Inspiring Entrepreneurs-Joe McCracken
Joe McKrackenHead of business development Genentech Stanford University iTunesU Thought Leaders
"a company that has had great financial and been able to maintain strong support for helping people"
Normally the thought leaders program I includes speakers soley from the IT world and not the medical industry. That certainly doesn't make the content of the course any less relevent - the business of healthcare and biology has many parrallels when it comes to creative innovation, start-ups, capital raising and being great leaders.
Genentech was voted the #1 place to
Genentech was first established in 1976 and two budding scientist Swanson and cowen pulled 500 bucks to incorporate their company so they could essentially do what "is now a highschool biology experiment" and before they knew it they were part of the race to be the first to make human insulin.
Sound like a couple of geeks in a garage? Absolutely! So don't be put off the industry this is an inspiring but valueable lessons in company expansion, sustainability, culture and innovation investment.
At some points in the presentation Joe sounds like a Genentech zealot rather than a mentor speaking at Stanford but you know what; if my technology made the impact on humanity that these guys have done, I'd be preaching the love aswell!
So, listen to Joe with an open mind and keep an ear out for the gems in between he's detailed medical explainations of the products.
Some of the key lessons I took aware from this are; - provide long term remuneration progression plan to nurture the scientist so they don't 'have to move into management - r&d is a critical component of product design; survival of the company is dependent upon it - the profit is not competitor nor evil for delivering healthcare as it enables further research and the opportunity to provide product to those who need but can't afford - technology, software development are integral components .... It's not all cool web tools
So not the normal start-up story but an incredible business story of innovation and smart economics that seperates them from the normal pharmaceutical models. Genentech doesn't have a commercially driven business model- it's driven by the science .... And the science is where the value is.
That's not to say they don't have commercial business models, they certainly do - such as priority focus on customer service to build repeat sales.
Each scientist has 20% time application to work on whatever they want- ahhhh so is that where Google copied it from!!!!
Sounds alot like the great success mentors all say - do what you r passion about, not just chase the dollar.