The Deep End #11
Making war ineffective, Chinese incentives for hard tech, and gene therapy for cancer
đ Hi everyone, Robert here. I hope youâre enjoying The Deep End, a subsection of the Airframe newsletter. If you havenât subscribed yet, join the pioneering aerospace executives, investors, and deep tech operators who read Airframe and The Deep End weekly.
Anduril CEO on why he does it
In this weekâs episode of the Plain English podcast, host Derek Thompson asks Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf why he decided to work on military technology instead of some other type of startup. Hereâs his response:
A lot of usâŠbelieve in the importance of the U.S. having the best technologyâŠI believe the world is better off when the U.S. is able to keep a sane world order, where conflict is not the default way you resolve issues, where using military force is not going to be that effectiveâŠUnfortunatelyâŠconflict is a part of human nature, and so we want to make sure that wars of aggression are unwinnable, and make sure countries have the defenses they need to maintain their sovereigntyâthese are things that are incredibly important. The U.S. of all the world powers is the one founded on human rights and freedom as an important construct, and itâs harder to say that for a lot of the other potential major world powersâŠFrom a technologist perspectiveâŠhaving the best technology thatâs the most limited and targeted as possible, that feels like a good thing.
Hong Kong exchange considers lowering threshold for âhard techâ listings
Interesting and challenging times as the Chinese city tries to compete with the U.S. for the worldâs deep tech companies.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd, operator of the city's stock exchange, is informally consulting with the industry to reduce revenue and profit requirements for companies in sectors such as chips and artificial intelligence, they said.
The move is designed to retain the attractiveness of Hong Kong's capital markets amid tech stock routs and continued geopolitical tensions that have choked IPO pipelines. Hong Kong IPO volumes are down almost 90% so far in 2022, according to Refinitiv data.
Read more here.
Lux Capital portfolio company Siren Biotechnology comes out of stealth
The company is marrying gene therapy with cancer immunotherapy:
For rare genetic disorders, researchers can package functional copies of genes that are missing or broken into AAVs and, by shuttling them into the right cells, overwrite the underlying cause of disease for many years. Using AAVs to deliver DNA encoding for the right cytokines could similarly offer a way to more durably deliver the immune-stimulating proteins.