Chapter 8
George McKilroy was the name of our third recruit. He was born in Chicago, in 1955, as the first born of a single mother who managed to send him to college by working long hours. George was very good at math and after getting his bachelors at Northwestern University, he won a scholarship at Caltech in Los Angeles, California.
He fell in love with the Silicon Valley lifestyle and after his master in game theory in 1977, he started looking for the most promising startups. He joined Apple as their twenty-first employee, and left three years later in 1980, after the new Apple shares had made him rich.
With this initial capital, he joined Sausalito Ventures, a small firm which he helped develop into a two-hundred million dollar one, which was later sold to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the Valley titans.
By the age of thirty-five, George was already known in Silicon Valley, with his enemies putting him down as a very lucky lone rider and his friends praising him as the business god.
He arrived at the clinic for the first time in the winter of 1985, driving a BMW that caught the attention of everybody. Not so much for its size, but for the obnoxious phone that was installed on his dashboard.
George eagerly showed off the phone, and soon all the guests were curious. Some people said he was one of the many diplomats working in the surroundings of Geneva, while others associated him with finance, very few guessed technology.
For me, moving around with a phone in the car was not enough to guarantee admittance to the terrace, but when he popped up again the year after with the same BMW but a different, smaller, and more futuristic phone, I gave in to my own curiosity and invited him to the next dinner.
To my great surprise, I discovered that he had come back with the very specific goal of getting invited to my special event.
“Dr. Picard,” he said, “last year I did my research and learned about your terrace admission rules. I thought, wow, this guy must be a great man of networking, worth getting to know better. So I came back and if you would not have invited me this time, I would not have returned next year.”
“You can call me Louis,” I smiled. “It is a privilege I give only to people who demonstrate self-confidence, and you definitely belong there.”
“You need to be like that, when your job is all about selling innovations.”
“Like being able to place and receive calls from anywhere? I noticed the phone is much smaller than it used to be last year. Maybe in a few years time, you can put it in your pocket.”
“As a matter of fact, one of the companies I am investing in right now with my venture capital fund, is developing some vital parts of the software and hardware needed to make mobile phones work. You will never see us in the shops with our brand, but I can assure you that all phone companies are depending on us big time. Are you also active in the technology startup sector? You grasped the concept with remarkable speed. Something I do not see often, not even in California.”
“Well, you know. We are also active in technology, but it is more along the lines of biotechnology. We hand make products for our own use, and we do not plan to sell or license any of our findings. At least, not in the near future.”
“I see. And who are your competitors, if I may ask?”
“I do not believe we have real competitors, honestly. Our cosmetic research is very much tailored to each of our customers’ requirements. Of course, we compete with many other beauty farms here in the area, but we do not try to copy each other’s products. We try to offer our own unique atmosphere. Imitation can be dangerous.”
“That’s interesting, because in the technology market, and especially during startup, there are some golden rules. The first one is obvious, you need a creative idea and a good team able to carry it out. The second one is less obvious, you have to make sure someone else is following in your tracks or at least trying to create something similar.”
“That would be a major problem for me,” Louis answered, his thoughts drifting away for a second.
“Louis, you will never create a market otherwise! There is no market without competitors. Of course you want to be the best, but if you are alone no one will ever understand your product and you will not go anywhere. Imagine if tomorrow you discover the best cosmetic product ever, the recipe for eternal life.
If you do not tell the market, it simply does not exist. As soon as you say you have this new killer product, rest assured a flock of competitors will pop up, pretending they also have it.
Some of them will be only wannabes, looking to get their hands on money, but some others will end up with similar products. The point is, you have the market! And market defines value, the amount you can sell your product for, and your reputation, too.”
“I like your example. Do you really think you can sell it on the market? I mean, the potion of eternal life?”
“Ok, I agree. Maybe I went too far, but you can certainly find something that makes you look forty when you are seventy, or perhaps gives you an extra twenty years added to your life, or extends your sexual potency….you are the expert here.”
“George, I worked for years at L’Oreal before setting up shop here. I can guide you, if you want to enter the biotech field and you would be surprised to learn how reasonable my fees would be.
Nevertheless, why would you balk at the idea of launching the potion of eternal life into the market? You plan to put a phone in the pocket of each of us, after all. Maybe, with time, your techno wizards will also manage to fit a small computer inside. And so why not the potion of eternal life?”
George was amused at the idea and started staring at his glass of Brunello, while pondering an answer. Dora suddenly jumped in to prevent him from thinking too long.
“Immortality is not appealing enough for you?”
“The problem is,” George conceded, “I am not really sure we would have something called a market after it. Forget about all the problems that would arise - although there would be many, I believe I am rich enough not to care too much.
My problem is, I simply find it appalling to work for the next several thousand years with the same guys of KPCB. They would be corrupted by power, and even worse, I would be dragged down with them.
On the other hand, I take your point. After mobile communication, I promise you my next venture will be in biology. Consider yourself enrolled as a consultant. Money is no issue.”
George kept his promise, and from 1988 he would regularly ask my advice about requests for fundings he was receiving from biotech scientists and he would take me on regular tours of the most promising biotech labs in America.
Unknowingly, he was giving me far more than money. He was allowing me to check how far away other researchers were from Telomerax and where genetics were heading.
Then, towards the end of 1996, he told me about an experiment that had been done in Scotland, where a sheep named Dolly had been cloned out of the cells of her mother. The experiment would be publicized the following year because a number of parties, from governments to big pharmaceutical companies, were evaluating the results and the possible applications. George had been called in, because by now he was one of the most successful and respected investors in the biotech sector.
He was not as upbeat as usual. He told me he felt uneasy, like we were crossing some kind of invisible line.
“The problem is, Louis, we cannot help crossing it. Yet, I feel increasingly fearful. I wonder what will happen if we continue in this direction.”
“George, I get your point. But before you continue, there is something you have to know…”
He was not particularly shocked by the disclosure. He pretended he had guessed it in our conversation eight years before. I think he also had gotten used to worse things, from the DNA projects he had seen in his activity of venture capitalist.
“George, we have to keep this discovery under wraps for a while. And I need you to keep watching what’s going on in the sector. We cannot afford a competitor here.”
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br /> “But what if somebody else publicly discovers it? Or what if they discover us? ”
“Do not worry, George. You and I are good guys, we do not have the guts to push the limits. However, I do know of someone, and she has what we are missing.”