YC Bio

Just move! It’s great here!

I have ample lab space and the team to execute here in St. Louis. Also, I have a family.

YC's "move to the bay area" requirement makes sense for software startups, but less so for bio (at least for most of the good ideas).

This is such a great news. YC is focusing its efforts on areas of biggest change and need in the coming decade, and life sciences is really critical.

You'd be surprised. Heart disease, for example, is one of the deadliest age-related diseases, but it's by no means exclusive to the wealthy. See for example the World Health Organization's statistics[0]; they report that three quarters of deaths from cardiovascular disease occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

[0] http://www.who.int/cardiovascular_diseases/en/

The Bitter Pill

The way I read it, they are saying "we know our resources are limited, and bio science is huge. And expensive. We don't presume to have all the answers. So we will focus on one small area at a time. First, we will achieve immortality. After all, all the breakthroughs in the next thousand years can't help your rotting bones. Barring violent accidemt (think nuclear explosion) there is no physical reason humans should have an end of life. Once we have achieved this, we will have a number of options about what to tackle next. We were frankly undecided between obesity and superintelligence. Solving one leaves you fit and attractive, after all, and AI will surpass human intelligence anyway. So why is our next bio focus after immortality on superintelligence, rather than obesity? Simple: having all the fitness answers in the world is no help if the subjects' dumb asses don't apply them. In fact, intelligence is more importance than fitness. If you're smart enough, you'll always apply the best techniques for fitness. On the other hand, if you're a dumbass, it doesn't matter how great the fitness solution is: you just won't apply it. So our focused, humble goals are, in order, immortality, superintelligence and making an adonis/aphrodite out of everyone." :D

Okay, now are you listening, founders? The above is actually not what I said it was about, but is actually what your game plan should be in the face of dumbass investors and a hostile world:

Step 1: become default-alive. Make your company immortal. Get a negative burn rate. Nobody can fail to roll sixes infinite times in a row. Even with loaded unfair dice. Become immortal. You are then guaranteed to win.

Step 2: become smarter. You will see your peers be dumbasses trying to focus on being attractive investment targets first. Ignore them. Investors aren't smart enough to invest in the most attractive business plans on the planet. So don't try to make an attractive business plan, instead, focus on a smarter product.

Step 3: when you have the smartest product and team in your industry, only then focus on being fit amd an attractive investment target.

Now you have all the tools you need to succeed. Good luck :)

p.s. sorry about hiding this bitter pill in what seemed like simple satire. My comment is totally off-topic and has nothing to do with YC Bio ;) It's pure 100% allegory all the way.