Smash Notes

Back to Thrive Capital's Bet on Neuralink, OpenAI & the Future of Medicine, with Nworah Ayogu.

Why Is Neuralink More Interesting Than SpaceX?

Nworah Ayogu called Neuralink a more interesting company than SpaceX, because the brain is vaster than space. "A $3 trillion company?" is a scoff at that scale of thinking, capped with "What are we thinking?" People do not reach space, and people do not invent silicon chips, without the brain. The brain is the fundamental substrate that unlocked all of it. The brain is still a more efficient engine of compute than every chip NVIDIA has ever made.

Neuralink's president leads much of Neuralink and is a compelling leader. Passion is contagious, and excellence and talent density are contagious too. People who are truly N of 1 want to work with other N of 1 people. The team works on an important problem and was category defining. When Neuralink first did the work, no one else was doing it. Neuralink created the category and brought in everyone who cared about the space. As the work went forward, the lead only compounded.

Transcript

Thrive Capital's Bet on Neuralink, OpenAI & the Future of Medicine ·

Sourcery

More from this episode

  1. Why Is Drug Discovery Moving Faster Than Ever?Nworah Ayogu said that, more so than at maybe any other time in history, the frontier of science and the frontier of what has been accomplished is moving…
  2. What Do Drug Discovery Models Actually Get Right?Drug discovery models have gotten better and better at the first job: choosing a molecule that binds a chosen target well.
  3. How Does Neuralink Give Paralyzed People Function Back?Nworah Ayogu said healthcare often does a very good job of extending life and does not do a very good job of improving quality of life or giving people life…
  4. How Did One Merck Drug Outearn Every Major Lab?Nworah Ayogu said Keytruda, one Merck drug, had 2025 revenue larger than the revenue of all the major labs combined. Biotech is already big business.
  5. How Did OpenEvidence Reach Two Thirds of Doctors?Nworah Ayogu said OpenEvidence spread because doctors wanted it. Nworah Ayogu said he had never heard doctors rave about a clinical tool.
  6. What Is the Price of One Child's Life?Nworah Ayogu said medicine can now treat rare genetic problems one patient at a time, and said a million and a half dollars to make and deliver a treatment is…
  7. How Did Oscar Health Recover From a 95 Percent Drop?Oscar Health, the first company Thrive ever invested in, fell 95% from its peak value in December 22. It then climbed back above its IPO price.

People

More answers like this

The other side

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.