Abe's talk at the Dorm Room Fund PhD track
Because Science is a Strong Link Problem and PhDs will save us all! 🦾
The below is a GPT-monstrosity but is also basically my words so … enjoy? 😅
In all seriousness - I had a great time with the Dorm Room Fund’s PhD summer track a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed getting into a great Q&A with them. Took my transcript and told GPT to make it stink less, lightly edited, and Robot-Bob’s your uncle, here we are!
Definitely read to the bottom for my relentlessly optimistic rant on why you too should be a techno-optimist excited for the future! ☀️
Enjoy,
~Abe
PS - I did kill all the em-dashen, as I strongly prefer the sad little hyphen
FAQ: Abe's DRF PhD Track Talk
👤 Background & Career Path
Q: Can you give us a short version of your background and how you got into venture?
A: I dropped out of high school, ran fishing boats and aquaculture factories, then went back to school for engineering. I worked on UAVs at BAE SYSTEMS (formerly Lockheed Martin), got an MBA at HBS, and spent nine years at Google building Google Books, launching the Android Play Store, and leading product at Google Research. I later joined Verily, shipped medical software and helped raise $2B. I became a GP at AlleyCorp after meeting Kevin Ryan in part through my angel investing activities.
Q: What was unique about building inside Google? What was the culture like?
A: Google at its best felt like a chaotic marketplace of ideas. Small teams had ownership, and winning meant attracting great talent and shipping real value. The chaos enabled innovation, though it came with organizational brain damage as the company scaled. What kept me there was the ability to play games only Google could play - like launching TensorFlow or shipping products to a billion users.
Q: How did the transition from Google to Verily shape your product philosophy?
A: At Verily, we had to earn every dollar. No infinite Google runway. I had to align engineering budgets with real revenue. It made me appreciate customer obsession even more. We worked weekends, shipped fast, and built things that hospitals and partners needed - just what we thought was cool.
Q: What parallels do you see between being a founder/product leader and being an investor?
A: It’s surprisingly similar. As a VC, I raise money, deploy capital into teams and ideas, and sit on boards to support execution. At Verily and Google, I allocated big budgets, built teams, and bet on the right problems. The key difference is I don’t get to build directly anymore - just influence from the board.
Q: How did you know it was time to move from building to investing?
A: I hit a point in my career where I didn’t need to prove I could build anymore. I wanted to support others. Also, I was tired of managing big teams and internal politics. Investing lets me work with brilliant founders without the day-to-day grind.
Q: Do you think you’re better suited to investing or founding?
A: TBD. I still don’t know. I’ve deployed almost $50M and I’m feeling great about my companies, but nothing has exited yet. What I do know is I enjoy it, and my prior experience makes me better on boards today than I would’ve been years ago.
📈 Investment Philosophy & Decision-Making
Q: How do you evaluate startups, especially in deep tech?
A: Team first - is the founder brilliant / relentless / off the wall? Then: is this engineering risk or science risk? Can the tech be built with known methods? Is there a clear business model? Will the customer gain 4x+ ROI? If yes, I’m interested. If not, I pass.
Q: What do you look for in a founding team?
A: Grit, storytelling ability, ethics, clarity of vision. Would I work for this person? Do they attract talent? Will they survive when everything goes sideways? Most unicorns almost died multiple times.
Q: What are the tangible qualities of a great founder?
A: Communicates clearly. Obsessed with the problem. Not an asshole. Can sell. Handles setbacks without flinching. Has a track record of doing hard things. And ideally, they’re fun to work with - I might be stuck with them for a decade.
Q: How do you balance importance vs market size (e.g. rare diseases)?
A: VC has a math problem. I need 10x+ outcomes. That rules out some important-but-small markets. That said, I’ll tell folks building for smaller markets to explore other paths - foundations, customers paying for development, etc.
Q: How do you assess competition with big tech (e.g., Google)?
A: I’ve been inside the beast. There are games Google can play well, and many they can’t. Speed, focus, and customer obsession usually win. Don’t fear the giants if you’re building the right thing the right way.
Q: How do you de-risk deep tech bets without taking science risk?
A: Take hard problems that don’t need new science. Assemble known tech in novel ways. I like startups that feel like advanced engineering projects with clear paths to revenue.
🛍 Venture Studios & Company Building
Q: How does AlleyCorp’s incubation model work?
A: We don’t call ourselves a Venture Studio - we are just doing Venture Capital the way it was historically done, as best we know how! But we do sometimes start some companies from scratch. Talk to 50+ customers, validate the problem, then recruit a founder to build with us. We stay involved as board members and co-builders.
Q: What’s the advantage or disadvantage of venture studios vs traditional VC?
A: Advantage: tighter support, faster from 0 to 1. Risk: if the studio gets the idea or founder wrong, the company breaks. It’s like handing off R&D to implementation - often messy. Done wrong there are also serious adverse selection challenges that pop up.
Q: How do you avoid the “hand-off problem” between studio and founder?
A: We stay involved. We don’t disappear. We let the founder truly own the business, and we help them maintain real ownership over time - not dilute them to nothing.
Q: How do you validate an idea before spinning up a company?
A: Talk to dozens of customers. Get LOIs if possible. Find real pain, clear urgency, and big willingness to pay. If we can’t justify a business before writing code, we don’t build it.
📚 Advice for PhDs & Career Strategy
Q: As a PhD with limited internships, how do I break into VC?
A: It’s hard, period. Network like hell. Offer to help with diligence. Write deep dives. Show your thinking. Try to find one person who really believes in you. That’s all it takes.
Q: Should I get an MBA or just start a company?
A: Depends. If you lack logos or networks, an MBA can help. If you’re already credible and have a good idea, skip it. Building teaches you more than school ever could.
Q: How do I know when I know “enough” to make the jump?
A: You never will. But if you’re curious, gritty, and can learn fast, that’s enough. Doing > studying.
Q: What mistakes do PhDs often make as founders or managers?
A: Treating startups like research projects. Wanting to be right instead of useful. Being afraid to kill ideas. Forgetting that customers don’t care about novelty - they care about value.
Q: How can PhDs balance research passion with real-world impact?
A: Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. The best PhDs I’ve worked with are customer-obsessed and open to applying their skills wherever the need is greatest.
📊 Product Development
Q: What’s the difference in product development at Google vs startups?
A: Google has infinite money and time. That can make teams lazy. Startups have no slack - you learn fast or die. The best startups sit with customers, build prototypes, and iterate constantly.
Q: What lessons should startups borrow from big tech, and which should they ignore?
A: Borrow engineering excellence, long-term thinking, and scale mindset. Ignore the bureaucracy, the silos, and the tendency to overplan.
🌍 Closing Philosophy
Q: What is techno-optimism to you?
A: I’m almost irrationally optimistic - maybe even genetically. But it’s grounded in pattern recognition. Every generation believes the world is ending. When my dad was young, the biggest fear was global famine. Everyone said we’d starve. Then a few people - like Norman Borlaug - invented the Green Revolution, and the world changed.
Sidebar - my parents and our family business was part of this - building an aquaculture company to produce cheap protein for humanity! Many smart folks worked the problem space
The pattern repeats. Every newspaper headline will show you why we’re doomed. And they’re often directionally correct. The missing variable is human ingenuity. We always invent our way forward - usually thanks to a few folks on the edge who no one sees coming.
Climate change? I believe my grandkids won’t even remember it as a crisis. Because someone (maybe you) will solve it so thoroughly we’ll forget how scared we were. Same for AI, jobs, healthcare - pick your doom.
The jobs thing in particular? Most jobs today are invented. Ski lifts. Pro sports. Online content moderation. None of that is essential to whether I eat food tonight in a climate controlled space - but it’s meaningful. And we’ll keep inventing meaning. That’s what humans do. We won’t run out of things to care about.
We’ll keep inventing meaning. That’s what humans do.
We won’t run out of things to care about.
Techno-optimism isn’t naive. It’s a bet on people. And it’s one I’ll keep making.
Q: In a world worried about AI and job loss, why are you still so hopeful?
A: Because I believe in people. The future is built by unexpected builders in unexpected places. We don’t know who they are yet - but they’re out there. Maybe it’s you.
Q: How can we be helpful to you?
A: If you’re building something the world needs, reach out. If you know someone who is, send them my way. I’m always looking for the next great team to back.