add value? What is our place to play in it?

00:13:14:06 - 00:13:34:05

Ash Ravikumar

What is not our place to play? And right where we really go to school is as every research lab we lower, we think that tech is the best we should because we invented it. Right? But that's maybe a good at Lux where we can make prototype and size a little different in that perspective that all our inventions are already used at CERN, right?

00:13:34:10 - 00:13:58:01

Ash Ravikumar

So if you look at your typical theater level, there are nine actually, there are ten because it's Mission Critical Systems, which is implemented at the Large Hadron Collider already or some subsystem. So it works. We have data. We know where it breaks, we know how to fix it. But as I take that and go and put it in another application market, you again have to build at different level, build the right.

00:13:58:01 - 00:14:23:18

Ash Ravikumar

And so that doesn't translate properly. And then we said, okay, that's good. That's why we want who's our main customer. It's the entrepreneurs. How do I add value to that particular entrepreneur, a deep tech founder, Where can we do it? So the entire first principle was the only place that I can add value is time. How can I optimize time?

00:14:23:18 - 00:14:51:03

Ash Ravikumar

How can I get the agreements done faster? How can I give the technology in your hands faster? I'm going to give you a prototype so you can build your proof of concept. That's internally where we can optimize our processes. Externally is every startup needs three things people, money and somebody to buy your product, right? How can we leverage our networks and who we know and who we can talk to that I can take our founder was probably a foster and founder saying, You need to talk to this person.

00:14:51:05 - 00:15:09:15

Ash Ravikumar

They know these people who can help you within that particular industry. Right. And so we said, we're going to connect because I am good at certain things, but I'm not good at a lot of other things. There are people who are really good at what they do, so you need to meet with that. So that's pretty much what the the change all model was.

00:15:09:17 - 00:15:19:24

Ash Ravikumar

We can't do everything. We don't want to do everything. We find the people who are good at it and then we connect the books to them so that you improve the chances of them being successful.

00:15:20:01 - 00:15:53:13

Christian Soschner

That sounds great. What's caught my attention in the last couple of weeks with your entity was a post by Michael Jackson. He's a venture capitalist and he promoted the Berlin Venture Connect spin program, and I was mesmerized when I read it because I saw the commercial terms and I come from the opposite sides as you I started. So I've studied business management, economics, and Stan worked at companies in merger acquisition and worked myself backwards to the startup phase.

00:15:53:16 - 00:16:21:03

Christian Soschner

I started helping scientists getting the companies off the ground, and usually when I negotiated with tech transfer offices to get the license, this starts the first negotiation position was something like We want 80% equity or we want the highest rate they got was 90% equity. And they always said, Guys, that doesn't work. I mean, it needs to motivates the founders because usually the founders have to invest their capital to start the company.

00:16:21:08 - 00:16:47:18

Christian Soschner

And usually first and founders are not are very rich. Akhil Musk They don't have a Tesla in the background. Absolutely. Invest their own capital. Then they have to raise public funds and then to have to talk to resources. And in order to be able to raise venture funds, we need to make sure that the founders at the first fundraise, when they give about 20 to 30% of their equity two weeks, that they still have.

00:16:47:18 - 00:17:05:13

Christian Soschner

The maturity ends when the tech transfer office funds 40, 50, 60, 70% equity, just it's not going to happen until it's not closing. And they always got push back. Some people go, you're wrong, you're not right. And we know it's better and you have to learn about done more about this special space. You don't know anything about it.

00:17:05:16 - 00:17:30:02

Christian Soschner

And then I read your model and I can't believe for the rich here, it's one of the world's best research institute science. And what stuck in my mind was that the only thing that you demand is 2% royalty. When the company makes any kind of revenues from the technology. Is that really right? This is my understanding that regard got that's correct.

00:17:30:02 - 00:17:51:24

Ash Ravikumar

And that actually even better than that, it's 2%. But the start of Bezos only when they accrued royalty is 20,000 CHF. Right. So if it's not themselves 100 bucks of worth of products, they don't always do box because you don't need that cash flow. So for there to reach 20,000 CHF, they have to be doing a million in sales.

00:17:51:24 - 00:17:55:20

Ash Ravikumar

So we really want them to be successful and based that.

00:17:55:22 - 00:18:06:06

Christian Soschner

But they need to cross that hurdle rate of a minimum. This is amazing. Why did you come up with that specific model? I mean, it stands out in my opinion, in Europe.

00:18:06:08 - 00:18:26:21

Ash Ravikumar

I like. So for me, I so I've always been within the tech transfer offices right there every taking that you talked about, I was in the other side pushing those arms in a way. And then when you try to change it, there's a lot of inertia inside to changes, right? And so this was my first opportunity to build something where I can have influence to build one.

00:18:26:21 - 00:18:51:07

Ash Ravikumar

So hence this was what we should be there. And so we wanted to do it. Why? Couple of box one as everybody in the ecosystem, if you think about it, it's the academic that receives the tech transfer offers. Everybody wants that startup to succeed, right? Nobody says, Oh, you know what? This is going to fail. Let's do it.

00:18:51:09 - 00:19:09:06

Ash Ravikumar

It kind of beats the point you to take that risk, right? So everybody wants to succeed. But where I find the friction is the fear of missing out a big good deal. Oh, if it goes for $10 billion exit, what do we miss out on? All we can miss out on. And then you take one really outlier example.

00:19:09:06 - 00:19:39:12

Ash Ravikumar

It's a 1942. Somebody got screwed because of this happened. And so we can't do it right. And so none of it actually translates realistically to what it is now. And it should change. Right. So that was one. Second is, you know, you know, historically when it started on this whole equity part was when startups were, you know, so when nobody licensed your tech, none of the big companies wanted it, you have to create a spinoff because nobody else wanted.

00:19:39:18 - 00:20:02:10

Ash Ravikumar

And it was one academic saying, I will prove the whole world wrong because this is my invention has to get to market. How dare they say no, let me prove them wrong. So that's how the spinoff process started. And my definition has been not so poor. So they didn't have money to pay the upfront fee, the milestone, the minimum royalties, and they said, okay, this is the whole deal instead of cash.

00:20:02:12 - 00:20:21:11

Ash Ravikumar

In lieu of that, I'll give you equity. Right? And that's where it started. And then it went on to say, I got 40% from this startup before. That's the precedent number, so I need to get 45 from here. So I kept on building on. We are not any different to a university. If you think about it, right. Our research is fully funded.

00:20:21:13 - 00:20:40:16

Ash Ravikumar

There are 23 member states who pay and take the solicited members will pay 1.3 billion CHF to keep all of our infrastructure to our people fund it. So we have fully paid for similar university matters that are grants that cover IT. Infrastructure is also paid by the grants. So you're not paying for anything for that invention to come in.

00:20:40:18 - 00:21:01:17

Ash Ravikumar

But then it's more like, Oh, I need to get all of this for value capture, which is is not in my opinion. It's not right. You want the startup to succeed, then make sure you set the right terms for them to succeed when they succeed. Get our part for what? Your share of input. That is the IP to get their fair share.

00:21:01:19 - 00:21:19:15

Ash Ravikumar

For us, the 2% model. What we are pushing for is you pay when you're successful. If you fail in the process. Thank you for trying. Thank you for taking our take and trying something to do and create impact. We saw you fail. You owe us nothing. And that's pretty much that. Our philosophy is.

00:21:19:17 - 00:21:35:11

Christian Soschner

What? But what do you do with the data? I mean, my my point was always when we go for these reality based models, I think it's a very smart thing because you go for it between politics chunks, you get you spin out startups much faster, much quicker. You can do it basically on a weekly basis with standardized terms.

00:21:35:13 - 00:21:57:13

Christian Soschner

And don't go for more things which are upfront payments, or you don't try to rip offs to venture capitalists who invest money to say, Look, when you're really successful and let's assume just for the Trump model that the products before when you create the next Tesla, then you get 2% of everything that comes in. And this is a huge win.

00:21:57:15 - 00:22:06:01

Christian Soschner

What do you too, in the cases of failure to your CapEx to date and that the IP or do you just leave it at the failed company.

00:22:06:03 - 00:22:28:08

Ash Ravikumar

Like so we don't assign IP and you know, and I even the universities don't assign the IP primarily because when it fails in the IP stock, although your contract says that will revert back. You ever got creditors bankruptcy in the whole lot. Right. I don't think that's fair because the IP you know somebody try to start up its sale but the IP is stuck there that nobody else can use it as well.

00:22:28:09 - 00:22:50:16

Ash Ravikumar

So I reckon so what we do give is a non-exclusive license. I wanted to make that clear because we are so the challenges with this model right now we have is it's a non-exclusive license. The primary reason is because we are a European wide organization and we want to make sure that everybody has a fair chance to use the IP.

00:22:50:16 - 00:23:10:01

Ash Ravikumar

And I also believe that it helps in parallel processing different applications. Say you go on medical device and somebody gets skilled metrology, somebody goes for instrumentation using my other laser platform tech, I want all three start ups to go and somebody gets bigger. You can ask, why does you want to go into that market or let the other company grow in there?

00:23:10:01 - 00:23:39:04

Ash Ravikumar

Because I've given the IP for all three of you to pursue. But the challenge comes with as the IP becomes in the same market, right? So that's what we want to make sure that, you know, we don't we don't license in the same field. What I'm working on is, is to saying when does it trigger from a non-exclusive to an exclusive isn't when you raise your first round of funding so that VCs don't come and say, oh, look, you have got an exclusive, so I'm not going to fund you.

00:23:39:06 - 00:24:03:19

Ash Ravikumar

Or if you actually don't raise money, but you get to your first million in sales where you pay a royalty, then we automatically trigger to an exclusive. That's work in progress because we anticipate those challenges and we're working on. But for me, the two person model right, or this threshold model is ideally what I called success a startup or a spinoff that comes out of some basis.

00:24:03:19 - 00:24:22:10

Ash Ravikumar

20,000 CHF every month, which means that me doing a million in sales every month, that would be a fantastic thing to happen. That's what we want it to happen, right? Because while you're doing enough samples and what do you mean is less than what you pay on sales and that's maybe you should play Uganda.

00:24:22:11 - 00:24:54:21

Christian Soschner

I think everybody else in the P2P space understands that. I mean, 2% is not much. So if you understood your rights, the 2% model grants companies non-exclusive licensing rights to work in certain areas and they can negotiate an exclusive license rights, wants to get significant cash flows into the company. So it really helps start and quick. And then when venture capitalists come in and treaty rights big checks, you also willing to turn the nonexclusive part into an exclusive part.

00:24:55:02 - 00:24:59:15

Christian Soschner

What are your thoughts about the terms then in this area?

00:24:59:17 - 00:25:21:19

Ash Ravikumar

So I don't think that the that the monetary aspect should change, right? I mean, if I'm giving you 2% and that's not exclusive, you're actually building to get to a stage where you're raising capital on your proof of concept. I shouldn't say nine now. It should be 5%, right? The All right. Pretty great. Oh, no, we don't. We are 0% equity.

00:25:21:19 - 00:25:42:09

Ash Ravikumar

And I don't think that'll change. Right. The fundamental reason behind is you know, without you, it would have never gotten there. So I'm, you know, as a startup founder who's actually taken the risk and got into a space where you are raising capital, you're getting your first bid to be customer list, takes a lot to get there. And I should not be rent seeking at that point in time.

00:25:42:09 - 00:26:08:04

Ash Ravikumar

The revenue should have been based on only based on the IP. Second part. For me, this is where the challenge and what we working for is, you know, I shouldn't be now doing another bespoke agreement. The first agreement that we've already got is a standard template. It's the same for everyone. You're working on software, 2% of your hardware, open source stuff, you know, it's all a two person knowhow, license, whatever we have.

00:26:08:05 - 00:26:30:06

Ash Ravikumar

You make that as a 2% power. Now the aim is that, you know, the efficiency gains of going back and forth to saying, should it be three points or should it be a 4.8? All of it is based on a business plan which at best is wrong. Right? Because every startup has this hockey stick growth, right? Nobody wants to fail.

00:26:30:06 - 00:26:50:10

Ash Ravikumar

Nobody wants to have one guy get 1%. Everybody is going to shoot up after year three. So I can't predict anything. That's where the deadlines for offices get it wrong is. Look at you. You're going to have a dime of $1,000,000,000,000. You're going to grow at 20% year on year and you're going to be a $20 billion company in five years.

00:26:50:10 - 00:27:12:19

Ash Ravikumar

So hence I need 40% now. But you know, the numbers don't make sense. So for us, we don't want to predict on venue revenue would be because Ugandan icon investors are going to be against. So yes, the single efficient model to saying license that if you get there we'll reveal progress. As a startup you don't have to spend time.

00:27:12:21 - 00:27:30:02

Ash Ravikumar

But if you do get big songs, you will have your own good lawyer to come and negotiate and fix those numbers because you have a ton of data to say what your cost of goods sold, how much does it cost you to get to market once your tax exit? Brexit tries to get to say is 2% eating up into my margin?

00:27:30:02 - 00:27:56:16

Ash Ravikumar

Can I survive or 2% if I can't survive, then there is a fundamental problem there. But you have to renegotiate, right? And so that's where we are. Like all of those renegotiations happens at a good place because you're either making money or you're established. If you're not, let's both sides, not spend time, invest, resources, opportunity cost saying, okay, I don't like loss, 2.1, point two, let's do that.

00:27:56:16 - 00:28:01:14

Ash Ravikumar

And two are yeah, it doesn't make sense for us.

00:28:01:16 - 00:28:25:08

Christian Soschner

Now. I couldn't agree more. I mean, any time I do try to spin something out and the negotiations took too much time, it's just demotivating for the founders. If you start talking about equity positions for 6 to 12 months, people start losing interest in working. On the contrary, I mean, I think also it's probably the spin outs very often are in deep space.

00:28:25:08 - 00:28:36:21

Christian Soschner

We've licensed that technology at one point in time for to to two large corporations. I mean, 2010, it's really easy to negotiate because there is money in the company.

00:28:36:23 - 00:28:39:10

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah. You know, please go ahead.

00:28:39:12 - 00:28:42:04

Christian Soschner

Interrupt as a.

00:28:42:06 - 00:29:03:02

Ash Ravikumar

Hundred percent agreement. You're not even from regulating with a big, large company, Right. You would spend seven months because it's a blue sky project isn't sales. They still have €1,000,000,000 in revenue. They will survive next quarter. They worried about, you know, two points going down in their share price. That's what they're worried about, not necessarily this product, Right.

00:29:03:04 - 00:29:26:08

Ash Ravikumar

So that's perfectly fine. And their lawyers are also built to have those even bigger delays because back and forth, you know, I write this, I rewrite this, that's okay. But a startup, if you do it in seven months, they did all of the work that you did is pointless to get to a point where we got the perfect agreement, but the startup is dead.

00:29:26:14 - 00:29:42:01

Ash Ravikumar

So what's the point of doing that? Rather than saying, Look, this started, this agreement might not work, but let's see if you survive to a point where we need to change it. Then you do the seven month back end for the highly paid lawyer on both sides. So that's okay. But not ability to stage. Right.

00:29:42:03 - 00:30:14:21

Christian Soschner

And very often you have patents involved and they come with a time constraint. I mean, it's 20 years and at a time you spin it out. Probably the first five years already passed of the patents, ten year, 15 years development time. And if understood, you write them and you said CERN gets 1.3 billion Swiss franc per year from the member states who support CERN and when you negotiate an upfront payments activity positions, I mean you're talking probably about 20, 30, 40,000 Swiss franc upfront payments because people don't have money.

00:30:14:21 - 00:30:25:23

Christian Soschner

I mean, you can't rip someone off and say take out a loan for 1 million when your savings, life savings are 40,000 CHF.

00:30:26:00 - 00:30:28:21

Ash Ravikumar

And it's it's robbing the poorer pretty much.

00:30:28:23 - 00:30:43:10

Christian Soschner

Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, for me, it sounds perfect and my next question is, do you also experience some challenges with evaluating an almost perfect model?

00:30:43:12 - 00:31:11:22

Ash Ravikumar

I look now and thank you for the compliments. I'll take it. Look, the challenges are not necessarily with the model, right? I mean, we are testing it. We have our first guinea pig we went through. We fixed a lot of the learnings from there where we get a lot of negative feedback as on like, well, my university is different, we have a different portfolio or I can make this different.

00:31:11:22 - 00:31:32:00

Ash Ravikumar

We spend money on this. I like end of the day, none of the base constraints change, right? The challenge entirely is on how do we convert that exclusivity to a non-exclusive right? Because I can cross my heart to a startup founder and saying, you know what, We will not license this to anybody else in your field because you're going to launch on it.

00:31:32:02 - 00:31:55:21

Ash Ravikumar

Right? But that is me as a person, right? If I get hit by the bus tomorrow and I'm not here, the next person comes in and say, you know what? Why? Why are we not going to the biggest player? And this buys a maybe I can license is again because it's non-exclusive then that my word to that startup founder doesn't hold good right so the biggest challenge is to define when that trigger happens from non-exclusive to exclusive.

00:31:55:21 - 00:32:18:09

Ash Ravikumar

Once I can quantify that, to say just like how it's 2% for everyone. Yes. How they exclusive will automatically trigger. You don't have to come and sit another agreement to talk to you. Raise your plus X amount or you pay this plus royalty. We go to exclusivity automatically or not exclusivity. It automatically converts into an exclusivity. So that's what the challenges and that's what we are working towards.

00:32:18:09 - 00:32:23:05

Christian Soschner

It sounds like two other challenges to me.

00:32:23:07 - 00:32:28:02

Ash Ravikumar

But if it was too easy, there's no point in doing it.

00:32:28:04 - 00:32:52:06

Christian Soschner

That's right. That's right. Let's talk a little bit about the European, the US, Australia and and India and tech transfer systems. If I cut from the intro to read, remember the right information. You have experience in four continents with tech transfer entities in the academic field. What are your three biggest learnings from from GC areas?

00:32:52:08 - 00:33:20:20

Ash Ravikumar

Three biggest learnings for us. One as a tech transfer person inside a university or an academic setting, you are probably the whole collateral damage. When this whole debate happens about tech transfer, it's bad, it's not the institute. I mean, the institution has its own problems, right? Academic institutions or tech transfer offices have what I call institutional amnesia. They forget how good or how bad they are.

00:33:20:22 - 00:33:40:02

Ash Ravikumar

However, the academics remember, right? And so every day transfer I've been to is I'll get a lecture for first 45 minutes was how bad it was in 1974, how bad it was in 82. And then I'm like, Look, I was born in 81. So but you're either here the whole range. And then I say, Look, I'm new. I just started.

00:33:40:02 - 00:34:03:15

Ash Ravikumar

I wanted to help you. How can I help you? So you have to build a trust from baseline because there's a lot of drama, a lot of skeletons. But then you have to start building the trust of the academics. Second best. That's an asset. You are a service provider, know that? And learn that and embrace that. Right? Your job is to make sure that you service your only customer who is the academic.

00:34:03:15 - 00:34:23:11

Ash Ravikumar

Without them, you've got nothing to license. And if the amount of trust you log on, you will lose in a second as well. Right? So that is a big imbalance in power, right? An academic will never get fired. If you had a tenured professor today, the hand of God decided by them. But if you are a tech transfer professional, the one goes up, you're out.

00:34:23:15 - 00:34:30:14

Ash Ravikumar

Right? And so those are the three lessons which once you learn and embrace it, then tech transfer is fun.

00:34:30:16 - 00:34:56:05

Christian Soschner

That's that's pretty cool. I mean, you are winning a reputation is quite easy. So it's a smart not after to use all spin out practices on four continents. And I always got the impression from this smart data sets that I have in my life that we almost stuck with this equity model, and many CTOs demanded, Is that really so?

00:34:56:05 - 00:35:01:09

Christian Soschner

Which practices did you see in your career setting up companies?

00:35:01:11 - 00:35:21:02

Ash Ravikumar

You know that I can look at as good, bad and ugly, right? The good best practices were where, you know, what I love to do is a full service mentality. Deciding that I'm going to serve my job is just like a department at an academic university. My job is to service academics, post-docs, which means they are my clients.

00:35:21:05 - 00:35:41:02

Ash Ravikumar

I have to provide the best service that comes from tech transfer offices who are not worried about budgets, who don't have to prove about they exist, and they don't have to look for more of a large university next to them doing better, right? So once you have those things, then you go, Look, I'm not optimizing for my CAPA is not the number of licenses.

00:35:41:02 - 00:36:02:11

Ash Ravikumar

My CAPA is not number of amount of revenue I get from licenses or maintaining number of patterns. But to say how is the feedback about from my academics? They like to come into my offices and disclose their invention. So once you have that mentality and it's a fantastic process to say, okay, the outcome of whether you get revenue or not is going to be five years down the line.

00:36:02:11 - 00:36:23:04

Ash Ravikumar

And what I work I do now, when I get an invention, disclosure to licensing and finishing the negotiation off and then making products and selling, that's going to be at least two, three years. Best case. And that's a spot to spin out. Deep take. It's probably ten years down the line so you can measure that based on my work, but I can measure on whether I'm keeping my customers happy.

00:36:23:10 - 00:36:48:21

Ash Ravikumar

Do I provide delight to my customers? Those are brilliant practices, right? That when it goes to the politics part of it, Right. Because the use of is the academics who are like long tenured people just saying that, Oh, I'm going to be here for another 20 years, so I'm going to service the people who are going to be here for another 20 years, the post-docs, and not so much PhDs, Not so much.

00:36:48:21 - 00:37:22:16

Ash Ravikumar

So your service level change is based on who you service and then and then there are the not so nice part. The bad part still is when you become the police, when you enforce real policies of conflict, of interest policy, and then you go to a poor post-doc who who's on an $80,000 salary, who's trying to spin out his research and trying to do something, and you go and say, all the university policy says that you can't do an external venture while you're employed here.

00:37:22:20 - 00:37:45:12

Ash Ravikumar

So I'm going to report to you and then you and then have the tech transfer. Folks are also on the conflict of interest panel where so that for me is of course is the other a trust fund and win the lottery. He will quit his job and go do it right. I mean, you want him to do the start up test to play with it, you as a university lab or the trying to do a spin out and figured it out at that early stage.

00:37:45:12 - 00:38:01:15

Ash Ravikumar

You have to be flexible to do it. That's the bad part. The ugly are the ones you talked about 90% equity, 80% equity, where the founders get single digit before dilution and yeah that that that was that is soul crushing.

00:38:01:17 - 00:38:32:03

Christian Soschner

Yeah yeah it happens sometimes it happens sometimes. There are some articles on the internet. Let's take a little bit into the departure but you mentioned that academics are on an 80,000 salary. Try to spin out something and then they get policed or fired from their job because I mean, I saw that happening because the institution says you can't say you have to chop, so you need to do this or that and end up that in a startup where they meet investors who also say you're a founder, you have to work basically for nothing.

00:38:32:07 - 00:38:35:05

Christian Soschner

How do you how to see it, that reality.

00:38:35:07 - 00:39:01:16

Ash Ravikumar

Man? I mean, so so for me, that's the biggest travesty, right? I mean, so all the stuff from the other spectrum, which it's kind of hit in the house for me is all of the, you know, incubator or growth. There are more incubators than founders now, which is not good, right? I mean, I think that was a separate article saying this about find plus incubators in Europe alone.

00:39:01:18 - 00:39:02:16

Christian Soschner

How many?

00:39:02:18 - 00:39:37:18

Ash Ravikumar

500 or 400 plus. My favorite, roughly around 500 incubators. Right. I think there needs to be a change to this venture building accelerator incubator model as well, because, you know, I mean, what is the version 2.0 right now is I get mentors, I make you do a canvass, you do validation, and I polish your presentation as much as possible, have a demo day and success done right that was needed when Y Combinator started in 2005 six, there was nothing there.

00:39:37:22 - 00:40:03:13

Ash Ravikumar

They started it and then everybody is still doing that, what, 18 years later? Right? But there needs to be a new change. But that doesn't care. I'm hoping. Steve Blank writes a new book and then everybody starts doing that, right? So so that that is a dogma that exists. Right. And then that worked brilliantly. Lean Launchpad. Don't get me wrong, a beautiful methodology works for software based SAS model where you can build an MVP.

00:40:03:18 - 00:40:18:13

Ash Ravikumar

You can be that you can do a B testing if I'm building a laser or a medical device because I am not going to be that by the time I do that, I need a few million euros to figure out that it doesn't work and I do it back to a medical device. So there's no be that possible.

00:40:18:13 - 00:40:39:22

Ash Ravikumar

Right. But this dogma exists so much that people say often enough and they're like, you guys don't know about startups because look at this app that got into the market. All this marketplace start up there did that. I'm like, Yes, but I get into grousing about it's like saying comparing a monkey and an elephant to say which one claims to disaster.

00:40:39:23 - 00:41:04:19

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, they're intrinsically different, right? I'm sorry I lost the train of thought. So so that's one second for me, which is very close to my heart. But what you said about it is when people ask both dogs and people to say, you're spinning out, I'm not going to pay your salary for a couple of years. Right. I just want to spend a minute there, which is which is a travesty in my head to be called a postdoc.

00:41:04:19 - 00:41:24:11

Ash Ravikumar

You've finished a Ph.D., right? And then you worked on a junior postdoc. Hostility away. You are the backup to the academic. You take care of PhDs, annual research, and you do all of it. You've got ten years of experience to get to where you are, which means that say you started at 18, you got to 28 or early thirties.

00:41:24:16 - 00:41:50:13

Ash Ravikumar

You might have a family or a young family. And then I say, Guess what? You spend ten years hoping that you'll get an academic career, leave that work without salary because the other 20 year olds building an app is doing the same is just not right yet. Where I see brilliant practices is, you know what ARPA did in the U.S. Activate Elanga was started it now he's running out of.

00:41:50:13 - 00:42:18:15

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah those are phenomenal programs where they say he has a two year fellowship because salaries from your previous salary. This is to just pursue your research from your lab, take it towards commercialization where you are guaranteed a stipend, where you're not going to worry about how you're going to pay your kid's school fees. But because you're a postdoc, it's not, you know, you earn this for me, that is a big missing gap on how to fund that research right now.

00:42:18:18 - 00:42:42:13

Ash Ravikumar

Sorry, this is all the background before your question. That is to saying the dual roles. Right. I mean, every university struggles with that. And so the sun is saying there's a big conflict. You cannot do research and work with an industry because it is conflict. You can't do both at the same time. I'm like, if that was an absolute conflict, then I should just walk away every day, right?

00:42:42:15 - 00:43:06:19

Ash Ravikumar

It doesn't happen because there is that magic gap in the middle of hustling and making and building something, and some of the U.S. universities do it well. Stanford, for example, have a proper, you know, dual role. You can be an academic and still hold a position with a company. You know, the guy behind Udacity was still is still a professor and and CEO of Udacity and he came with Bayes before.

00:43:06:21 - 00:43:28:22

Ash Ravikumar

So there is a lot of education required from the academic institutes are saying what is the big problem? Why is this guy falling Because they have two roles but actually let them do a lot of help and translation a lot more not move away from your existing oh, I'm going to give you a sabbatical for three years to do it.

00:43:28:22 - 00:43:43:15

Ash Ravikumar

But rather than saying, you know what, spend a couple of months with the industry, you understand how to build things and you'll understand a lot more on the needs rather than saying that no, either is that or that this or that black and white. I find it really frustrating.

00:43:43:17 - 00:44:15:18

Christian Soschner

That it's a little bit of this at this point. I think a good role model for me. It's how I built his. I was an Indian investor. It started offering broking in the nineties and mimics the investment style of Warren Buffett. And he said in his interviews that he started his first while he had the chop and he said it very simply, said I was paid to work 40 hours and has sacrificed my chance of promotion in the company because I said, okay, they pay me for 40 hours.

00:44:15:18 - 00:44:42:23

Christian Soschner

I do what's necessary to deliver my goals, to deliver from a job and invest my spare time in building the company. And then it says it's either a success and that can quit the chop and move on or it become a more valuable asset for my company when my side hustle fails. Because, I mean, I was managing two chops at the same time and they didn't have 60, 60, 70 hours time that they dedicated the company to being for the company.

00:44:42:23 - 00:44:44:20

Christian Soschner

How do you see that approach?

00:44:44:22 - 00:45:03:09

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, that comes from a place, you know, when people say, well, you should quit your job and do the other thing from a place of privilege, right? Because you've got the support circle to do it. And, you know, yes, if I say no, I'll come back because I've got enough in a bank account. All my parents are rich.

00:45:03:09 - 00:45:21:00

Ash Ravikumar

That could help me out. But if you don't have that, you have that that whole thing of paranoia. I have to push this because it's no bloody safety net for me to do it. This must happen, right? When you have the driver, the fire in the belly, that's a whole different beast, Right? I'm not sure how you keep pushing.

00:45:21:00 - 00:45:43:03

Ash Ravikumar

For now on the side hustles where the biggest challenge they are is I'm all IP policies on universities and academic institutes. Talk about not a 9 to 5 job where you invent your work for hire is to saying that you're hired as a professor in electrical engineering. If you come up with an invention during the weekend, it's still owned by the Academic Institute.

00:45:43:03 - 00:46:16:12

Ash Ravikumar

It covers everything, right? So it's always a global IP document because the argument is you really can't do the jobs right and you're not a salaried person. So you have so that I think the police should be on is not who owns which part of the IP, right. Nathan Benny at one point from High Street Capital, he talks about, you know, how the US model is a lot more suited towards alumni and saying that people come back and donate and want to be part of it.

00:46:16:14 - 00:46:43:21

Ash Ravikumar

That doesn't happen so much in Europe, but it's more, you know, I think the founders of Recursion Pharma gave $75 million to set up a new institute and, you know, entrepreneurship support back at the university in Minnesota, I think. But if you do the calculation, imagine for you to get $7 million in royalty, be there, say even a 10% royalty rate, the company should be doing 7.5 billion in sales.

00:46:43:23 - 00:47:05:15

Ash Ravikumar

Right. That's never going to happen. But if you gave them the right support and they become a success, they come back and donate, you would just a lot bigger addressable market rather than trying to siphon off a few dollars here and there. So my thing is, give those freedom to happen. The revenue will automatically come because you would think, okay, you helped me when I didn't have anything.

00:47:05:20 - 00:47:40:06

Ash Ravikumar

And the more people are there, then the chances of somebody becoming big and coming back and giving back to the community, is that right? And the Congress, like many people, don't do it. I'm like, just because some people are stingy doesn't mean that other people wouldn't be right and sort of compounding the extreme. So I my personal opinion, unless otherwise somebody is doing with an intent to steal IP or more IP away from which is not theirs alone and they've got other people involved in it, ensure that whoever is involved in is a cross open for this to be happening.

00:47:40:08 - 00:47:56:11

Ash Ravikumar

And that's the only consent you need because you do not want to become. It's an invention by definition, which means that you don't know what it is, rather stopping it and making sure that you have all of the eyes crossed. Let that happen and that will actually give you a lot more suits than controlling it.

00:47:56:13 - 00:48:10:00

Christian Soschner

Out how to use it. You said there is such a huge difference when it comes about giving back to the institution between the United States and Europe that assisted France in behavior come from, in your opinion?

00:48:10:02 - 00:48:29:10

Ash Ravikumar

It's on my opinion. This is actually Nathan's opinion, and I fully agree with it. It's also there I think there's one part where in Europe you don't pay for education, Right. Which is if you're in Switzerland, you have a right to go to EPFL or EPA, it's noted, which is the eighth or the 13th best university in the world.

00:48:29:12 - 00:48:48:09

Ash Ravikumar

Right. Of course you need grades to get in, but is an option for you to go. I mean, same thing with a UK universities ending with all of Europe and Germany as well. You, you can go into those universities and you don't have to get a huge student loan debt to get them there, but which means that it's an entitlement that comes in.

00:48:48:09 - 00:49:10:12

Ash Ravikumar

I belong to the university because I'm in Germany. I went this year mostly because I was born there rather, whereas in the U.S. everybody pays a lot of money. It's not great that people get into a lot of student loan debt because of it, but they also have belonging of either, you know, the sports team that that you get fascinated with.

00:49:10:12 - 00:49:30:10

Ash Ravikumar

It's like, oh, I'm going to be go blues all the year or but know the alumni society actually gives back quite a bit sort of that you know, to saying that, okay, I am a Harvard alum. I can go to any Harvard Lounge anywhere in the world and people will introduce me because somebody did that before. That seems a bit lacking.

00:49:30:10 - 00:49:49:24

Ash Ravikumar

I just to give you a little anecdote, my cousins, they both the University University of Michigan one is a computer science, another one is a chemist. Nerds by definition. But there's got to be some basis for the University of Michigan football team. And there, you know, they show up because they feel like they belong to the community. Right.

00:49:50:00 - 00:50:12:21

Ash Ravikumar

And that is a I mean, I'm not saying, you know, make football teams out of our university sports teams, but you need to anchor and service those people to saying that you belong here. Right. I mean, I don't see people wearing, you know, Ebersol t shirts on ADHD shirts yet are. But I can spot an American with a Stanford T-shirt here because they're proud to enter right out of Duke Tech.

00:50:12:23 - 00:50:32:07

Ash Ravikumar

So that branding and being belonging works a lot different. And there are some institutions who do well. But I don't think that, you know, I'm proud to belong to this institution and still exist in Europe, because there's there's a sense of entitlement. I get this. Why do I have to promote that kind of deal? That's my that's what I believe.

00:50:32:09 - 00:50:53:07

Christian Soschner

I mean, I didn't study in the United States. It was it was little time in Europe and not many universities so that they can run statistics about it. But what I perceive from the universities I was 20, 30 years ago, there is almost no follow up from the university. So this community foster income, as far as I'm aware of, I don't think it's a European thing.

00:50:53:10 - 00:51:09:10

Christian Soschner

And from what you said, it sounds to me like the universities in the United States care about stereo dominance a little bit more and foster and do more activities for them and photo ops and trade caps all over the world where they can invent and meet people.

00:51:09:12 - 00:51:27:20

Ash Ravikumar

That are at MIT. So let's talk about something for a minute. We do not want out of my organization for, I think Rachel. Rachel set it up like five years back, Right? We are a 60 year old institution, right? So five years back, it was a brand new alternate setup with insiders because they've got a whole distributor community.

00:51:27:21 - 00:51:48:16

Ash Ravikumar

Nobody knows what they're doing. We don't know where they are and there's no way to bring them back. And now we get a 9000 people strong. That alumni group with 0 to 9000 in five years is because people are proud to belong to some. This gave me something I like to be in touch with people. So so for me, that is like a treasure trove, right?

00:51:48:16 - 00:52:06:06

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, when I get a start up and, you know, there's a startup came out of it in Zurich and they came here for some work. We used it on a student program before they were building. And so start music. And, you know, I reached to one of our alumni who was, you know, a big, big get within the rally.

00:52:06:06 - 00:52:27:07

Ash Ravikumar

It was one of the early employees of LinkedIn. And I connected them saying, Hey, look, you're building amplifiers for fun. These guys are building start a startup. Listen, why don't you meet? I'm like, Yeah, absolutely. And so for me, you need to tap into the network to, to not to just saying, give me some. But it's also like, you're good at this.

00:52:27:13 - 00:52:46:22

Ash Ravikumar

These guys are good. Who do you like to talk to? Like, yes. So you give a value to the members do so alumni is super important. It should not be always to saying, Hey, can you give me donation for this new building? Can you do this for that? That's what I don't like generally does. We don't have a fundraising platform at all for the alumni, right?

00:52:46:22 - 00:53:11:03

Ash Ravikumar

So it's only so we run something called coalitions programs, or once every three years we bring all of the alumni in from globally. The next one is in February. We are planning for about 800 people to come here. And so so it's to showcase here's somebody from Sun finished up now laughing face somebody is in health tech so you have a life beyond sun and this is what you can do because somebody who looks like you has done that.

00:53:11:05 - 00:53:34:23

Ash Ravikumar

So I got one entrepreneurs founders from Amazon to come and say Representation matters. Business, This is Who looks like You is now doing a startup or the A-level or a B series B level. Come talk to the folks, because that's a lot of a lot more than me preaching nonstop to get. Some of us are having water so you have.

00:53:35:00 - 00:53:36:23

Christian Soschner

To have somebody that you want to have a.

00:53:37:00 - 00:53:41:10

Ash Ravikumar

Good talking governance action on. So I'm okay.

00:53:41:12 - 00:54:10:23

Christian Soschner

That's good. I mean, if you support your scientists who lives and create companies and don't rip them off early on, but really help them to make money, I mean, it was just faking even have to sell the make up and you spin out in future companies and some of your spinouts already successful and the founders had the significant share at the time and sold the companies to your next investors.

00:54:11:00 - 00:54:13:03

Christian Soschner

Absolutely. Always connect them.

00:54:13:05 - 00:54:30:18

Ash Ravikumar

Absolutely. And look, I mean, there are there's been you know, successful founders have been the great exit from Sun before. Right. And and people before me have gone there and they're like, oh, now you're a billionaire. Can you give me the money? And the person pretty much like you have no idea how badly of a student when the contract over right.

00:54:30:18 - 00:54:49:21

Ash Ravikumar

And so now you forgot about it Just because I'm rich, don't come and ask me money right out of reach. So when I started the role year, I reached out to those previous founders and said, Look, I'm not calling to tell you how good we are. I just want to know how your experience was and if I could fix something, what would your advice fix When you get here?

00:54:49:23 - 00:55:06:23

Ash Ravikumar

I got a hold on list of what went back, right? So the whole aim was not to go defend the audience. And the other best, you know, How are you doing? You are wrong. Tell me what I can do for you. Never words, but let them speak and tell what went wrong. Right. Because everybody has something that didn't work well.

00:55:06:23 - 00:55:31:02

Ash Ravikumar

So the whole point was to understand what was the issues and listen and then you can actually have a chance at fixing it and having those. And most of it was look, it was so hard. It was delays, it was year. So we said, okay, is I can fix time, then I can move the needle and have a significant impact is I can just fix the time and make it into a process by people who follow the process.

00:55:31:05 - 00:55:52:11

Ash Ravikumar

And this will work for about 80% of the people and the other two signatures on either one or they they will be bespoke by definition. You can't fix all of them. But if you can find 80% and fix those problems, you will move the needle big time. DIAMOND So that's pretty much where we went with, right? We saw our our stock, the perspective of validation work there.

00:55:52:11 - 00:56:11:04

Christian Soschner

No, no fixing them and you don't give all the rights away anyways. I mean you don't move GAAP into the company, you give nonexclusive rights and I'm pretty sure after if there is no progress, I mean it's just from out of the extracted. If there is no progress in the company, no money coming in, you claim the license back basically.

00:56:11:05 - 00:56:13:00

Christian Soschner

And something else.

00:56:13:02 - 00:56:34:15

Ash Ravikumar

Exactly. I mean, look, and this is the thing. I mean, I used to say this, not that a lot of companies were started ups, right? Like it started up ten years back. It's still the same three people. I'm like, I'm not saying no to it. Yes. If you're making €200,000 revenue and you still never dying but never alive, that's good.

00:56:34:15 - 00:56:58:07

Ash Ravikumar

I brilliant. But it's not what you want to have a big impact when you're talking about, you know, startups that change the world. That's not it. That's okay to be in that lifestyle site. But I don't want to give an exclusive or a platform technology for you to have a life, a lifestyle take, and that you will impact 20 people every year.

00:56:58:13 - 00:57:18:13

Ash Ravikumar

Rather, I want us to go to reach to billions of people that you can really, really have an impact. Right? So that's where we we focus on is, you know, the impact is what I want to measure, but it's hard to measure. But I think yes, to think what have you set the platform and the process to go on, then you are designing for success.

00:57:18:18 - 00:57:26:15

Ash Ravikumar

And success is not by despite the design. So it's designed to succeed is I please what we went through.

00:57:26:17 - 00:57:49:00

Christian Soschner

I mean, the universities that I saw to it exactly the opposite way. They spend a lot of time renegotiating deal terms, which doesn't make things happen. Negotiate the entirety early on. And from what they understood from you initially, you just do what's necessary at the beginning so that they can move really fast and then say to your founders, now show me that you get investment capital.

00:57:49:02 - 00:57:58:06

Christian Soschner

Now show me that you get the industry involved. And when they come in, then let's sit down and renegotiate. And at the end, let's see what we can do with it.

00:57:58:08 - 00:58:21:01

Ash Ravikumar

And this is a day night. I mean, I learned two lessons. One of the lessons you ask, there was a professional who spent I mean, I give him hats off to him was my first lesson in proper negotiation for all fields exclusive license. You know the deal to president case say let's say take a number 10% volume B they said okay, so for ten sales, it's 10%, right?

00:58:21:01 - 00:58:42:22

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah. Okay. All right. I okay, good. We're all agreed on the numbers. Yes, you're all good. Your bosses. Okay. Everybody's okay. Yes. Okay. I don't want any sales. I want one sales. Right. So now those ten fields was 10%. I want one seat for 1% because the whole argument goes, I got ten vehicles. Each is the percentage. I'm like, I don't want anything else.

00:58:42:22 - 00:59:08:19

Ash Ravikumar

I'm going to focus on this one. I'm going to raise money on this one. Give me then 1%, I my jaw just dropped. I'm like, Oh my God, well done. Right. So the folks do that well, because you understand the industry super critically well. And, you know, I mean, to be honest, it's two blind people talking about how bright the sun is because as a startup you don't know other members of was attacked on.

00:59:08:19 - 00:59:39:03

Ash Ravikumar

So you don't have that full. How is this going to fit into that? So it's both of them making up numbers and saying it's do okay not a boost to a big I want have okay let's decide in the middle and get 1% and everybody's unhappy so no big deal that doesn't make sense but if you give time have an option to say let's explore this You go figure out your CapEx, our cost to go market or other numbers, and then we together can look at it and say, okay, it's like charge you 5%, your margins not going to be there.

00:59:39:03 - 01:00:00:16

Ash Ravikumar

You want to stay 2%, you will have margins. But how about we keep the 2% accrual to 100,000 and then pay me because at that point in time you'll be really successful to pay me that. So that's where you if you want more start ups and more successes set them up for success rather than not getting $2 out of them every week doesn't make sense.

01:00:00:18 - 01:00:19:12

Christian Soschner

Notice this makes absolutely sense. But to say it's setting up for success to move quickly and rather than talking about fears and dreams and what could potentially happen, you just say to them, Show me your reality in two years and then we talk ugly.

01:00:19:14 - 01:00:41:03

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, in two years. And there's other thing I didn't do years. The other argument used by most accounts, it was like, what if 32 years is a large company, You could move this technology faster. If I give this, then I'm stuck right? My argument on counters say if I license exclusively to a startup and there's a big company was going to come and say, Oh, I would like to use it.

01:00:41:05 - 01:01:13:20

Ash Ravikumar

Send center as a client to your spinoff, which means they will make more money. You'll getting the royalty either way. Why do you want to cut that startup? Because it's a better deal rather than running through the startup, because then it will be a success. It will mean more research will come in. So it's more people are looking at the short term part of it and not looking at if this goes well, it'll become a Genentech, which means the whole ecosystem will grow, which means that there'll be other startups that'll come in or a Google a lot more or less like one sunflower rather than saying, okay, I'm going to give you and then I'm

01:01:13:20 - 01:01:21:01

Ash Ravikumar

going to cut you a bigger customer and give them another license, It's like shooting it for everything else in the process.

01:01:21:03 - 01:01:51:09

Christian Soschner

I, I mean, I mean, it's the outlier technology, for example. I mean, gene editing. Of course, the farming industry is interested in getting to anti-technology early on. But when I look at the reality of technology that comes on the market, there is a small percentage that has the potential of being one of this breakthrough technologies. The maturity are improvements, necessary improvements, great products, great teams, but not this outlier cases and all this mail.

01:01:51:09 - 01:02:10:01

Christian Soschner

When I see the same proposals from tech transfer officers, the first round is always to the industry. And when I talk to the industry, always say we don't want to. Early projects, they can't do anything, which that's they are too smart for us. We want a proof in the farming industry, which is my industry, that they're broken. It's mostly clinical.

01:02:10:01 - 01:02:28:11

Christian Soschner

Phase two data. In our industry, it's a minimum viable product, the working prototype, and not a bunch of patents, but the tech transfers always go the subject to say, okay, let's go first to the industry and then as a second solution, let's do startups. Is this just my perception or is it also.

01:02:28:11 - 01:02:52:03

Ash Ravikumar

No, and it's and it's also how the gap is measured, right? I mean, even as even all the tech entrepreneurs who claim we've got so much of startups coming out, if you ask them first one option would be to license it to a company because they got money to put in, you know, it'll develop faster and, you know, better chance of success.

01:02:52:05 - 01:03:13:11

Ash Ravikumar

But at least that's because of precedent cases. Now, for me, I was always that my friends within tech transforming allow old offices. You used to call me the dead sciences guy because nothing was living right sans their software and they were all the pharma small molecule, big molecule device is and all of that. And there was always this split.

01:03:13:12 - 01:03:37:06

Ash Ravikumar

90% of the revenue came from them, right. From the licensing deals. And you know, the contract research that were coming from big Pharma and you know it's been odds is now and whatever royalties we get will be the 40,000 here of 60,000 there and they were talking millions. I mean because you know, year I was working with like $27 million coming in every year, every year on royalties for a vaccine.

01:03:37:08 - 01:03:59:10

Ash Ravikumar

Right. So that's a homeruns that all other tech branches are built on is on life sciences, because that market understands when to license their license on a provisional stage. If you have to give out all of your get a publication in one of the major publications, they look at it from a software or a sensor. By the time they get an issue, the technology will evolve so much the patent doesn't make sense anymore.

01:03:59:16 - 01:04:17:04

Ash Ravikumar

Right? And so that's why I didn't have a higher degree of spin arts created from there. And so hence, you know, you keep on or software too easy to commercialize. We should have 40% royalty on it because it shouldn't crap. It's all from people who have never called it right or never done an enterprise sale on the software.

01:04:17:06 - 01:04:33:11

Ash Ravikumar

But it's more it's not the IP on how developed it is, it's how you're going to actually sell it. What are you positioning. So there's a whole lot of that comes in which doesn't translate well back into it because you're trying to catch up to the life sciences folks on the numbers and then you try to squeeze the last dollar of it, which is ridiculous.

01:04:33:13 - 01:04:55:02

Christian Soschner

I mean, you mentioned before and but you said that the whole piece of tech transfer offices states that technology develops faster when it's licensed early on by the industry. And from my industrial experience at the outset, I mean, you have a champion very often in a big company and then they get the chance to get promoted to do a better job.

01:04:55:04 - 01:05:18:16

Christian Soschner

They just move on. And technology doesn't have a champion anymore and it's like innovation. When I look at a startup and let's say we have a poor founder, financially poor founder who sacrificed his time to get a Ph.D. become one of the brightest minds. And usually in research institutions, they don't become billionaires. So when they're on a salary, when there's been something out there.

01:05:18:16 - 01:05:38:20

Christian Soschner

No. I mean, if that doesn't work, there is no way back. So the only way is forward. And then you are lucky and you have a founder that has the luxury of growing up privileged with rich parents set up foundation. You can also say, look, I mean, you can invest a million and bring more skin to the game.

01:05:38:24 - 01:05:44:19

Christian Soschner

So in our opinion, early stage technology are better off with smaller teams. But what is your view on that.

01:05:44:21 - 01:06:10:03

Ash Ravikumar

100% agree, Right. I mean, the same way that you said, Right. I mean, if you if I license to a big company and they don't all champion move somewhere else deck. Is that right? And I mean most of the royalty licensing agreements, the fear of what if you shelve this technology. Right. And so that's why you put minimum royalty requirements to saying, you know, you pay us $20,000 every year, an aspect of how much royalty you get, because if you get to 25, you pay the 25.

01:06:10:03 - 01:06:36:10

Ash Ravikumar

If you get to 15 is actually one, you bet 20 because you're not putting enough effort to to actually license this faster. But those terms also flow to this be now go on. And I mean being against it was like I mean that large company has got 20,000 products or five different drugs in different faces right. They have the luxury to show this product does not have the luxury to show because of the shells they're dying.

01:06:36:12 - 01:07:00:00

Ash Ravikumar

Right. So so that whole minimum royalty concept of having it for spinouts doesn't make sense because it's just a handgun from existing logical licensing models are like, what if you don't do it? If I don't do it, I don't exist. That is where, you know, a lot of those terms needs to go out, right? I mean, even in equity transactions, I used to do this and I didn't.

01:07:00:03 - 01:07:17:21

Ash Ravikumar

I said this loud and and my friends was you want 20% equity in my startup. Great At the same time say Apple with license. Right. Why don't you go ask 20% of Apple They'll ask you to get out of the door as quickly as you finish saying that. Right. If that doesn't hold good for Apple, why does it hold?

01:07:17:21 - 01:07:36:09

Ash Ravikumar

Good for you to ask. 20% of my company, right? So. Oh, because there are 2 billion. Of course, Apple can spend billions than making this kind of attack go faster. I'm like, What do you think? I'm trying to do the same damn thing, right? I'm going to try to raise money and build this with my job, lose my mental health and go do this for that.

01:07:36:09 - 01:07:54:05

Ash Ravikumar

You want 20% of my company, whereas a big £800 gorilla, you want us know a thousand shares of Apple foreign cut down the royalty because. Apple would never give you that right And so you know you wouldn't get get any of that So you don't do it you know you can get away with it. And so you ask it.

01:07:54:05 - 01:07:57:19

Ash Ravikumar

And so that doesn't that is not fair.

01:07:57:21 - 01:08:20:20

Christian Soschner

The one lesson that stuck from a management training 20 years ago in public companies is buy finished solutions from the market. So I would not be so confident that when a big company licenses the patents that they develop, often they just want to get the patent off the market. So to get develop on that.

01:08:20:22 - 01:08:46:16

Ash Ravikumar

It's like, you know, and the other thing one one happened in my relation, something and the company that licensed out a product and their margins were 80% on the product, right? So this new one will come in, but they won't get the, you know I mean, they allowed to cannibalize their own product and lose 80% of the margin and so like all without have minimum royalties for you otherwise you know the you you so that you're on shelf but it's like on minimum royalties on all of them.

01:08:46:16 - 01:09:09:08

Ash Ravikumar

Sure I'll pay it because I'm making $20 billion industry in there with 80% margin. I'm not going to lose that. I don't want my competitor to get it Want exclusive. That is no domination till I as long as I pay, you have to give me one year. So they went and pretty much blocking everybody else. Yeah, right. I mean but look I mean if I was in the other side I would do the same.

01:09:09:10 - 01:09:30:14

Christian Soschner

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But sometimes it's better to do startups. Let me let let's security to the ecosystem. I mean, I have not a chance to talk to someone who has in basically the whole world is at four continents so there isn't much not much open. When I was a student, it was the nineties and Europe basically was winning.

01:09:30:16 - 01:10:00:13

Christian Soschner

So mobile industry evolved in my European trading out of Europe. Of course and we had great we had great brands, great technology. The Internet was a European invention thanks to your institution. Now we have 2023 and I see European can rant about the continent. In my opinion, we failed in technology. There is not much going on and in translating technology into products and spinning out companies.

01:10:00:18 - 01:10:22:19

Christian Soschner

And the usual lesson that I give startups when they approach me as they look I mean, you can start a company in Europe, you get great support, you get great grants, but just be aware that if you can't license it early to the industry or sell the company, you won't find venture capital in Europe and then you get stuck in Europe.

01:10:22:21 - 01:10:42:24

Christian Soschner

You face very quickly at that and financially. So you need to be about that at one point in time, you need to relocate to the United States. My question to you is, is my view of Europe, in comparison to the United States too harsh on the system? Are we much better than I perceive it? And then mistrust Austria?

01:10:43:00 - 01:10:51:22

Christian Soschner

Negativity took place plays into my perception. Or is there really this huge difference between the ecosystems in the United States and the European one?

01:10:51:24 - 01:11:23:04

Ash Ravikumar

Look, so for me know, I mean, I'm a newcomer to you, right? I've been here for four years, right? I mean, whatever I thought about Europe was, you know, single economy, easy movement, all of it. Fascinating for me, right? Those of me where I bet I find the challenges is is so fragmented. Right. One one end will be unique to Europe needs to beat USA and beat China in technological advances Brilliant.

01:11:23:06 - 01:11:47:08

Ash Ravikumar

But when it comes to implementation, they go international borders, right? Right. Zamir It's more like should you then compete with Texas as as France? You know, you compete with California like Germany. Should you compete with California as a state because that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah. Where I get frustrated is there's a lot of reinventing the wheel, right?

01:11:47:09 - 01:12:06:15

Ash Ravikumar

It's more like, okay, I've got a photonics center here. You get a photonics center there. Let's let's do the same thing in both countries, because then I spend the money in my local economy, I get more jobs here. That's fine. I understand the politics and how you want to do to funding local ecosystems because you don't want anybody left out.

01:12:06:17 - 01:12:40:07

Ash Ravikumar

But then again, you won't be able to compete with a large, single, unified, which can move at a really fast pace. Right? So for me, that's one second every you know, there was an article recently that said the GDP of EU put together was larger than the U.S. before going right. But a couple of points ago. But now you as a citizen, I mean, take about all of the technical advances that are coming out.

01:12:40:07 - 01:12:50:11

Ash Ravikumar

Right. All Of the big ones coming out is, you know, you tend to question where is you EU leading in right within, you know, all the new data coming out.

01:12:50:13 - 01:12:51:16

Christian Soschner

Regulations.

01:12:51:18 - 01:13:10:05

Ash Ravikumar

That I knew they were going to say that right I, I, I find that fascinating. Right. At least from a mindset of how much people follow rules blindly to saying that this is a rule. I'm like, no, this is a manmade rule. This is not rule of nature. Laws of physics, respect it, don't drive on the wrong side.

01:13:10:05 - 01:13:31:10

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah, that's common sense. But anything else either is a bendable law or breakable law, etc.. So so for me, it's, you know, the last good big deep tech company in my hand was DeepMind from from the UK still got into the European Union. Right. But I mean now they are part of alphabet. They're an American company for all I consider.

01:13:31:10 - 01:13:40:17

Ash Ravikumar

Right. So which was the biggest acquisition for one of these tech companies from Europe. I, I struggled maybe in the biotech space I don't know it.

01:13:40:20 - 01:14:05:16

Christian Soschner

We have just let me interrupt you there. I mean we have biontech, for example, the m RNA, but they went pop up on the Nasdaq. And I mean, you had to work in Europe, but the license to this was Pfizer. It's not European. We have gene editing, for example, Emmanuelle Charpentier was in Vienna and her partner in this business in Greece.

01:14:05:16 - 01:14:29:18

Christian Soschner

But Terapeutico whilst Rutenberg, she was also based in Vienna. Then they founded a company in Switzerland and moved to Boston and got listed on the Nasdaq. So every pragmatic Malkin industry F ends up in the United States and probably in future either India or China on the way east, if we don't ruin the relations between the European Union and India and China.

01:14:29:20 - 01:14:49:22

Ash Ravikumar

Or at least you know, or at least the US market listing conditions change, right? Right. I agreed. Oh, if you want to list somewhere, you know, you go listed Nasdaq because the tech stocks are, you know really a lot better there and acquisitions have a lot more there or at least even if the doesn't the person behind. It is so interesting, right?

01:14:49:22 - 01:15:11:13

Ash Ravikumar

I mean I love the Americans for two things. One, they promote themselves great and they promote other people in the process as well. Right. Even know there's this article about ETF, Zurich, about how good they are. You know, Einstein is old stomping ground, is creating something which has been, I think, the system that came out. Otherwise nobody would even know that was happening in in your own backyard.

01:15:11:13 - 01:15:37:14

Ash Ravikumar

Right. So things are changing. However, the existing mindset of an the one point you you touched upon, that's where the easy money comes in, right? I mean, if I'm a U.S. investor, I'm going to put your money in late stage growth fund. I, I want you to have a Delaware cigar, because that's the structure. I know you might have a U.S. GM badge or whatever.

01:15:37:19 - 01:16:07:18

Ash Ravikumar

And do you do you have you create a C Corp, spit it out because that's what the money will come to, because that's what my LP says. I will not invest in another entity. It on other right. And so if you don't have capital and I think there's a dearth of growth stage funds here, especially on the big early stage is you know now a lot more coming which is good but late stage, you know, you probably have three or four deep tech focused, you know, large ticket of all or other.

01:16:07:18 - 01:16:26:11

Ash Ravikumar

Now back to the VC entities, elss, all family funds that actually invest in those with the same terms. You'll get 20 different options in the US and you can't tell the start up to saying, well, you know, you're European, you have to stay here. I'm like, Well, you have to survive, you have to get money or you have to list.

01:16:26:11 - 01:16:46:23

Ash Ravikumar

You do what is required to succeed. So I think there's a ton of things that can change and needs to be done for startups to stay here rather than just evoking the nationality or or trying of, you know, you have to be here. Look at the great skiing you can get here that, you know, you listed Nasdaq, you can come in your private jet, you go.

01:16:46:23 - 01:16:49:16

Ash Ravikumar

So, you know.

01:16:49:18 - 01:17:15:05

Christian Soschner

Valuations are much higher than it is. Essentially think I'm a podcast in January. He's in Los Angeles and investing in San Francisco based companies. He said that business angels get tax breaks when they invest in US based companies, which is a big reason also to invest on the US based companies. What I would like to see is Europe evolving to the level of the United States where it is now?

01:17:15:05 - 01:17:45:22

Christian Soschner

In my opinion, in the nineties we were on the same level. Now here is the United States and here is Europe, and China is somewhere in between, in my opinion, putting more close to the United States. You saw the whole belt. What needs to change, in your opinion, to make the deep tech fields more attractive for the tech entrepreneurs to have them stay here in Europe, not walk away to what's not stuck in San Francisco and Boston and all the other beautiful places in the United States?

01:17:45:24 - 01:18:11:02

Ash Ravikumar

Look there for me. There is you know, one thing which I loved about the U.S. is how many folks they're happy to roll up their sleeves and help you. Right. Without I mean, you I mean, people talk about Silicon Valley being awesome is because people said, oh, you're good. You need to talk with these three or four people because, you know, you need to connect because you both do amazing stuff.

01:18:11:04 - 01:18:36:03

Ash Ravikumar

I find it fascinating here because I talked to somebody and I said, well, yes, we do only this, you know, I talk about Switzerland. I can we do only the French speaking area or we invest only in the German speaking area. I'm like, look for a country of 8 million. You're talking about million people and that's what you want to you know, you're marking that area there, which for me is, you know, not helpful.

01:18:36:05 - 01:18:56:12

Ash Ravikumar

But in the process you find people who are mega connectors, Right? I mean, to my story, I came to Europe July 2019, right. Heavily pregnant wife. Our daughter was born in December. So for us three months, we didn't go out much. You know, I can't travel and then march COVID hit for two and a half years. I was home, Right.

01:18:56:12 - 01:19:26:16

Ash Ravikumar

And there was no way to build a network. Meet anybody fresh off the flight. I reached out to a few folks. You know, they do zoom and they're like, okay good. You know, you and I had the same terms and how you talk about commercialization and deep dive deals that many people who you need to meet. Right. And so there are these mega connect those want to bring everybody and it needs a lot more than it is right now is if you have a successful founder and deep tech they ought to go and do in their local ecosystem alone, right?

01:19:26:16 - 01:19:53:16

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, I'm a founder, successful founder, and we are not I will touch all of the startups in Vienna or you're from southern several of of Austria. I do. I do eastern or westernmost. So that doesn't make sense, right? I mean, what I loved about Australia was since it was geographically isolated and a very small continent of 23 million people, every founder was, okay, I can't survive from selling only in Australia.

01:19:53:21 - 01:20:12:17

Ash Ravikumar

I need to start selling outside. So they were global from day one to saying, How do I get customers that? I see a lot more problems here. It's like I'm a French startup, I'm going to sell in France. I'm like, Great, you get your validation, but there is, you know, your ICP, your ideal customer profile will be European Union fully.

01:20:12:17 - 01:20:35:01

Ash Ravikumar

Go look at everywhere else you can sell right? And so that's that's a little bit of a mindset issues and and the you know people who can actually connect don't do enough that's one for me Where do I see Deep dig I can talk more about what I'm close to. You know, there's a lot of amazing work coming out of in the photonics area.

01:20:35:05 - 01:21:00:14

Ash Ravikumar

Know Fraunhofer is doing brilliant episode. I was doing really good Tobias Kippenberger is probably you know, he's got like five spinoffs coming out of his research. There are a lot of people pushing and doing stuff, which is, which is a lot more commercially oriented, which is which is refreshing, excited to see. And, you know, and Salt Lake spread in Germany, right?

01:21:00:14 - 01:21:24:20

Ash Ravikumar

Who's the daughter of Germany and Austria, which is built on the dark. But in the UK they are now taking a lot of the learnings. What worked in the US Wyborcza were how to do it fast and bringing those learnings here, which which is exciting to see. And I thought we'll see how the next five years will pan out because now you're not going through the same funding mechanism as existing.

01:21:24:20 - 01:21:39:22

Ash Ravikumar

It's more to say, okay, I'm looking at long storage batteries as a challenge. Everybody apply to page application. I'll give you €1,000,000 to a proof of concept. Simple agreement. Go do it. What is refreshing.

01:21:39:24 - 01:21:43:19

Christian Soschner

Right? It's cool. It's it's great. So you'll see how basically for.

01:21:43:23 - 01:21:48:24

Ash Ravikumar

The man always, always hope. Otherwise it would be too depressing.

01:21:49:01 - 01:22:15:09

Christian Soschner

Absolutely not to remodel the European Union. Switzerland is outside the European Union anyways, we communicated briefly over a post on LinkedIn. They are the author of the Post, highlighted artificial intelligence in in patenting and patenting. How do you see the influence of artificial on the startup ecosystem?

01:22:15:11 - 01:22:27:04

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, so look to me there's I'm just on right? There's enough doom and gloom about, oh my God, need to regulate. There's this weird take over the world got terminated.

01:22:27:04 - 01:22:28:13

Christian Soschner

It's Austrian.

01:22:28:15 - 01:22:53:21

Ash Ravikumar

I know. And I lived in California when he was a governor. Do so for me. I think the the doom and gloom is is I'm not a huge subscriber to that, primarily because I used to write. I mean, the silences and the fault lie in the human nature, not on the too, Right. The analogy for me is if I invent a pen, everybody beautiful, great.

01:22:53:21 - 01:23:10:19

Ash Ravikumar

But there is going to be one guy who will say, Oh, I can stop somebody with it just because somebody stabs somebody with a pen. You cannot go regulate the pen rather, you know, help with mental health issues. And what triggered that person to stab not going, saying, oh, my God, things are now, you know, a dangerous device.

01:23:10:19 - 01:23:36:18

Ash Ravikumar

This capture them on on the airplane. That kind of beats the point And I think the overreacting on regulation, on A.I. is that to saying that ooh we saw a movie about terminators or killer or this or that that I will do is to write it's not there where it is, you know fully sentient where it can take over the you know, I mean you use any dual you still have to have an input if there does grab there.

01:23:36:20 - 01:24:17:16

Ash Ravikumar

I mean I don't think there's problems yet but as how people are making it fictionalized problems. Right. And to that post on patenting right why I like it and I I say this often if you ask me to define an inefficient system, I will say it's the IP patent system really wasted. It's designed for lawyers by lawyers. The only people that make money are the baton lawyers for drafting, filing prosecution, litigation, licensing everything It's supposed to be for inventors who can draft and write their own inventions and file it right.

01:24:17:18 - 01:24:48:07

Ash Ravikumar

When the patent system started, it was for mechanical inventions. I think of the first thing was that the machine gun that can shoot right and left and the first description behind it, it worked. In Industrial Revolution, it worked because it's still mechanical parts. Then you got genes, chemistry, lol. How do we hold it? Computer science completely cell. Now we are trying to set into a static document all of these new inventions, but the static document hasn't changed, right?

01:24:48:09 - 01:25:13:15

Ash Ravikumar

So. So for me, the patents are brilliant too. That is the only tool we have right now to protect inventions. So that's the system. Well, anybody change it? Not the IP genes of people, you people or us? USPTO is not going to do it because you're paying parking fees. And you know, Vivo made €9 billion in revenue. So they're not going to go and say, hey, this is dumb, doesn't work.

01:25:13:17 - 01:25:36:19

Ash Ravikumar

Right? So for me, where I think there's a difference between IP strategies or startups is that what happens after you file a provisional application? Who reads it? Nobody write for all 12 months. Nobody reads it just like you have a priority date as a placeholder. After 12 months, you write a full, detailed, full application and a PCP. Who reads that?

01:25:36:21 - 01:26:02:01

Ash Ravikumar

Nobody. Still, you get to not signed inventor or you do an ICR or international search for Estar, and then you get assigned an examiner who'll review it and say goodnight or Grant this. This is whatever rejections of novelty. But for the last 12 months, if you have a drastic on day one, I'm spending €7,000 or €8,000 or €10,000 to draft a full claim set.

01:26:02:06 - 01:26:25:14

Ash Ravikumar

Nobody reads for a lot of months. What is the value of that 8000 sitting in the patent office, a patent lawyer that you paid for or use that to actually develop it and then within a year you can actually raise money and then pay for the part and lawyer to redraft either. Right lets me I love these backend tools is because you're the inventor you've written the whole thing.

01:26:25:14 - 01:26:42:22

Ash Ravikumar

You know that invention back and forth, right? You give it to a lawyer, patent lawyer, and they are beautiful redrafting, drafting. Don't get me wrong, as you said, the claim set number one. Beautiful. It's a piece of art. Nobody understand, but it's this convoluted. Right? But if only the system can split the same thing, you're saving eight grand.

01:26:42:24 - 01:26:57:13

Ash Ravikumar

And then at that point in time, you to have raised a lot more money to do it right. I mean, I before I tried to do the human part of it and I told them that was a stupid idea, but I'll still say it because I believe in this. I worked at a university, we had a law school, right?

01:26:57:15 - 01:27:16:21

Ash Ravikumar

And we were training patent lawyers to become patent lawyers from the law school. Right after they finish it, they will become go to one of the big law firms and charge back $500. And after drafting the patents, I said, look, how about some of these patterns that we didn't think it'll make it onto the patent committee, didn't want us to go ahead with a filing.

01:27:17:02 - 01:27:42:20

Ash Ravikumar

Why not? I get the top three students from the class who drafted and will take a punt and sign it ourselves for one year. It's $110 to file. Let's file it If it doesn't work and if it doesn't commercialize, we let it last because we are not going to find it. Either way, we'll publish tomorrow, but it'll help the student by saying this university trusted in me to do it, put it on the CV, say that I've already blasted and filed one.

01:27:42:20 - 01:28:01:04

Ash Ravikumar

It'll get a better job for that one. So. And guess what? Every we at least have three good students who will come and do it. So like unknown all the rest. And what'll happen? I'll take the risk of not filing you. There's no risk. It's already published at least you now have one year rather than 10,000. You have one draft filing.

01:28:01:06 - 01:28:26:02

Ash Ravikumar

I can have 500 offered and give one year per saying Somebody will go much like that. Not right. And so for me when I see this, I tools. It means that you don't have to spend that money at the earliest stage. You can consult. For me, I always think about Donald says, How do you consult cash flow? You don't want to spend on things that you shouldn't be spending on rather than put it on your product to get the nomination.

01:28:26:02 - 01:28:41:22

Ash Ravikumar

So that's where I am super excited about a lot of these articles coming in, which gives the power to, you know, an inventor of an inventor and have a publication published in Nature or wherever. You can definitely write about an application.

01:28:41:24 - 01:29:05:04

Christian Soschner

I mean, what you said is it definitely students to get the reps in, to get good at something and getting trust from the institution that they can do. It is definitely good for the person that it is. The question that they always had is with the patent system. I mean, you mentioned that it's very old and that it's sometimes not really suitable for all the times minutes.

01:29:05:06 - 01:29:32:06

Christian Soschner

We are now in 2023 and I think the first patents 200 years ago, it's very, very old. I think there is enough room for improvement. India And you mentioned in what you said that institutions often feel when they don't engage patent that the risk something is there really such a high risk that you can do in this early phase is something significantly wrong.

01:29:32:08 - 01:29:55:00

Ash Ravikumar

But it's you. It's more about the risk about oh what if, if, if there's a disclosure, I know it's not covered in the original patent or the claim that does not portend well, but it's it's not. I mean, it's the fear, right? It's not it's not rooted in logic. It's more you know, it's a counterargument to saying that we should not do it because this might happen.

01:29:55:02 - 01:30:23:21

Ash Ravikumar

My my Australian boss used to call that as George Bush strategy to saying if you sell fear, you don't need to have like, you know, remember WMD was a big thing because, you know, Dell, you know, definitely didn't exist. But if you're scared about something and if I say that it's a fear that enough times and then it keeps on telling through every tech transfer generation to say, oh, in 1950 somebody had a lawsuit and it was not properly done and hence we lost the lawsuit or big, big.

01:30:23:24 - 01:30:44:10

Ash Ravikumar

No, no. So we need to do it. And so it's not realistic because end of the day, you don't go to court, you don't know Edinburgh's infringement from the university, Right? I mean, how many infringement studies happened More in Europe? Not much, you ask. Yes, there are a lot of answers, but even then evidence, it takes knot of money and a lot of things to do it.

01:30:44:10 - 01:31:07:20

Ash Ravikumar

Rather, it's better to settle and most people settle because either you spend 2 million and you spend 2 million on patent litigation or I'm going to end up spending 2 million in royalties over the next ten years. Let's do a cross-licensing agreement. It's much simpler to do right? And I have my advice to startup founders as you've got a young startup and a big company sends you a cease and desist letter, that's the best validation you can ever get, right?

01:31:07:23 - 01:31:23:16

Ash Ravikumar

It's a loophole. Some company doing with one pattern in this stand with what you're better to either the ratio their biggest competitor, they will fund you because they've got a bigger patent fight going on. You will just be one more partner in that fight. So I digress on that now.

01:31:23:16 - 01:31:55:11

Christian Soschner

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, negotiation is always a good, good solution before taking it to the courts. And most people are willing to to settle. It's much easier and it's often sometimes only regurgitating terms so that somebody gets a chunk or a little bit of something. These patents are really an interesting part, especially of the app, but I was thinking about the rights to post is what if ten startups start writing business plans with with with artificial intelligence?

01:31:55:11 - 01:32:21:06

Christian Soschner

It's like just automated. I mean, you said the benefit of the patent system is to automate with artificial intelligence, to automate the process so that to make it just cricket makes sense into patents because it's administration. The value that I see in writing business plans is not so much that you have a business plan at the end of the day, but to make sure that's the start ups needs to go through the thought process and take at least every corner one.

01:32:21:06 - 01:32:45:14

Christian Soschner

So that they get a better of all. We need to market opening amongst all. We need some employees we actually get the money from and then we don't walk them through process. I sometimes saw that they just had blind spots as they develop the technology and two years later is that them before they put the customer? Nobody wants to buy it.

01:32:45:17 - 01:32:53:11

Christian Soschner

And Europe has a lot of these technologies. How do you see the value of artificial intelligence in writing business plans for startups?

01:32:53:13 - 01:33:12:20

Ash Ravikumar

So for me, once I, you know, I sound like a little right. It's a brilliant tool. As long as you know what you're going to ask tool, it'll help you write. Just because I had a feather, you know, the old quill and an ink or not that I'd become Shakespeare, right? You still need to have the skill set to write what you're going to write with it, right?

01:33:13:00 - 01:33:36:12

Ash Ravikumar

Air is a tool the large language models give based on what you want to put it right. So that is absolutely you can use it for any particular thing, provided it gives you that efficiency gain, right. Rather than sitting it and prompting and saying, you know, X, Y, Z is not going to help you. However, if a chance give me the list of every, you know, a diagnostic company with their market share.

01:33:36:16 - 01:34:02:22

Ash Ravikumar

The next the last license is from their 10-Q reports. If you plug it in and then it gives you the time, it saves you 8000 documents. That's brilliant. Right? Or if I can plug it into every major publication to say, Hey, this is my molecule, and then you look at where else that is being looked at. And one of the other alternative things, if it gives a summary, brilliant write stuff, you know, I mean, you always look at what year you have to not become an entrepreneur.

01:34:03:03 - 01:34:21:03

Ash Ravikumar

One of mine is to be an entrepreneur. My head is that I don't or, you know, I've got a lot of theories. You have to be the best manager of your own time, right? You have to manage account sales, blah, blah, blah. You should have complete control on your life. I am super chaotic and I need somebody to help me with manage that.

01:34:21:03 - 01:34:52:07

Ash Ravikumar

Otherwise. Yeah. I mean, imagine hiring, getting the contracts done for all of that seems a little bit for me daunting. But if I can six doors and give you as a crutch to say, Hey, look, you're not good at accounts this one manage automated sending for your invoices follow ups, building your sales pipeline. How do you qualify leads when when those tasks can be automated, then it feels like, okay, I let this do it, and then I'm the human where I can go execute on it.

01:34:52:07 - 01:35:19:03

Ash Ravikumar

But I'm getting a whole feed of the manual redundant work that is getting optimized right for? Me Alien signs is where I'm super optimistic. Not necessarily. The HoloLens was like, She'll give me new ones, right? Think about materials science, right? So for me, superconductors, we use superconducting materials. Let's use like, you know, rubidium, pry, barium copyright or whatever that was all done by you.

01:35:19:04 - 01:35:43:06

Ash Ravikumar

I'm going to put some rubidium the molecule to structure needs that, you know, barium and copper guides. And yes, we know how this works. It's like have really good foundational models of materials. And then I can say, okay, yet as your goal is that up go these are what will be potential superconducting material combinations or it's a super hard alloy because the system checks on it.

01:35:43:08 - 01:36:05:17

Ash Ravikumar

Then you do the experimentation and characterization validation, all of that. Then it costs you, you know, two years and four pieces of work because now you can actually play with those materials to actually build and characterize. Right. And so where I'm hopeful, I'm looking forward, I will look at it and yeah, interesting beautiful times to be in APS.

01:36:05:18 - 01:36:44:21

Christian Soschner

Absolutely. Configuring My I mean, you mentioned fear very often and humans are fear based actually. But I don't remember the the the name of the study. I read one study said that 95% of our fears never become reality. And we say I currently on the Internet, the fear of being replaced is extremely awesome expressed on social media. And when I jumped on the Chhatrapati train with my podcast in December last year, I was a father depicted mice that could I can just let the machine write or text and can lean back into nothing.

01:36:44:23 - 01:37:08:14

Christian Soschner

And after two weeks I realized, yeah, it can produce a lot of written text but meaningless text and nobody wants to read it. So I thought about how can I use and then one influencer said to use it in the wrong way, see it as a tool, not as a replacement, and start asking the right questions. For example, when you have ten question ideas for your podcast, just ask the tool.

01:37:08:16 - 01:37:24:20

Christian Soschner

How would Lex Freedman ask these questions? I would show wrong, asked his questions, and then you get some ideas and then you can start playing around and copy your creativity. Or how can I make this headline more attention grabbing? And that's the real use of artificial intelligence.

01:37:24:22 - 01:37:49:12

Ash Ravikumar

Absolutely. I mean, for me it's more we are all influenced by somebody somewhere, you know. I mean, yes, some people at the start of these original thoughts coming in all of us read somewhere and then, Oh, how about that? That's a cool thing. Nice of you to remember something. Some people have good memories, some people don't. But it's more it's it can help you with content or with helping you what you want to achieve.

01:37:49:12 - 01:38:09:06

Ash Ravikumar

And it's a brilliant tool, right? There's another tool that is called audio pen. I'm going to talking. I I'm not good at writing, so I talking to it and it gives me bullet points for me to expand longer. It's a fantastic goal because I can use my phone and record into it and a thought and it saves my original speech even with my Indian accent or transpose brilliantly.

01:38:09:12 - 01:38:34:11

Ash Ravikumar

So for me that is fantastic night rather than me going and saying, Well, I'm bad at writing, I'm going to say one hour, I didn't write it and obviously doesn't work. Whereas, you know, when I talking to it and I have my, my, my flow of thoughts going, it captures my audience. No one gives me suggestion. I can even have for me, the best one was there's a drop down to saying the writing style of Richard Feynman, and it actually gives you sharp ones like Feynman.

01:38:34:11 - 01:39:01:03

Ash Ravikumar

I'm like, Oh my God, this is brilliant. Feynman way Ito's right. So yeah, the those tools are brilliant, right? But it's not going to replace you and replace theory is is right. Okay. Remember how people are these boots, California boots, right? I mean, you put a coin and there's no more. Anyway, are in London where it's, you know, Shultz is right but what happened to that industry, What happened to the people who were making those phone boots when cell phones came in?

01:39:01:05 - 01:39:21:19

Ash Ravikumar

Did somebody worry about, oh, we'll be replacing them? We shouldn't be using cell phones because blue collar jobs. Sure, we've technology evolved. We don't use the telephone. We move on. Right. But now people are worried because now it's white collar jobs. Hate them like what is Lawyers don't have a job. What was the lawyer's do right. And then becomes more why is that now a concern?

01:39:21:24 - 01:39:28:16

Ash Ravikumar

Was it a concern when the telephone booth operators, manufacturers went out of business or, you know.

01:39:28:18 - 01:39:53:10

Christian Soschner

I would say it's human augmentation or human enhancement. When I would try to use chat, you begin to descend and you track it would fail. So it's up when I don't have the background and don't know what's ask for when it don't know how to use the tool. In my micron in the context of track development in the hands of a chemist or biologist, it can work wonders and really enhance enhanced shop and make catch ups better.

01:39:53:16 - 01:40:12:08

Christian Soschner

But for someone who never read anything about this special topic, I don't think I would be of any help. So I don't think that I itself can design tracks on their own without having to input. Not at this stage that we are not mapping it.

01:40:12:10 - 01:40:18:22

Ash Ravikumar

So just trying to sidestep was one US air drug which went to phase two trials. I don't know why. Yeah.

01:40:18:24 - 01:40:22:14

Christian Soschner

I think it's entirely in Silico medicine. It was Alexander.

01:40:22:18 - 01:40:24:01

Ash Ravikumar

Into the.

01:40:24:03 - 01:40:26:15

Christian Soschner

Saffron Coffee was on my podcast a couple of weeks ago. Right.

01:40:26:15 - 01:40:29:11

Ash Ravikumar

Okay. But yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

01:40:29:16 - 01:40:41:10

Christian Soschner

But he raised. €400 million from Saudi Arabian investors. Aramco, I think, invested in this company and he has a team working on track development. So it's only artificial intelligence.

01:40:41:10 - 01:41:06:03

Ash Ravikumar

Exactly right. But it's it helps me with the you know, I mean, like to me, I don't think A.I. is is the problem right now. Yes. Probably showing what's the nice side of it, not the ugly side of it. Well, I think there are inherent biases, right? I mean, that will always be there. And I you know, side story.

01:41:06:08 - 01:41:28:06

Ash Ravikumar

But I'll get to the point, you know, how you wash your hands and you've got the air sensor, right. It never worked. So I'll put my hand in and I'll be like moving around and never work in the early 2000s. Then, you know, the reality was the wavelength in my skin tone didn't match. Right? It absorbs. So if you're like the skin, it'll actually work.

01:41:28:06 - 01:41:44:19

Ash Ravikumar

I have sensors on my skin. Didn't work. Is it a bias against me whether I know it? Just that where it was developed, there was a lot of white folks and a lot less of brown folks to test it, to calibrate it, not about virulence. Now you got a little bit of motion sensor, so I don't look that stupid moving my hand around to get the water going.

01:41:44:21 - 01:42:06:02

Ash Ravikumar

Right. Those biases is not because there is a malicious intent, I guess. Oh, you know what, doc? People should not use the faucet, so I'm not going to know. It's just that you don't think about it because it doesn't apply to you when you built the product. But I knew tested the product. But it's not the bias to do to to discriminate against people.

01:42:06:05 - 01:42:23:19

Ash Ravikumar

It was just how it happens. When you find it, you fix it. Same with Band-Aids, supposed to be on your skin tone. Now they have different skin tones on Band-Aids. So so those biases will happen because that's what your local minima doesn't mean. It's the global minima that will change and they will adapt. And then the problems come.

01:42:23:19 - 01:42:46:16

Ash Ravikumar

You fix that, but not regulated to think that they'll never be problems. That is kind of counterintuitive to technological advances. Either U.S. is going to have all the AI models and they're going to say, I'm not going to give you the models for you to regulate. And there you find them for having those models. So it's not either way, the right mechanism, just a lot of fear right now.

01:42:46:16 - 01:42:50:13

Ash Ravikumar

And I think it's a little bit of a overreach that these might be.

01:42:50:15 - 01:43:06:05

Christian Soschner

The to build on what you said the companies just start not to come to Europe anymore. When you think about the and it's not artificial intelligence, it's more a consumer product are metastatic threats which is basically a Twitter clone. So from what I read on the Internet.

01:43:06:07 - 01:43:07:17

Ash Ravikumar

Finding that it's.

01:43:07:17 - 01:43:33:07

Christian Soschner

Not in Europe because the regulations and the next I read on LinkedIn that's the next wave of large language models comes to the market and you think it's cloudy, which is much better since it's an influencer on the Internet typically, but it's only available in the UK and in the United States. And also, of course, you can network with a VPN.

01:43:33:07 - 01:43:47:13

Christian Soschner

But the fact is that some companies start ignoring Europe and ask myself, I mean, is this bringing us in a bad position? We can't access the latest technology and can start integrated. It's how do you see that's risk.

01:43:47:15 - 01:44:10:07

Ash Ravikumar

You know, So for me it's always right. If you look back on everything that you regulate, it'll go underground, right? You know, the best thing always caught is what happens in prohibition in the U.S., right? So they said no more alcohol. It's not like people stop drinking alcohol. It's just that, you know, the people who marketed and built them of alcohol and sales and manufactured and the whole distribution were done by the market.

01:44:10:13 - 01:44:27:19

Ash Ravikumar

So my view is, if you regulate something, it's not going to be okay. You're not going to stop doing it. Somebody will find a market on how to try it either. If you want to make sure it's mainstream and it's controlled and whatnot, don't say you do it. I'd say end of the day, you're not going to do it.

01:44:27:19 - 01:44:50:10

Ash Ravikumar

But find a way to say not, okay, this is the deal. But here is where the boundary conditions are. Not necessarily saying you have to get this checked. My model has to be checked, and that's a little overreach. So if you read too much, it'll go underground of people's take it out of people to download threads because everybody's sending me invites I can't get on thread, so I have to figure out a VPN.

01:44:50:12 - 01:45:12:12

Ash Ravikumar

So it's not like it's actually helping. The regulation is not helping people from stop using it. They're just finding a way to go around the regulation and using it. So for me is regulation then being a tool or you're just making people download more VPN boots and then you go, Oh, you're using VPN, please stop using that, and then you'll find a better VPN or Tor or whatever.

01:45:12:12 - 01:45:37:18

Ash Ravikumar

So it's if the aim is to stop people from being hurt or, you know, being exploited, this regulation is probably not, you know, going to be helpful. It's going to be hindrance or you're going to some boots. My standards are going to lose out. If you are a large company, you can pay 50 grand to get your model to be reviewed, but otherwise you're not going to you're going to leave.

01:45:37:20 - 01:45:40:18

Ash Ravikumar

That's that's not the that's ideological.

01:45:40:20 - 01:46:01:23

Christian Soschner

Yeah, that's true. That's true. I just see the time is flying and it's a lot of fun talking to you. We have 50 minutes. Let's talk a little bit in the last part of this recording about the future, your future. What's the future of the venture Connect program? How do you how do you define the future of it?

01:46:02:00 - 01:46:31:01

Ash Ravikumar

How do we decide the future of it? Right? So one is, you know, often people say like, oh, we can't do a different licensing model because it's not existing, right? So for me, it's since I have the opportunity to saying here's a is a different way to do it right now for me is to say this works right because I'm sure a of folks if you see in other models like this and I work for them and so for me, I've got a lot more incentive to make this work, to say yes to startups, which game And this is what we did.

01:46:31:01 - 01:47:02:07

Ash Ravikumar

This is like. So that's going to take some time. The proof is in the pudding. So for me, throwing the kitchen sink behind this program to get more startups using it and build this up, and that's that's pretty much the immediate future. And it's showing how this works, the skyline as a classroom teacher. So so forgive me for putting my hand up What's what's more, I think is end of the day, this platform is not built for only for sun.

01:47:02:07 - 01:47:20:11

Ash Ravikumar

And we what we want is to say, if you're a deep tech startup, I mean, end of the day, is this going to be the same number of the same number of people can help. I mean, if you want photonics expos, there's going to be 20. If you want to buy a medical device or, you know, a diagnostic tool, there's going to be 20, 30 good experts are there.

01:47:20:13 - 01:47:46:15

Ash Ravikumar

Right. And if if it's more to build that ecosystem around it saying, hey, look, you're not going to use like that. There's nothing that matters. But what are you building this really awesome. You need to go meet with that person, right? And so that cannot be automated because that's the relationship building part of it. When I ask you something without expecting nothing to saying, okay, you're a nice person, you need to meet that person, that that is what I want a lot more of people to do it.

01:47:46:17 - 01:48:11:04

Ash Ravikumar

And I'm a huge believer in building techno economic analysis models of deep tech startups. What's your CapEx going to be? What's your optics going to be going on inside? What's your unit economics going to be? That's what is missing because everybody is drinking the Kool-Aid of growth. You know, I'm going to raise money on it and then we'll figure out our customers and then, oops, I made it work in the lab.

01:48:11:04 - 01:48:26:04

Ash Ravikumar

And I can't get the same response when I'm manufacturing that rather flippant to saying that, okay, I'm going to spend all my time to figure out how I'm going to manufacture that scale. Right. If I win the lottery and I have €250 million, I can put on it and I get this, okay, oops, I didn't win the lottery.

01:48:26:09 - 01:48:42:16

Ash Ravikumar

But let me go to the risks. And so if you pay me to system got the plan to build this and scale this let's go pilot project of 5 million so that we can get to these numbers and then figure out how to scale. And to be honest, that's what the good tech transfer officer should be doing too, saying it is a bit more economic analysis.

01:48:42:22 - 01:49:03:06

Ash Ravikumar

We've de-risk this part and then if you ask, equity makes sense. But you're not and saying, here's an idea which a patent lawyer last we went through prosecution, but I need 40% of your company. That doesn't make sense. Right. So a lot of change process required. What's future for me is to either for CBC is to build this program to say this works right.

01:49:03:06 - 01:49:11:20

Ash Ravikumar

We will stock with experts who de-risk this tech and the investing. So it's it's the proofs and the next year.

01:49:11:22 - 01:49:24:14

Christian Soschner

Yeah, this is absolutely genius what you say. So it's absolutely direct the right way move companies very fast very fast forward and get them on the right track early on. So I think benefit a lot from your.

01:49:24:16 - 01:49:26:24

Ash Ravikumar

Answers and thank you the.

01:49:27:01 - 01:49:47:06

Christian Soschner

The the question that popped up in my mind when you were speaking is I mean, would creating a venture fund be one of the goals that you could do with the program? And once you have once you have your first few notes being successful with your venture fund, the thing for you.

01:49:47:08 - 01:50:12:15

Ash Ravikumar

All, so not so much within Sun to have a fund, right? I mean, even for me, what would be ideal is something like the engine at MIT, right? Why? I love the engine. There's not a fund, there's not labs access. Right. One of the things that I find a travesty is if you look around Europe, you've got all of these great universities, but these great machines, which are one of the kind, but you can't access it.

01:50:12:17 - 01:50:42:24

Ash Ravikumar

Right? But what if you want to access it? Because most of the funding round stocks for the equipment, not the person to run it. Right. If you have access to it and a fund to say is a good startup, you've got to somehow make up for that and we'll pay for that. That will be my ultimate goal of having like the engine of Europe, right, which is a fund which labs based, which connects you to the ecosystem of every deep tech player in that it helped that they started at MIT and they spun out.

01:50:43:01 - 01:51:04:02

Ash Ravikumar

But that would be phenomenal to have. It's not Sun. I don't think I can put it outside, but in Europe, where I think for me the biggest challenges I believe in all in science, right? Science just excites me. And then everyone's like, What if this works, right? You need a few million to prove it. You need big visionary early stage funds to saying that.

01:51:04:05 - 01:51:36:06

Ash Ravikumar

Know what? That's a moonshot. But if it works, you're going to change this whole trillion dollar industry different, right? There's a startup out of Germany and a probably out of some founders come from behind as well. So Roxio Fusion commercialized our windows starting next seven which is that the or particle accelerator out of IP for many imagine that is a moonshot right to build a nuclear fusion sustainable one which took a million years 2 million human hours to build it.

01:51:36:08 - 01:52:02:08

Ash Ravikumar

Those you can't provide validation right now but our goals are like if this works, it will change the whole energy industry. This this is this is not taking a share of the market. This is changing the market completely. Right. And so those those are phenomenal. There are a lot of visionary, ambitious founders being backed by VCs, which is which is this whole I mean.

01:52:02:10 - 01:52:10:06

Christian Soschner

This technology that you mentioned. And if that works, if I remember it right, it's free energy basically for forever on the planet.

01:52:10:08 - 01:52:35:05

Ash Ravikumar

I mean, anything that has perpetual energy, I wouldn't believe it. Just it breaks the laws of physics. And what it does is it sustains, right? So you've got other bookmarks which are circular, right? Because that was the easier one to build this like a wave pattern which maintains the fusion for a longer right to use that as a ways to create fusion from lasers, which the US group showed was better.

01:52:35:07 - 01:53:00:13

Ash Ravikumar

But you go Q greater than one, but you have to sustain it for a longer time. This is a best way to sustain it for a longer time, right? Others don't last for milliseconds, but this lasts longer. So. So these are all partially put together, which would make a huge significant difference. But the comparison is Commonwealth fusion in the U.S., which has raised $2 billion as a startup, as it's been out of MIT.

01:53:00:15 - 01:53:02:03

Christian Soschner

2 billion.

01:53:02:05 - 01:53:05:04

Ash Ravikumar

2 billion, Right. All right.

01:53:05:04 - 01:53:07:12

Christian Soschner

So what was defined the rules in Europe for.

01:53:07:12 - 01:53:31:22

Ash Ravikumar

Those who get at a seed stage, Right. I mean I mean, I don't think it's fair to compare Commonwealth is and where Proxima is Proxima raised is a big deal on the whole fusion is where it is going. But it's you know I mean a private start up raising 2 billion is is mind blowing right. That's what amount of money is required to make nuclear fusion possible because.

01:53:31:22 - 01:53:48:11

Ash Ravikumar

As always study is coming now. So you know you need people to write the check for talk about patient capital but the science me for that so I vocoder either more investors follow and do that here discuss.

01:53:48:13 - 01:54:05:12

Christian Soschner

Now time stamps competitive spin out that they worked in was in 2006. It wasn't about to spin out with a series sale for 2 million which was back in this time 2006. I think the it's round in ten years and finish year 2 billion.

01:54:05:14 - 01:54:19:12

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah yeah it's not a $1 so far they're cumulatively raise 2 billion but me I mean people talk about $1,000,000,000 valuation so this is actual funds of 2 billion that changes dynamics a little bit.

01:54:19:16 - 01:54:23:15

Christian Soschner

But probably probably milestone based. So it's not a cash.

01:54:23:15 - 01:54:50:20

Ash Ravikumar

Yeah it's true but it's also backlit and mid you know there's the the particle research facilities plus nuclear research facilities fully I mean talk about you know making sure research and the spinoff works together that for is fascinating in how the model work and how things work that's that would be ultimate hope that something a Europe happens.

01:54:50:22 - 01:55:11:14

Christian Soschner

Yeah hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully when I think about the entrepreneurs very often scientists are first time entrepreneurs and trying to build the first company. What is the advice that you would give them when you just had the chance to give one advice in 2 minutes?

01:55:11:16 - 01:55:30:12

Ash Ravikumar

2 minutes. All right, let's get to it. So for me, it's, you know, always I tell scientists or from talking to entrepreneurs, don't worry about all of business mumbo jumbo. That's the easy part, right? You've already worked out the hardest part. That is science, right? You can buy all of those services because as you know from more people to do it.

01:55:30:14 - 01:55:46:09

Ash Ravikumar

So, you know, I mean, my throwaway line was if Einstein came to me and say, Oh, equal, and these were kind of nice, but you don't know, your cap table is kind ridiculous, right? So you're good at what you do. I don't want you to understand Gap. Dave will continue with the science, but here are the people who can help you do it right.

01:55:46:12 - 01:56:15:04

Ash Ravikumar

If you want the best part and are done, it's going to cost you only $10,000. You don't have to understand. Bottom drawer, right? Seek it Experts outside of your realm. You are good at what you do. You're not good at everything. So find out who can help you and seek those people to to help you with. The second piece of advice I always do is, you know, I know something, something my my boss used to do and is and it's now common, right, as well.

01:56:15:04 - 01:56:44:02

Ash Ravikumar

Right. It's like good news comes a numbers budget comes in adjectives. Right. If you ask a good founder how are you doing is like sales are up 4%. I've got two leads going on yet I rest on a million doctor type numbers. If they're not going good, I was going is fantastic. We are doing a lot of sales and you know it's always objectives you know rocket ship growth which means that you don't have numbers on the right always stick with numbers because you're a scientist.

01:56:44:02 - 01:57:05:18

Ash Ravikumar

You know your numbers well. Stick with what you know and always say, I don't know when you don't know because that's Diogenes. That is probably the biggest lesson I learn. So those three things would probably that, you know, I mean, you might it sets you up to ask help, but if the glass is always full, you're never going to ask for any of the help.

01:57:05:18 - 01:57:29:19

Ash Ravikumar

And even if you get help, you'll never sell an all you'll never absorb. So there's I'm found is like forest you know first start appreciate founder staff member tenure that's brilliant guy you know reliability engineering he built a whole solid tracking system that sounds maintained whatnot but he came every time he said something You go like, okay, that's a good idea.

01:57:29:19 - 01:57:49:23

Ash Ravikumar

I'm going to go try it. For me, that is like, phenomenal, right? Yeah, Super smart. You're humble and you got to fight and belly to go through the whole world wrong. I mean, that's like my unicorn. So we're throwing everything behind those folks just saying that. How Can I help you to be successful? Because nothing fully. I should be the footnote a next time.

01:57:50:03 - 01:57:57:17

Ash Ravikumar

So this is all the marketing I'm doing now. Next time, if you'd asked me to come for a podcast, it'll be one of the founders that I want you to talk to. Rather.

01:57:57:19 - 01:58:03:00

Christian Soschner

I would be happy to do so if you to talk to get them on my show. I'm happy to host.

01:58:03:02 - 01:58:24:19

Ash Ravikumar

Moffat like, I mean, I always stick with what my dad used to say is, you know, the difference between boasting and praising. The only difference is who doesn't, right? If I keep telling I'm great, that's boasting. If a founder tells that, hey, I got help from them, that's praise. And if you ask me what my KPI is, more praises and less boasting.

01:58:24:21 - 01:58:36:16

Ash Ravikumar

So if more people say, Hey, this was good, we got help, thanks to them, I did this or you are not going to be successful. And they go right for other people. That's the best. Validation is actually the best KPI.

01:58:36:18 - 01:58:41:02

Christian Soschner

In social media and podcasts are the perfect tool to share those success stories.

01:58:41:04 - 01:58:56:14

Ash Ravikumar

That if you're standing on a mountain, shout, Thank you for the opportunity to tell everyone what we do. And if you're a startup founder, if you look any tech on a website, feel free to reach out to us, even if it is not a big reach out to us. If you can help, I can help out. I'll take can't.

01:58:56:16 - 01:59:09:13

Christian Soschner

As it's really great talking to you and I'm pretty sure you have in 2 minutes appointments. Let me ask you the final question. Is there anything open in the podcast? Anything that you would like to address?

01:59:09:15 - 01:59:38:13

Ash Ravikumar

Oh, it's not really made. I mean, for me, you know, I think two things which I, I hope there are, and it also changes from people's mindset, right? For Me It's, it's, you know, what a sign we do is fundamental science. Like fundamental science doesn't translate into products immediately. And that's a very big mindset for people to understand because everybody wants the shiny new thing to saying, why is there not a Facebook or an Instagram coming out of so.

01:59:38:13 - 01:59:59:22

Ash Ravikumar

Right. But if you look back, I always keep telling the story repeatedly is, you know, started with the keep charge Google device to how it was Georgia how to store a charge then and that became one seamless technology statement became a sensor. Then you can put a lot of sensors behind a phone or, you know, into a package that'll fit into a phone.

01:59:59:22 - 02:00:17:18

Ash Ravikumar

And then Apple came out Ericsson before and then Apple came in and sold a lot of devices with the camera. And then we ought to be narcissistic, not look photos of ourselves and saying, what do I do with all of these photos? I wish there was a place. Just put the stock. Then came Instagram, then became $1,000,000,000 valuation and sold.

02:00:17:18 - 02:00:37:04

Ash Ravikumar

Right. We are at the CD part right and that was from there. That is 25 years in the making. All of the shiny things happened because it was inventions that enabled it to become a commodity that somebody else can package it and make it into a product where most folks don't go behind. That is, Well, how did that sensor work?

02:00:37:05 - 02:00:55:18

Ash Ravikumar

You mix that sensor, that's probably a start up, but it's a little bit too much of tech to understand and people just say it's too much. Let me just focus on the shiny posting, the photograph. There's a ton of science goes behind the scientists who do that required a lot of credit because they're cool details. But I've done 2 minutes.

02:00:55:20 - 02:01:11:06

Christian Soschner

Absolutely, completely agree to what you said. I mean, I think I also marinate in the first components started in the fifties of the last century and deep. That takes time. And we need science and scientists to evolve technology and society to be more children.

02:01:11:06 - 02:01:34:03

Ash Ravikumar

I'm glad to talk with a kindred spirit. Science is art, and scientists are truly the heroes. And the more we celebrate, we'll get more scientists coming in rather than saying, Oh, you're wearing a lab coat and being in some barren ivory tower and you have no reality. They are the folks who can actually help us solve all changed challenges from climate change to to poverty to everything else.

02:01:34:03 - 02:01:37:17

Ash Ravikumar

That is the only hope I have is on science.

02:01:37:19 - 02:01:57:18

Christian Soschner

Absolutely. I totally agree. It's a pleasure talking to you. I love your CBC, your Venture Connect model, and I wish you all the best. And please keep telling people how little Trek can take transport properly. It more science translates into products that we can improve society much faster.

02:01:57:20 - 02:02:03:22

Ash Ravikumar

Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. You know, I mean, one thing I do is preach, and now I have to practice what I preach.

02:02:03:24 - 02:02:06:17

Christian Soschner

Have a great stay to.

02:02:06:19 - 02:02:09:10

Ash Ravikumar

Have a good weekend by.

02:02:09:12 - 02:02:43:05

Christian Soschner

And there we have it. A deep dive into the world. We are cutting edge particle physics meets groundbreaking entrepreneurship today with Ash Ravikumar. We explored the vast landscape of CERN venture Connect, understanding its mission to empower startups with state, the art technologies and a robust network. We also touched upon the challenges and opportunities in the European tech ecosystem, the role of artificial intelligence and the future of deep tech.

02:02:43:07 - 02:03:14:02

Christian Soschner

Thank you for joining us on this enlightening journey. Every episode, every conversation is a step towards a brighter, more innovative future. And we are glad to have you with us. If you're tuning in from platforms like Spotify or Apple. A five star review would mean the world to us. Your feedback not only fuels our passion, but also helps others discover these valuable insights.

02:03:14:04 - 02:03:49:00

Christian Soschner

Sharing is indeed caring. If today's episode sparked efforts or inspired you in any way, don't keep it to yourself. Shared with colleagues, friends, or anyone who might benefit. Your support is what allows us to continue attracting visionaries like ash. Ensuring we keep delivering content that educates and inspire us. Stay with us for more episodes and as always, keep pushing boundaries and stay curious until next time.

02:03:49:02 - 02:03:53:02

Christian Soschner

Keep innovating and transforming the world around you.