Steve’s full discussion with Devon Cayer
Childhood and Upbringing
Devon Cayer grew up in Southern California. He was born in Fountain Valley, then lived in Huntington Beach, and later in Los Alamitos. He often simplifies it by saying he's from Long Beach. He described himself as having "little ADD, little sports, little competitive edge" as a kid. Devon felt it was beneficial to not be good at anything initially, as it motivated him to strive for improvement when he saw others excelling in various fields like basketball, robotics (using Scratch), and carpentry.
Education
For undergraduate, Devon attended UCLA and majored in chemistry. His initial interest in chemistry stemmed from the emerging field of nanotechnology, particularly the idea of creating nanorobots. However, he found that it was mostly just chemistry. He became fascinated by organic chemistry after taking a class with Stuart Cantrell, who showed him the mechanistic and artistic aspects of "whipping molecules together.” This led to a "deep and intuitive understanding" of nature.
As an undergraduate, Devon Cayer joined the Stoddart Group, which focused on supramolecular chemistry. During this time, he had an incident where he accidentally flooded the lab due to a reflux reaction gone wrong, resulting in a temporary suspension from the lab. He was trying to synthesize a Borromean ring and made mistakes like not clamping equipment properly and being careless with dichloromethane (DCM).
Later at UCLA, Devon got involved in the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition after being approached by Ayub Khattak, who later became the CEO of Q Health. This marked a "90 degree pivot" into molecular biology, where he learned techniques like cloning and PCR.
Devon pursued graduate studies at Scripps Research in San Diego. His thesis was never published.
Early Career and Entrepreneurship
After graduating, Devon worked for Q Health, but it lasted only four days due to his "independent mindset" which wasn't a good fit for the company. He believes his independent nature was fostered by his graduate work, where he worked on a single project with little direct supervision for six years.
He then returned to Scripps and planned to do a postdoc at Oxford with an idea for protein sequencing. Before going to Oxford, Devon applied to the Illumina Accelerator with an idea for antibody barcoding and single-cell proteomics. He got into the final round and pitched his idea, which was similar to what the company OLink was doing.
His idea at the time, focused on creating reagents for researchers and eventually diagnostics, was not funded by VCs who were more interested in therapeutics. He now sees that his initial idea is widely adopted. This experience led him to the lesson of potentially not always listening to investors and trusting his own convictions.
Devon co-founded a company, which he retrospectively describes as the "Juicero" of companies – a complex tech stack that didn't provide the value people wanted. This company aimed to find functional molecules using microfluidic chips and AI, but faced scalability issues.
Devon’s current venture is inspired by the problems of his previous company and aims to be a simpler way to generate proteome-wide binding data for small molecules and other libraries, making it accessible to the broader industry. His current focus is on generating massive datasets for drug discovery and making them available to everyone, despite investor preferences for a therapeutics-focused company. He is determined to stick to his vision this time, as customers are showing strong interest.
Conversation Highlights in Context
The conversation frequently touches upon the theme of failure and learning from mistakes, particularly when discussing Devon’s lab accident and the challenges with his previous company.
His competitive nature and drive to learn new things are recurring themes, connecting his childhood experiences to his academic and entrepreneurial pursuits.
The discussion around his entrepreneurial journey highlights the tension between his own vision and investor expectations, as well as the importance of focus and avoiding the pitfalls of raising too much money too quickly.
Devon’s transition from chemistry to biology and now incorporating AI into his work demonstrates his adaptability and willingness to embrace new fields.
Overall, the conversation reveals Devon Cayer as a highly curious, competitive, and resilient individual with a background rooted in chemistry and biology. His entrepreneurial journey has been marked by both learning experiences and a strong sense of conviction in his current approach to democratizing drug discovery data.
For a clip - Had to share this one, not only because I needed a little Stones to bring back childhood memories, but also because bassman Dan did a nice job channeling Mick (playing bass and singing is so tough!). Also a shout out to Tim channeling Keith. I caught “Keith” stronger in my ears, but the separate mix line unfortunately wasn’t as apparent… Oh well. Also, my apologies to Dom for the Camara focusing hugely on him. As mentioned above, the AI tracking tends to learn who comes in first and he was the first to show….
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