#868: Tim’s Founder Kitchen — From Brainstorm to The President’s Office in Two Months (Featuring Jake Becraft, Strand Therapeutics)

Jake Becraft is the CEO and co-founder of Strand Therapeutics, a company building one of the most advanced programmable genetic medicine platforms in biotechnology. Under his leadership, Strand is redefining what RNA medicines can do by enabling cell-selective targeting and therapeutic payload delivery inside the body, unlocking a new class of precision genetic therapies.This episode is brought to you by:Helix Sleep premium mattresses: HelixSleep.com/Tim (20% off any purchase) Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)Timestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:06:07] What Strand does.[00:08:19] The Boston dinner.[00:11:05] The image of a body riddled with cancer.[00:15:05] What stuck for the muggles in the pitch deck.[00:17:14] A good drug vs. a good product.[00:19:40] Tricking cancer into snitching on itself.[00:27:38] The abscopal effect.[00:34:04] Potency, specificity, and delivery.[00:35:46] First principles thinking.[00:36:38] The precipice of a revolution.[00:41:14] The thousand people in the room.[00:48:38] Psychedelic medicine as a cautionary tale.[00:51:17] What actually catches a policymaker’s attention.[00:53:42] Breakthrough vs. incremental.[00:54:55] What’s in it for the policymakers?[00:58:08] The 80/20 wish list.[01:01:31] Australia’s CTN system.[01:03:51] Sheep, psychedelics, and red-tape arbitrage.[01:05:22] China’s clinical-trial flywheel vs. slow-motion American loss.[01:06:53] The bicoastal biotech ethos.[01:08:10] Can the FDA actually pull this off?[01:12:12] The Sophie’s Choice of pharma development.[01:14:16] Lost arts of founder mode.[01:15:23] Rockets for tumors, T-cells, and beyond.[01:19:16] Viral in policy circles.[01:23:09] The Washington Post headline and the PickFu split test.[01:27:56] Solution-first storytelling.[01:33:54] RNA medicine and platform therapeutics.[01:39:17] Moderna’s 62 days.[01:40:33] Uber Eats and the de-risked launch.[01:44:17] CEO blockers.[01:45:52] Where’s biotech’s SpaceX moment?[01:46:53] Elon Musk betting black on the wheel.[01:51:55] AWS and the post-conviction / pre-consensus window.[01:58:47] COVID politicization.[01:59:46] Insulin, growth hormone, and the original platform story.[02:01:35] Biotech as pharma’s little brother.[02:03:29] More recent role models, Apple edition.[02:04:50] Art Levinson, Steve Jobs, and the biotech-tech crossover.[02:06:25] The iPhone as a delivery platform.[02:08:25] Spotify’s problem and the future of bespoke medicine.[02:10:07] Baby KJ and the limits of liver-only solutions.[02:11:19] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.