Dan Davidi: [00:00:00] 

‍

We've figured out a way to make rocket fuel cheaper and better. 

‍

What we cracked was the ability not to engineer biology or modern biology to be better. It's to go back in time to before biology existed, and play evolution again, but this time with a dollar sign on the forehead. 

‍

Biology is everything, right? It's what we wear, it's what we eat, it's the fuel for our cars, it's our environment. The ability to think about it in synthetic terms is intriguing. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You could have started Ohr without me, and I couldn't have started Ohr without you. There's no chance that I could understand synthetic biology.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I'm sure you couldn't. 

‍

I think I do what I do because I care.

‍

When I think about investing my time and my brain into how to use biology, how to solve problems so that my kids will have a better world to live in. 

‍

If somebody pitched you an idea that was very science, like the early stages of SpaceX– 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:00:45]: 

‍

You mean like Ohr? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Like Ohr. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:00:47]: 

‍

But I did it. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Why? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Don't make me regret it, okay?

‍

Dan Davidi [00:00:49]: 

‍

No, do you still trust this? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

I do. 

‍

Dan Davidi

‍

Why?

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Welcome back to another episode of Invested. I am thrilled to be here with Dan Davidi, Dr. Dan Davidi. 

‍

Dan Davidi: [00:01:00] 

‍

My mom would be proud. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Your mom would be proud. But you're not a medical doctor. What kind of doctor are you? 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

I take care of bacteria. I'm a biologist by training. I'm a mathematician as well. So I have a PhD in biotechnology.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

From the Weizmann Institute. Dan Davidi by background–why don't you give everybody your entire background? 

‍

Dan Davidi:

Oh that's going to be short. So as you said, I'm a PhD by training. I graduated from Tel Aviv University in mathematics and biology, then I moved to the Weizmann Institute, where I majored in synthetic biology.

‍

This is in general something we’re probably going to be talking about, so I'm going to leave that open. 2019, I moved to Harvard as a postdoctoral researcher in the medical school over there, and then went on and became a faculty member to start a synthetic biology center inside Harvard Medical School. And from there moved to Amazon, Amazon Grand Challenge. This is the GoogleX version of Amazon where they do crazy projects. And then was blessed to join you here at Aleph as an entrepreneur in residence, spent about a year, and now a founder and CEO of Ohr.  

‍

Michael Eisenberg  [00:02:11]: 

‍

Do you want to tell the story of how you ended up as an entrepreneur in residence at Aleph or should I?

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

I could try. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

All right, go ahead. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

So one day I get a phone call. I'm sitting on the beach in Del Mar, California, enjoying the weather, working in my corporate job, thinking I have the best job in the world. And then Susan, your assistant on the other line. She says, “Michael Eisenberg wants to talk to you.”

‍

“Who's Michael Eisenberg?” “He's the most important investor in the world.” 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

There’s no way she said that. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

She said, “He has a Wiki page.” If someone has a Wiki page, I should listen. So I listened, I hear her carefully. She says, “He's going to call you.” And then I talked to you. I think you asked me one question: what would be my job description if I wrote it myself? I was like, that's an interesting challenge. We spent about 30 minutes talking on the phone. I sent you a two-pager the next day. And then I get another phone call inviting me to come to a kosher restaurant in New York the next weekend.

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

I was like, okay, I'm gonna jump on a plane and come meet you. I think it was a Wednesday, or a Thursday or something. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Wednesday. 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:03:22]:

‍

That was two years ago, just over two years ago. Three hours later, we said nothing about science or synthetic biology, but we decided we wanted to work together. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

It was only three hours? I thought it was longer than that. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

It felt longer. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah, included a walk home in the cold. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

Yes, correct. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Walk back to the hotel at least in the cold, yeah. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

Yeah, no, it was really, time flew by and it was a conversation about everything. I think for the first time, for me, really talking to an investor, but I realized investors are also people, and you were a special one. And that was fun. That was very engaging. And I think the fun fact was that two weeks later, I came see you in Israel, and your partners at Aleph, and never came back. So that was really the–

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

And then your wife and two kids and the dog joined. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

So actually they joined me on the first visit. We left the dog in San Diego. And I only flew back about three weeks later to bring the dog, which was the hardest thing I've ever done. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Harder than your PhD? 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

Yes. Bringing a dog from America to Israel is hard. That was during COVID and dogs were not allowed on planes, and that was, yeah.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What was the dog’s adjustments issues? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:04:34]:

‍

First of all, he has issues. Let me tell you, he moved with us from Maine. So he was born in Maine, and then moved to San Diego. So that was quite a change. And then moving to Israel was quite of a shock for him. He loves it because we live in a village and we have chickens, so he's like, walking the neighborhood all day long. But otherwise he really is attached. He's a golden doodle. I think it's a 70 pound golden doodle. Your listeners are American, right? So I'm going to use pounds. He's a big guy. And he just loves it. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Who adjusted better, your kids or the dog?

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think the kids actually. The kids have moved four schools in five years.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Oh, wow. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

And they are…yeah.  

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:05:20]: 

‍

Important question for you before I get into synthetic biology. Harvard or Weizmann? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

100 percent Weitzman, no doubt. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Why? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Harvard is just like a fancy name. I don't want to insult anyone, but I remember [00:05:00] getting to Harvard the first time and I stood near the sign, ‘Harvard Medical School.’ And I was like, so proud stepping into the building. I come inside and I see one of the old labs like in Tel Aviv University, reminded me of exactly the same place, with the same smell. I think what's unique about Harvard is not the inside, and working at Harvard is actually not such a fun experience.

‍

What's unique about Harvard is the concentration of talent, not the average talent level. I think at Weizmann, the average talent level is much, much higher than Harvard. The density is much higher at Boston in general, and specifically at Harvard. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Because there's just a lot more people, there's a lot more disciplines..? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

It's the Mecca, it's the Mecca of research, right? So everybody goes there. The density of hospitals per capita, per square meter, is just insanely high. You have all the money in the world to do research, and that's very powerful.

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

It's interesting you say that you have all the money in the world to do research. Weizmann has less money, I would guess, although it's not a poor institution. I've been thinking about that a lot given the DeepSeek moment. Now, I don't buy the DeepSeek was trained with six million dollars, there's billions of dollars of chips behind that. But I think it was more constrained than Meta or openAI in terms of compute, and Weizmann is a world class scientific institution. Do you ever think about this issue in academia of places with more resources versus less resources to whether more innovative science comes out of one place or the other? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:07:04]: 

‍

I think actually, to your point, that innovation is not dependent on capital. It's the ability to really, and in the world we live in, it's data that we need to generate and that costs money. And specifically in biology, where I come from, generating data is expensive. I think it's an unfair advantage that a place with a lot of capital has. I think the Israeli ingenuity in a way has overcome this. And I think Weizmann, again, is one of the top ranked institutions across the world in terms of IP per capita, in terms of publications per capita.

‍

So it doesn't show as necessarily a limitation in innovation, but it shows as a limitation in the ability to first take stuff to the next level. So after you've discovered something, how do you actually, call it, monetize it or how do you capitalize on it? And the second thing would be really the ability to attract more resources into it and more people. And that requires money. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

If you had to explain what's the magic of the Weizmann Institute, what's the magic? 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

I think it's the connectivity. First of all–

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

What does that mean? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:08:09]:

‍

So during my PhD, I had a supervisor, my professor, Ron Milo, but I published 17 papers with six different professors, right? So that's unique, that's unusual. And I had sometimes 15 authors on the same paper. So the ability to really network and connect is built into the systems. Some departments more than others. So I'm not saying this is necessarily generic to the Weizmann Institute, but…And the systems biology department, when I was part of it–that was something very special that I remember. 

‍

Another thing is that it's a closed environment, unlike many of the schools in the U.S., right? So you have a fence actually, and there's a guard, which is like the Israeli school. It's a very different experience, because everything is almost like a bubble.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

And the Weizmann Institute looks like a nature reserve. It's one of the nicest places to visit. I heard once that they actually spent about 20 percent of the revenues on gardening, which is insane, but it does the job. I guess. It's a beautiful place. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:09:10]: 

‍

Listen, you need beauty to encourage creativity, I guess. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Or the other way around. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

To calm the neurotic scientists down? How does that work? 

‍

So–I want to talk for a second about synthetic biology. My fascination with synthetic biology, which by the way, to this moment I don't really understand anything about, but it started with a conversation with Professor Joe Jacobson of MIT, who, about five and a half, six years ago, who now is also the other grandfather of some of my grandchildren, because his daughter is married to my son.

‍

He came and said, I think it was five and a half, six years ago, “Israel needs something like the Broad Institute. Synthetic biology is coming. Israel needs to get to the forefront of this,” and all you need to do is wind me up and say something like that. I go in, I started to meet people and get involved in this, and think about it, and lose some money in it. And finally I came to the conclusion that I need to find someone who really knew what he was talking about in synthetic biology, and hence we looked for an EIR who could do it. And our former intern, Ron Miasnik, who I think ultimately put us in touch even before Susan called you–before that love at first sight dinner with the call you got from Susan–was instrumental in doing this. And Ron spent time researching. 

‍

So before we get into–can you just tell me what synthetic biology is? Because six years later, I'm not sure I understand what it is. 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:10:34]: 

‍

Yeah, so I've spent 18 years maybe on this, and I'm not sure I understand either. I think you're part of a group of people who have found, and me included, synthetic biology to be an interesting term, because biology is everything, right?

‍

It's what we wear. It's what we eat. It's the fuel for our cars. It's our environment. It's the nature. It's our pet. It's like everything. It's our health, our mental health. Everything is biology. The ability to think about it in synthetic terms is intriguing. It's like, what can we do with biology that is synthetic, that is new? How can we think about biology as an engineering discipline? 

‍

I think this is where synthetic biology has emerged. It actually started back in the 20s, 2000s, right, when biofuel was a thing, and people have engineered other organisms to create oil for gas to replace crude oil. Synthetic biology was hit hard over the years, and has made people lose a lot of money, like trillions of dollars, because of overpromises. And I think that's part of the magic, but also the danger in synthetic biology, of if we can engineer biology, we can engineer everything. If we can shift from thinking about biology as zoologists–we look at nature, we try to understand it, we try mathematical models to understand it. 

‍

Now we can implement tools like CRISPR, we can implement tools like robotics, we can use AI, of course, to engineer biology, to do new things. That's amazing. But you also have to remember that biology is a living organism, and it has its own way of making decisions, its own way of evolving. And that's been a challenge for the synthetic biology community over the years. And this is why it's unclear exactly what synthetic biology is, what can we do with it, how do we leverage that for the benefit of society? Are there also unintended consequences and the dangers of synthetic biology? 

‍

I think that was a very long answer of something you didn't ask. But that's like, my take of the mystery around what synthetic biology really is, and why I also find it hard to understand sometimes. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

If you had to explain it to a 15 year old in one sentence, what would that one sentence be? Synthetic biology is…? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

The ability to engineer biology to do new functions. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Like COVID? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So COVID is an example, but we can also engineer bacteria to eat plastic, or we can engineer drugs to respond to stimuli, to treat cancer at specific locations in the body.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:12:56]: 

‍

Do you ever wonder if this is playing God? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

No, I don't. I think the reason is because it depends on the perspective. If you want to say God created the tools that we are playing with, I think you can apply that to almost everything, right? Not just biology, but we do have the ability to play with the genetic code.

‍

Which again is very intriguing, but if you think about it, we also have the ability to take two elements, mix them together and create concrete. That's another playing God exercise if you will, right? So this is just like the sandbox we have and the tools that we have. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:13:30]: 

‍

Now that I've asked the God question, so now tell me, what are your personal core values?

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

That's a tough one, because I, unlike synthetic biology, maybe I don't have a one-liner. I think I do what I do because I care. When I think about investing my time, and my brain, and my thinking into how to use biology, how to solve problems so that my kids will have a better world to live in, I'm actually very concerned about what's waiting for them in many levels, political environmental, health-related, society-related. I think I'm just taking my part in this.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So you're engineering like cell level biology because the biology of politicians is too hard to engineer? 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

It's a waste of time.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:14:25]: 

‍

Okay. So you came back here.--I should probably ask you before I come to the next question, what were your impressions of me? Who's this guy who landed on me out of nowhere on the beach in Del Mar. Then take me to dinner at a kosher restaurant and say, “Hey, why don't you come back to Israel?” You went home, you told your wife, “I met a lunatic?” What did you do? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:14:44]: To be honest, I told my wife, “I met our landing pad. I met the person who can take us back to Israel.” As an Israeli living in the U.S. you constantly are abroad, right? As an immigrant, you constantly, as far as I've experienced it, you constantly look for excuses to come back to Israel, but it's just like sometimes too hard because schools are better, because the weather's better, because there's no stress, and there's no push from Ynet and everything is just easier, right? And you have a bigger SUV, and a nicer house, and it's a slippery slope that we were not willing to be part of this game, and we were looking for an excuse to come back to Israel. And I don't want to call you an excuse. But you were our life rope, I guess? Would that be the term? You were our landing pad. Like you provided the opportunity. 

Michael Eisenberg [00:15:32]: 

‍

You’re saying, any landing pad is good enough even for a guy who’s just an excuse. It's okay. All right. So you came back and then you went through a year of EIR-ship at Aleph. What was that like for you? So here comes a guy–just to be very clear, okay, Harvard Medical School, Amazon Moonshot Factory, whatever they call it over there, right? Amazon, a big corporate life in San Diego with a big budget or whatever it was. And come back to Aleph, and sit in a little office down the hall from us. What was that like that year? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So it was definitely an interesting experience, because one of the first things I was told by your partner, Eden, was that EIR is the worst job in the world. I was like, okay, that's going to be fun. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

He managed your expectations properly. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Absolutely. That was the worst experience ever. No, but I think I was stepping into this really in two levels. One was an opportunity to really come back to Israel. And I think the ability to be an EIR was keeping me very broad. I kept seeing stuff all the time, which I really enjoy, especially as a curious person, and as someone who has been always looking for interesting stuff to explore. 

‍

I think I was exploring, if you want, a new game, with new rules, and a new territory that I wasn't familiar with. And you and I have spent many hours together working, especially in the first six months where I was basically joining you almost everywhere. And I've learned how you do what you do, which is not easy–not to learn, not to copy. I was really fortunate to be part of it, but it was also exhausting. I couldn't introduce myself anymore. Like I couldn't say, I couldn't say who I was anymore. So many people, so many faces. That was an overwhelming experience. Very powerful, very overwhelming. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

How many ideas did you have throughout the year that you thought you wanted to start a company on? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think what I discovered being on, call it, the VC side, where you keep hearing interesting ideas coming from excellent people, is that as much as I was curious coming up with my own ideas and starting a company, that was not my objective. I wasn't the typical EIR coming to a fund to start a company. I could have done that probably better, and with less efforts in the Bay area or in Boston. I came to Aleph to open my mind. And I think what I've realized is that what I really enjoyed doing was not listening to people pitching their ideas, but connecting ideas of different people.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Interesting. 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:18:09]: 

‍

And that, I think it was when I started a company, was when I realized I don't have that power as a venture capitalist, right? So as a venture capitalist, you choose your cards. You invest in this, or you invest in that. You don't have the privilege of dividing and conquering, and taking pieces of each–or say, “You and you guys, you should work together to build something bigger.”

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So after a year you start, Ohr - OHR–what is Ohr? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So literally it's ‘light.’ 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Right, the word Ohr means light, taken from the first chapter of Genesis–in Hebrew, “Vayomer Elohim yehi or, vayehi or,” “And God said, let there be Or, or light. And then there was light.” 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:18:56]:

‍

Yes, and I think that's exactly what it is. Like when I started Ohr, and I have a hard time saying, “I started,” even though I'm a single founder, but I feel like we have founded it together. You even came up with the name. So we started, Ohr, if I may–

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

The only difference is, you could have started Ohr without me, and I couldn't start Ohr without you. You'd find another name, but there's no chance that I could, one, get a PhD, but two, understand synthetic biology. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Fair enough.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:19:40]: 

‍

I’m sure you couldn't. So Ohr, I think, is a collection of everything I've hoped for. When I told you about the two pager a few minutes ago of what would be my dream job, it was about really discovering critical technologies that could position Israel as a leader and find the talent and the capital to build them. And Ohr as an example of that, and I consider it the way to execute on this two pager. It's basically a way to synthesize chemicals in a new way using biology, but not just like chemicals, right? Chemical sounds boring, even gray. Thinking of chemicals that are of strategic interest. And I think beyond the technology, one thing I've learned over being an EIR at Aleph for about a year, is that technology is cool, but it's not enough. What you need is like a sophisticated go-to-market and how to build a venture business is very different than how to build a business.

‍

I sometimes struggle with this still, because there's something very, I don't want to say silly, but something very weird about venture businesses. There's a lot of growth involved, and there's a lot of storytelling involved. I've learned how to do this, I think, pretty well. I mean, you've decided to invest, and I think Ohr is a way of making chemicals a venture business, if you want.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: Okay. So there's been a lot of, you said, using synthetic biology to make chemicals. Can you be more specific? Cause there’s been a lot of bio manufacturing businesses. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Ohr actually focuses on strategic chemicals, as I said, and the first focus is rocket fuel. We've identified rocket fuel as a very interesting chemical because, first, it's a very interesting market, it's a very rapidly growing market that has shifted from government-owned rocket launches to space, to private companies like SpaceX taking over the market and moving from launching rockets once a year to twice a week.

‍

So the demand for rocket fuel has gone up, and we've figured out a way to make rocket fuel cheaper and better than how you make it from crude oil. We realized that rocket fuel needs to be very clean to keep the rocket engine happy. So the real pain point of the rocket industry is the ability to reuse the engine. And when we use biology–something biology does very well, it's very selective and very specific, so we can actually fashion exactly the composition of the fuel, and because we start from simple elements and not crude, gooey, dark, crude oil, we can start from a clean feedstock, use a very selective biological process, and end up with a very clean product. And rocket fuel is a very good example of how a clean product has a benefit.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

We can call it ‘kosher rocket fuel.’ It makes the engine happy. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yeah, but you can't fly on Saturdays. I think more than it's kosher, it's a creationary chemical. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What does that mean, creationary? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:22:45]

‍

We don't distill it from oil. We don't take something out there, and extract it, and refine it.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

There are no refineries here. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Exactly. We create it from scratch. We actually build it from the very basic elements that build fuels or chemicals in generals, which are the atoms. And we focus on carbon atoms, which are basically the backbone of organic material, including fuel. 

‍

A skeptical venture investor would say, “Okay, I've heard about bio manufacturing and self manufacturing or a million things for the last, I don't know how many years. Here's another one.” How would you answer that? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

That was Google in the 1999 period.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Well-played. There have been 11 search engines, here's another one. Whoops, it's Google. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yeah. No I hear them. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:23:30]: 

‍

I want to thank you for allowing me to invest in Google before it was Google. I didn't think of that, but…

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think you're right. I've even heard worse things, like PTSD. Like some investors tell me they're really tired of hearing that same pitch over again. It's true. I think what we have is, we have a reversed-engineered solution. 

‍

And if I can take a few more seconds to explain what it means–I think in most cases, when you talk about bio-manufacturing or producing stuff sustainably you think of, here's an interesting technology, I can make stuff from it, what can I make? Here, everything was reversed engineered to say, okay, rocket fuel is an actual product. You can build a solution for, can you use any technology out there? And biology has turned out to be the best technology to do that. Not just a technology you can use, or a technology you've been using and applying a product for. I think this is what's unique about Ohr. It's not just rocket fuel, by the way. We do make other things, and we have different areas of focus. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Other critical chemicals. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Other critical chemicals. We actually see ourselves as a B2G company for the most part. We see ourselves as trying to create chemicals that would benefit governments, obviously on the good side of the planet, which is an interesting dilemma. Sometimes when you produce critical chemicals, because you understand where they can end up, where the technology can end up–it's true for any critical technology like AI, other things that can have unintended consequences–but yeah, we want to be on the good side.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:25:01]: 

‍

So I think it's obvious that biology creates chemicals, right? Photosynthesis is a biological reaction. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Everything has started from a biological process. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Right. So why didn't anyone else do this before? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think people for many years have, or still are, trying to engineer biology or make synthetic biology by taking modern biology and engineering it to be better, or more specific, or targeted towards one way or another.

‍

We've talked about synthetic biology and the ability to engineer it, and thinking about the building blocks that we have, cells, enzymes, genes, and engineer them. I think what Ohr does, and hence the name, it goes back in time to before biology existed. And I think what we cracked was the ability not to engineer biology or modern biology to be better, it's to go back in time to before biology existed, and play evolution again, but this time with a dollar sign on the forehead.

‍

So how can we direct evolution from the very early beginning of origin of life and use modern biology to use primordial chemistry to develop modern products? And that, I think, has been a way for us to overcome the complexity and costs associated with bio-manufacturing, which is ultimately very high.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:26:17]: 

‍

I find it interesting that you can say you play evolution, so to speak. It's on some level what you're doing is anti-Darwinism. It's more, again, God-like. You go back to primordial, the primordial soup, the primordial chemistry, and try to create a bang, so to speak, by creating light or energy, as the case may be. I've gone, by the way, to reinterpreting the first chapter of Genesis, the word ‘or,’ from light to energy, because of you, by the way, or hoshech, which is commonly referred to as darkness, as the absence of energy. But isn't this like, anti Darwinist? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

It's an interesting framing. I think it's really the best of both worlds in a way. So we don't just say evolution happens and we are happy about it. Because evolution is to some extent a stochastic process, right? You accumulate diversity, and then based on the condition, diversity is being selected for a beneficial trait. What we can do is we can eliminate that. We can go back in time and ask, okay, no matter what happened throughout evolution, what are the important junctions that evolution has created for us? Can we walk a different route? 

‍

So we're using evolution, but not in an evolutionary mindset, right? We're taking a very engineering-like approach in an evolutionary landscape. So we're not ignoring Darwin or doing like an anti-Darwin move, it's more of a reverse Darwinism in a way, where we go back and revisit junctions, and we can allow ourselves the freedom of jumping between one place to another, which is something evolution typically doesn't do. It has a very small step, baby step way of moving across the landscape. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:27:57]:

‍

Can you give us an example of how you engineer the route of evolution? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yes, so at Ohr, we build carbon chains. Carbon chains are the building block of everything organic. And we don't do them the way nature does them, like iteratively one carbon at a time, with a lot of complexity. We actually choose what is the carbon chain we want, and we can go straight to that carbon chain, and produce it in a way that would only lead to that particular molecule.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

That's like backcasting. You decide, hey, this is where I got to get to, and then you reverse engineer it back to where it needs to go and build it forward? 

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yes. And if you do it the right way, you don't have to distill it or to refine it, going back to the refining concept. And we just get that particular molecule and nothing else.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So one of our recent guests on Invested was Sender Cohen was someone you've gotten to know also, my friend since high school who is setting up, among other things, Nevo Labs here in Israel, which is meant to be like a fund for a Bell-Lab-style innovation center for where world-class scientists like Dan Davidi could come to Israel and be a part of.

‍

You said you went to Harvard Medical School. You did say Weizmann was better than Harvard Medical School. And then you went to the Amazon, whatever it's called, Moonshot Factory out there and in California and came back to Israel. If you were pitching a world-class scientist now at Harvard or MIT or the Amazon Moonshot Lab or the lab in, Jen Duna's lab in Berkeley or whatever it is, or at Stanford–what's the pitch for why you should come do it in Israel? Like why be like Dan?

‍

Dan Davidi [00:29:37]: 

‍

Okay. So I think you're mixing two things, because there's the Bell Lab, or the Nevo lab, which I think is a very interesting idea. I actually have some counter arguments of why this is actually not the best place to allocate capital, and we can bring Sender in maybe to the next episode.

‍

I think that the challenge and the limitation here in Israel is not necessarily a place to do good research. Weizmann is better than Harvard, right? We said that from the beginning, and we should let U.S. taxpayer money train our people, right? People go to Harvard, they go to Stanford, they go to those best places and they learn how to do things.

‍

This has been since the birth of Israel as a state. People have gone out, have learned, and have come back to build in Israel. I don't think building in Israel and keeping Israel as a closed system with everything in it will actually benefit a small country like us. I think it's good that people go out and come back.

‍

I think what's missing is not a place to do research. It’s the talent to take that research and IP to the next level and scale it. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Explain more? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think, again, the limitation is almost like the high tech industry where you've seen very early stage companies in the eighties and nineties starting in Israel and then immediately going to the Valley, right?

‍

And people were flipping coins to see which founder would move to the Valley. I think we're seeing that exact thing now in deep tech, and biotech, and synthetic biology and you name it, right? There isn't the talent and the capability to scale these companies here. And what is missing is not IP.

‍

What is missing is the know how. You need to send people not to work in academia, but in BASF, and in Lanzatec, and in Pfizer, and in Moderna and in the places where you scale biotech, and then come back to Israel and do that from here. And we're seeing this in the high tech industry now, with companies headquartered in Israel and growing in Israel as Israeli companies.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So let's make sure I understand. So the problem here, or the challenge, or the opportunity, either way you look at it, is somebody who graduates the Weizmann Institute, or Tel Aviv University with a degree in the hard sciences who then goes to Harvard, MIT, or someplace like that then they, if they want to keep doing research, they can do it there, and then come back for an academic position here over time.

‍

That's kind of interesting. What's really interesting is if they want to go out and do a company, and then they should do a stint at some commercial entity in the U.S., and then come back here. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yes. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And your view, therefore, is that Israel is a better place to commercialize, provided that there is a set of people here who know how to help commercialize these companies, much like happened in the beginning in the 2000s in the high tech industry here. That's the basic case? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

That's the basic case. I think you can, on top of it, add the ability–so I would argue that bringing an Israeli back to Israel is less important than bringing an experienced biotech leader to Israel, even if he's not Israeli, even better. So I would argue that someone like that would probably worth 10 Israelis coming back.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

An entrepreneur?

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

An entrepreneur, or a technical leader. Yeah. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:32:45]: 

‍

What is a technical leader, as opposed to one of these guys who goes to MIT after their PhD at Weizmann? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:32:48]: 

‍

It's someone who has done technology in the real world, where the academic paper is not the outcome, but the product is. And I think we see it very often where people come out of academia, and there's a very significant disconnect between technology in an academic environment and technology in the real world.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So you don't think there's as much value in doing the research here, like for argument's sake, if you had a billion dollars, Dan Davidi had a billion dollars. I said to you–

‍

Dan Davidi [00:33:14]: 

‍

Is this an offer? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

No, because I don't have the money to give you. I give you a couple of million dollars to start a company. That's it. That's it. And an office, and good coffee. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Mediocre. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah, but–okay, now we're in a feud. The coffee here is first class! 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

It's first class. On the partners’ floor.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Tell everybody that's not true, that everyone gets the same coffee.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

No, the coffee at Aleph is top notch. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You know why? 

‍

Dan Davidi: Because you choose it. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And it's biologically engineered. Jesus. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

You're regretting this, right? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Listen, you know too much, sitting here all this time. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Oh, I see. You chose to invite me. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So if you had a billion dollars–back to that, which now your chances of getting have gone down after your insulting our coffee. 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:34:01]:

They were zero to begin with, so it’s fine. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. Ohr is going to be a big outcome. So Ohr is successful. You have a billion dollars, and you say, “Okay, I can sponsor a hundred Israelis at Harvard University to study, or I can set up a new wing of the Weizmann Institute of Tel Aviv University. A hundred scientists here.” What are you doing?

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Neither, because the hundred Israelis will go to Harvard anyways, and they will come back to Israel anyways if they had the opportunity. I would take those billion dollars, I would take those hundred Israelis going out to Harvard, and I would find them positions in the best biotech companies in the world, and then pay for them to come back and build companies in Israel. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Got it. You're all focused on the commercialization. The research is less important. 

Dan Davidi: 

‍

That's what we miss. That's what we're missing here. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Is that, does that come from a view, which I think is true factually, which is historically much innovation in science came out of academia, but more and more it's coming out of the commercial, right? If you look at what's going on in AI, it's almost 100 percent at this point coming out of a place like Google and Meta, et cetera. And your view is the same thing is going to happen in deep tech and the hard sciences? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think it's happening, and COVID has actually started this. You know, I grew up in academia, very loyal community. You never go out. If you do, you never come back. And I'm fortunate to actually leave academia. It was the hardest decision I've ever made, leaving from Harvard to Amazon, even though everybody told me I should definitely take the job. I actually refused first and I told Amazon no. It took a few weeks until they basically kept increasing the offer, which I couldn't resist anymore.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Not a bad negotiation for an academic. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Thank you. Anyways, I think–what was the question? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

What was the question? The question was…you were talking about, people should go to work at these biotech companies, and then if they have a billion dollars come back here. And I said to you, is that because more and more IP is coming out of commercial companies rather than academia–and AI came out of more commercial companies like Meta, and Google, and OpenAI, and is that the same thing going to happen in deep tech?

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

Yes. Yeah, I was telling you I was loyal to academia, and then I left academia and I think academia needs to look in the mirror and ask itself, where is it heading? I think in many ways, innovation used to be in academia, and everything else was like, low-level research. When COVID hit, Moderna came out of Flagship, which was not an academic institution.

‍

And we've started seeing a lot of capital going into private sector, investing in biotech. And we've started seeing top researchers like Aviv Regev and other, probably the best researcher in the world–she's Israeli, she headed the Broad Institute, and now she works at Genentech. And we've started seeing a wave of the best researchers in the world leaving academia and moving to industry, because research is now happening in industry and not in academia. And it's not obviously black and white, and there's always gray, but I think academia is downhill and top research is now happening outside academia. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:37:15]:

‍

Do you think about whether, for example, what Elon Musk is working on and the U.S. government, which is going to take more budgets away from academia–it's not that Harvard's going to go out of business, they got a lot of money in the endowment–is that going to impact research and academia, and accelerate people going into industry in your view? 

‍

By the way, Musk is another great example. I'm thinking about deep tech, right? Anduril and SpaceX and Tesla has advanced battery technologies, space technologies, rocket technologies, military technologies, far more than academia has and government has over the last five to 10 years.

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

It's not entirely true, because there was a lot of government money involved, right? I think it’s somewhere in between, between, okay, here's like very important research we need to do. And we have the breath to do it, which is not very typical for the private sector. Venture money is not typically invested in science. But it was a lot of science involved in Tesla and SpaceX and all these things. And Elon had the breath because of, to some extent, government money. I think we're starting to see what's called focused research organizations where people invest the money in outside of academia, nonprofit organizations.

‍

I think what Elon has done, he was able to build a business model around that and make it a for-profit business, which drives innovation forward. So yes, I think we would see more and more of those hybrid models of outside academia for/nonprofit. OpenAI is another example, right? It started as a nonprofit, ended up being basically a for-profit organization. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

We'll find out. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yeah, we'll see. But at the end of the day, it's outside academia, innovation happens, and we're seeing this in biotech as well. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So when you think about Israel, you don't want to make it the Boston of the Middle East, because academia exists in Boston. What you really want to make it is the commercial hub of science for the world. Is that your vision? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:39:02]:

‍

Yes, I want to make it the Silicon Valley of biotech. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Silicon Valley of biotech, okay, but there is a Silicon Valley of biotech though–Genentech. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

They exist here, but they don't have the fast turnaround and innovation that we have.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So outline for me, like, where is Israel's position in this world of future science? Be specific. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think really, it's in untrivial connectivity between fields. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Go ahead. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So you will see Genentech in the U.S. easy, right? It's a business of innovation and scale and everything. But I think Israeli ingenuity is in the ability to connect non-trivial dots together, and bring, very cliche, but multidisciplinary teams to work together and speak the same language, the language of “Get shit done.” And this is something very Israeli that I've experienced. Moving from Israel to the U.S. and now back, and also working with a U.S. team, our U.S. employees are much, much better at working very systematically, and getting from A to B. But what happens in Israel is ending up at C, unexpectedly. And this is, I think, where Israeli innovation is very powerful.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:40:23]: 

‍

So let's talk about future areas of science for a second. If I was finding the next Dan Davidi EIR, where should I be looking, and what area should I look at? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I thought you've realized that was a mistake. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

That's why I gotta get the next one. I'm trying to do better next time. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

It's–I don't have a good answer, because I think I grew up in a very kind of a non-orthodox way, right? I had a very weird trajectory. I started as an academic, but I also had some episodes where I went to be a teacher, and then moved to become an entrepreneur, moved to Harvard.

‍

Like I did many transitions over the last years and I don't think it's very typical. I would probably try to find someone who has done a similar transition from top-level academia to the industry. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah, but I'm asking a more specific question. So I got a bug about synthetic biology. I found you. What's the–I need to get a bug about the next three areas. What are they? It's not synthetic biology? It's more synthetic biology? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Nah, it's a waste of money. It's, I think energy is, going back to Ohr, I think this is the most important currency of our generation.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. And what's another area? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:41:40]: 

‍

I'm a fan of the material world, right? I think technology is not important anymore in the digital space. Not important is a bold statement, right? But I think AI will be an enabler, but where the monetization will really be is leveraging AI in the physical space.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

And that's an interesting comment. So you think the digital space is going to be tough to monetize? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yeah, it's going to be a commodity. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Everything in the digital space is going to be a commodity? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Most of it, so it's going to be very hard to find interesting asymmetric opportunities. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

Because? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Because competition will just be too fast.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Who are you competing against? More digital entities? I got a hundred bots, and a hundred coders and junior coders, and eventually over time, everything gets reduced to zero, including the application layer, not just the foundation model layer. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Yes, but a drug is still a drug.

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

And energy is still energy.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

And energy is still energy. 

‍

Although maybe that's what you're paying for in the digital world going forward, which is some sort of added value on top of the cost of energy. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So it's the hardware that can optimize that and not the…right? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Okay, so you're a fan of the physical world and energy is one area. Any specific areas of energy? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I don't know. I think that's really something that as a scientist, I want to give you an educated answer. I think you've made a mistake once of focusing on synthetic biology. I wouldn't want you to do another mistake. I think there's definitely a lot of things happening in fusion energy, but that sounds very remote. If you think about energy storage, that's a big one. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

I feel like everyone's circling around that though. And Elon Musk got a play there with his Tesla walls and his batteries, etc. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Correct. But it's one way to look at the problem. Another thing would probably be, the right word to say would be quantum. Everybody's into quantum, but again. It sounds to me like, and especially coming early stage, as you typically do, there are binary answers there, right? It's not, this is a very good team. This looks like a very good entrepreneur. I'm going to invest in them because it's going to be okay. And they're going to figure it out with some money and good operation. I think it comes down to feasibility. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

How was science made different by AI? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So there are trivial things, like it accelerates the pace at which we model things, right? Protein folding is a very good example where–actually another innovation coming outside of academia where Google decided to get into the play and developed AlphaFold, and that has changed the industry.

‍

The counter argument would be that as much as AlphaFold is great and helps everyone design new proteins as drug targets, or as, the ability to, whether cure a disease or use it for other purposes–we have not seen the ability to just engineer proteins out the gate, right? We still need the experimental phases. We still need clinical trials. We still need all the stuff that is involved in the messy biological part. So I think AI has advanced the time it takes for a cycle, and allow us to narrow down the search space dramatically, but it doesn't solve the problem of the slow and painful scientific hypothesis testing.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

How much do you think it's sped up biology, synthetic biology? Is there a way to capture that in a percentage? 

‍

Dan Davidi: [00:45:06]

‍

It has shifted the balance and the capital allocation more than it has accelerated it, I think. Because you could have brute force problems that you can now do, more intelligently approach them, right? So that lowers the barrier to enter for smaller companies. But still, and I think this is actually a very good example–many of the companies, let's say, using AI to engineer better drugs are facing challenges when they need to scale, because clinical trials will still cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, whether or not they have AI.

‍

And the only players that can do that are the big pharma companies, which have originally brute forced the problem. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Is that a regulation problem or a scientific problem? 

‍

Dan Davidi [00:45:50]: 

‍

It's both, but I don't think it's regulation so much because it's really a cultural problem. You don't want to try a drug that hasn't been tested and hasn't been proven safe.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

How do you think about, I was thinking about this the other day, and I don't have a good answer for it–so a lot of what Pfizer did was based on Israeli data. They were able to turn it quickly. We both were at a presentation given by Professor Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University. And he was talking about why we use worms in analyzing neuroscience, because these worms regenerate themselves very quickly. So you get through a lot of life cycles very quickly, much faster than you can with a human being, which takes tens and tens of years, et cetera. 

‍

And it got me thinking about all the things I want to speed up so that we can get answers to. And then it took me to think about, oh, wait a minute the COVID vaccine was sped up by the access to the data on Israelis, particularly side effects. But also at least in theory, I think the reduction of fatalities and heavily sick people here, based on the data. And it occurs to me based on what you're saying right now that we actually aren't sure, or not necessarily can trust data as a way to speed up drug and vaccine delivery. You need to go through the actual human life cycles. 

‍

Dan Davidi

‍

I think there's no way to get robust enough data, and you always have to play a game of risk management, right? And the more robust and rigorous you can be in acquiring data, and do it multiple times in multiple scenarios by eliminating confounding factors you can make the right decisions. I think basing your decisions on one set of data that could have been corrupted, that could have been misunderstood, can be dangerous. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

I mean, it was gen pop data here, right? It was population data. Israel has a very advanced medical system and a very advanced digital record keeping system.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

No, I'm not saying that the data is corrupted I'm saying that it's very specific and you can see also that 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

To Israel, you're saying? Or in general? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Potentially, yes. It can be very specific and it could have been acquired in a very particular way that might not be applicable to other…

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:48:07]: 

‍

You think it was probably–in retrospect now, you weren't in the seat then. And those people who were in the seat then had to make hard decisions, obviously. In retrospect, was it smart of Israel to use its data to get vaccines early? Or is it better to actually wait on these things because you have more information?

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

Again, it's a hard decision that doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? You've seen, everybody has seen what happened in Italy. Everybody had seen whatever in other places.

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

It's an impossible decision. It's all retrospective. 

‍

Dan Davidi:

‍

It would be unfair of me to say that they've made the wrong decision. I probably would have made the same decision myself.

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:48:43]: 

‍

How should one think about using data to accelerate these actual life sciences, physical processes, or should we not? And we need to let biology take its course and actually not try to accelerate it? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So biology is going to take its course one way or another, right? It's going to just, biology is everything. We have ways to collect data, and I think the biggest caveat is standardization. How do we collect data in a way that would be translatable from one place to another? The different models or different entities would be able to use it and come out with the same conclusions or at least have the same input if being measured in one place versus another.

‍

Now it's definitely not the case. A lot of these models are garbage in, garbage out. I think people are tempted to think that it's not garbage out, and this is where the risk comes from. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg:

‍

And so AI is not going to help that because it's garbage in garbage out? And so we shouldn't assume that in a lot of these hard decisions AI is actually going to help us as it relates to physical sciences and biology?

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think AI can help us understand how to design an experiment, but it's not going to be able to generate the data without–I mean, maybe there's going to be a robotic system, right? But I'm not–maybe there are going to be robotic systems to get data. I mean, not maybe. There are going to be robotic systems to get data. But I think you still need the data and in biological systems where chaos is genetically encoded data can be hard to acquire.

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

How have you used AI at Ohr? 

‍

Dan Davidi: So we design proteins, we design enzymes to catalyze specific reactions. And we've used AI to engineer these enzymes and to predict how they would behave. Definitely helped us in engineering enzymes, and it has shortened time from ideation to experiment. But we still need to do the experiments. We still need to get the chemicals. 

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

While you were in EIR at all, you experimented with a bunch of things, including trying to cure cancer with fava beans. Why did some of these things fail? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

It's always, and you and I have been talking about this a lot. It's not just the technology. It's like finding the right people, the right partners, and being at the right time. And I think for some of them, I wasn't mature enough in my thinking, in my readiness to jump ship. Being an entrepreneur is hard. It's a roller coaster, and I wasn't ready to do this, and I couldn't find the right partners to do this. 

‍

To some extent, this is why I'm the only founder at Ohr. I was having a hard time finding a partner, and I think it's your fault. And I'm not just saying this to upset you. I think the reason we've been so close–

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

You can't upset me, but go ahead. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I can try. I know too much Michael. 

‍

So the reason I was having a hard time finding a partner is because I was surrounded by all this good, right? 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:51:50]: 

‍

Coffee. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

Coffee, yes. I talk to you a lot. I'm surrounded by your partners, and I get the support from Aleph's platform. And it was just hard for me to justify having a partner. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So was it valuable to be an EIR at Aleph? Like you'd recommend to someone else? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I wouldn't, because I want to keep my office. I think being an EIR is a very confusing role. I think any, typically an EIR wants to start the company, and the only thing they need to be is focused. I think being in EIR is a very distracting role, because you see everything all the time. And this is why Eden told me this was the worst job in the world, because you're supposed to focus on your company, but you keep being pulled out to do other stuff. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

So he was right. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

He was right, but somehow, here's another example of where logic doesn't work. He was right, but I feel like it was a very successful journey. I think Ron Gura would agree and I think Eran Shir would agree. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg [00:52:50]:

‍

So the producers want me to ask you how I've harmed you during this process, or maybe outside of this process. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I think we don't have enough time for that. How have you harmed me? I think that there's, I’m sometimes very cynical about the venture world. I think investors, you included, cannot really understand, and shouldn't really focus and spend their time understanding what we're doing. I'm trying to stay grounded working with you. You're up in the sky and you are a visionary person. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

That's a nice way of saying, I have no understanding of what it is that you're actually working on .I didn't do well in high school chemistry either. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

But you know chemistry today, right? The other day you told me, “Oh, I read a piece about whatever, right? Kerosene.”

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

No, no, no. I actually talked to ChatGPT about it, and said explain it to me like I was a 16 year old again. Okay. So please explain it to me like I'm a 16 year old, and I ask it questions while driving. 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

So you've been using AI. 

‍

Michael Eisenberg: 

‍

Yeah. Yeah. So I could have a high school education, so I can talk to you.

‍

Dan Davidi: 

‍

I don't think you've harmed me. I think it was really a fascinating journey. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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So, assuming I was a high school student again, and the truth is I took AP Biology in high school so I would never have to see science again. That was my goal. My wife and kids know that. And I did well in AP Biology, for what it's worth. Not so well in chemistry. 

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But if you were making a pitch to high school Michael, or to any high school kid out there as to why they should go study science instead of computer science. What's the pitch? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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The pitch is that science is really the ability to look into something, hypothesize and go test it. And it's driven by curiosity, whereas computer science is driven by execution. And that can be replaced tomorrow, or even yesterday by AI. I would actually recommend going to study history or philosophy or science.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I'm also a fan of studying philosophy. Why philosophy? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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It makes you think. It makes you be critical. It makes you look at the world and ask questions, and spend time thinking about things that are not trivial to answer even with AI. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I think that's another reason also to study Talmud, for what it's worth.

Dan Davidi [00:55:08]:

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You keep bringing this back, Michael. I'm not going to study Talmud. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I mean, listen, you know. Critical thinking. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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A kosher restaurant was enough for me.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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So what are you having your kids study? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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They go to a Waldorf school, so you know. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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They're enjoying life in nature? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yes, no, but seriously, I think the same methodology would hold. I would want them to be critical thinkers. I would want them to not necessarily be an engineer or a computer scientist. I would want them to be critical thinkers. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Should we be investing in science and not technology more? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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I think we should find mechanisms which are not venture capital to bridge the gap between science and technology. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Interesting. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yes and I think academia is not the right place to do that. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And you think venture capital is not the right place for it either?

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Dan Davidi: 

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It doesn't have the patience. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Interesting. Even though you see things like SpaceX, and…

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Dan Davidi: 

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You would not have invested in SpaceX, I think. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Be fair. I'd invest in anything that Elon Musk does. We'll just say that. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yeah, okay. No, but seriously….

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I have invested in something Elon Musk has done, but… 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Be frank, right? If somebody pitched you an idea that was very science, like the early stages of SpaceX, would you– 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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You mean like Ohr? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yeah, like Ohr. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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But I did it. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Why?

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Because of the founder. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Okay, because you invest in people. And you trusted me, for no good reason. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Don't make me regret it. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Okay. No, do you still trust this? 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I do.

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Why? 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I don't know. 

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Okay. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Kosher dinner?

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Dan Davidi: 

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Kosher dinner!

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Michael Eisenberg [00:56:46]:

You came to kosher dinner.

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Dan Davidi: 

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Oh, but we also did something else, right? We kept bringing on experts that could validate my crazy ideas.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And many of them didn't, by the way, we should say. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Many of them didn't. And this is where it became interesting.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Yeah, exactly. What's a Kavra? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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You go way back. Kavra is actually an ornamental fish business, an ornamental fish farm that I started back when I was between my master's degree and my PhD, that used ornamental fish farming as a way to teach high school kids genetics. I did that in a boarding school of Naamat, in Kanot.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Where's Kanot? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Kanot is near Ashdod. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I know where it is, but–

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Dan Davidi: 

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Okay, Kanot is near Ashdod, and this is a Naamat boarding school for kids.

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That now has an ornamental fish farm, because you created it to teach genetics? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yes. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Okay, what's the coolest genetic thing that happened in the ornamental fish farm?

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Dan Davidi [00:57:42]: 

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So ornamental fish are beautiful to see, and the genetics, again, is very quick. So within a few generations, you can create a guppy with like, a purple tail, right? And you can see this very quickly, and kids love it, and they can track the properties. So it’s almost like being able to witness evolution in a high school.

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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How fast from two guppies can you get to a guppy with a purple tail? 

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Dan Davidi:

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Literally a couple months. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Wow. That's because my kids killed a guppy so quickly?

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Dan Davidi: 

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The generation time is very fast, and the number of offspring, or babies per fish, is very high. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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And is the purple tail a mutation? Or is it inbreeding?

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Dan Davidi: 

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It's eventually a mutation, right? Everything is. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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But one that happens is reasonably predictable. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yes. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Interesting. Okay. And out of my general questions–so what can I find out about you on Google? 

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Dan Davidi: 

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That I was the champion of Israel in equestrian show jumping. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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Is that true? 

‍

Dan Davidi: 

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That's true. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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I had no idea. All this time over dinner and you never mentioned that one. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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We had too much to cover. 

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Michael Eisenberg [00:58:49]: 

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Yeah. Okay. What strongly held opinion of yours has changed in the last year?

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Dan Davidi: 

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In the last year? That we have no other choice but to build here. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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In Israel. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Yes. 

Michael Eisenberg: 

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Thanks, Dan. This was fun. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Same here. 

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Michael Eisenberg: 

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If you enjoyed listening to Dan and me or the other podcasts, please rate us five stars on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to podcasts. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is the Aleph and Invested YouTube channel. And if you have suggestions for guests, please keep them coming. 

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If you'd like to learn more about Dan Davidi, please follow him on LinkedIn. That's D A N D A V I D I, and the company is Ohr, OHR. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Dan. 

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Dan Davidi: 

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Thank you, [00:54:00] Michael.

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