Michael Kearney is a principal at The Engine, the tough tech incubator and patient capital fund backed by MIT and Harvard, and he joins us to talk not only about the importance of hiring diverse teams (in spinouts and in funds), but also about the highly unique ecosystem in Cambridge, MA and the reasons why the journey of a deep tech founder is fundamentally different. He also tells us why his own experience working for a tough tech spinout prompted him to return to academia to gain a PhD from MIT looking at barriers to commercialisation and ultimately become an investor at The Engine (which he had never planned to be).

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“Funk Game Loop” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) • Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0