The Founder & Managing Partner of Samsara Biocapital, Dr. Akkaraju describes his early move from Standford to industry and various investment firms he worked for before founding Samsara in 2016. He discusses how the firm invests in all stages of life sciences companies and why he believes patience is a key virtue.

Still a practicing physician today, Vineeta Agarwala describes her educational background and early career, including experiences at the Broad Institute, Flatiron Health, and GV (Google Ventures). She talks about a16z's investment philosophy of "providing more than just a check," and a recent $500M fund partnered with Lilly.

Glenn Rockman describes the introduction to impact investing he gained from working for J.P. Morgan and along with the Gates Foundation on the Global Health Investment Fund, and how the idea of investing for public good ultimately sparked Adjuvant Capital in 2019. Armed with a $300M+ fund that was raised from numerous foundations and for-profit funds in 2021, Adjuvant has been investing in public health technologies, post proof of concept, to help accelerate their development and ultimately make them more accessible to those around the world who need them.

Aaron Kantoff describes the road on the public markets side that eventually led him to venture, and recalls successful investments he helped lead at firms like Apple Tree Partners and Medicxi, such as Stoke Therapeutics, Akero Therapeutics, Centessa Pharmaceuticals, and RayzeBio. He discusses founding Scion with his partner, Samuel Hall, and describes raising their first fund and how the firm has a longer outlook than is traditionally thought of in venture.

Lindy Fishburne describes her educational background and career, and transitioning from the philanthropic Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation to Breakout Ventures, a traditional venture firm that has a diverse set of limited partners. Plus, how she is navigating these challenging times in healthcare and biotech.

Dr. Westphal describes his upbringing and early career at McKinsey and Polaris, founding or co-founding companies like Momenta, Alnylam, Sirtris, Acceleron, and VeraStem, and creating the Longwood Fund. He shares his thoughts on venture investing, the current environment in biotech, focusing on creating new medicines, and his love of the Boston ecosystem.

Jory Bell shares the details of his expansive educational background and early career, which included being a product designer at Apple during the return of Steve Jobs. He describes Playground's engineering and tech angle to investing in life sciences, and weighs in on sizable seed and pre-seed investments the industry has seen lately that get startups to a proof of concept.

Tiba Aynechi describes her career path, which has been spent entirely in the Bay Area since she earned her PhD from UCSF in the early 2000's. She describes the value of BD experience she earned while working on licensing deals early in her career, her more than a decade at Novo Ventures, and what appealed to her to join Norwest. Plus, her thoughts on a board of directors' relationship with management teams.

Josh Resnick describes his career path, which includes working on the venture side of both private funds and pharma (Merck). He explains the different investment strategies of RA Capital, and talks about how the firm's Raven company building incubator fits in. Plus, his thoughts on venture investing in the current environment.

Steve Tregay describes his career path, including how early roles at Array BioPharma and Novartis led him to found Forma Therapeutics. He describes the founding and growth of LabCentral, for which he is still the chairman today, and how getting a look at entrepreneurs at such an early stage naturally led to the investment work that he and his partners do at Mission BioCapital.